[Ofsrdc] Confusion about the Presidential Succession Proposal

[Wolfsqrd at aol.com]

State Officers and Delegates
 
I do appreciate Tim summarizing the events that took place in  January.  Even 
though Tim gave you good facts he did ignore that Bob Bosch  and Dennis Marsh 
did have several contacts with him in the first part of the  month. The first 
e-mail started on Jan 6th (from Tim) with a   questioning e-mail from Dennis 
on the 7th. and then With the response back from  Tim we went and researched 
into more of our By-laws, P and P's and Robert's  Rules of Order, which 
resulted in the "Point Of Order".
   At no time did we ever disagree with Jim Rogers stepping up to  President 
because that is the proper procedure, as pointed out in Tim's  email.  Where 
the problem developed was the stepping back to 1st Vice  and then back up to 
president, for an additional 12 months.  It is said  that what happened at the 
meeting was exactly what Jim had planned; this was not  exactly true, due to 
Jim's distributed "President's  Report",he did plan to move up to President but 
he had already planned to  have Dave Cooper take over as Past President and 
Jim was going to stay on as  President in September.
   Now what we all voted on was the denial of Jim being President  for 21 
months.  It was never his moving to President.
   All of these documents can be backed up and I would be happy  to have 
copies of correspondence for the Delegates to look at during their  meeting or 
before.   If you do not have a Robert's Rules of Order 10th  edition, I recommend 
you look at it.
 
   Dennis Marsh, EEAC Delegate


-----Original  Message-----
From:  ofsrdc-all-bounces at squaredance.gen.or.us
[mailto:ofsrdc-all-bounces at squaredance.gen.or.us]  On Behalf Of Tim
Roberts
Sent: Sunday, September 09, 2007 8:54 PM
To:  OFSRDC
Cc: Tim Roberts
Subject: [Ofsrdc] Confusion about the Presidential  Succession Proposal

Neta Minten said at today's meeting that she was  still confused about
what she was voting on at the beginning of the January  meeting.  I take
responsibility for that; it is part of my job to make  sure everyone is
clear about the procedures being followed at any point in  time.  I can
only say that I was flustered by the way the meeting opened  and wasn't
thinking things through.  I will try to summarize in a few  paragraphs
what happened and how we got there.  The minutes of the  meeting have a
relatively complete transcript of the goings-on at the  meeting.

When Barbie Cooper died early in January, leaving the  president's seat
vacant, Jim Rogers contacted me for an opinion on how we  should move
forward.  After going over our "holy documents" for a few  days, I 
presented my opinion on this mailing list, stating that Jim (as 1st  VP) 
would need to perform the duties of the President by appointing a  
replacement, who would then serve the remainder of the year.

Mr Marsh  and Mr Bosch disagreed with the details of that opinion.
Rather
than  trying to work out a compromise in the weeks before the meeting,
they choose  to present their own opinion immediately after the opening
of the January 28  meeting as a "point of order".  Their assertion was
based on the premise  that Barbie Cooper was not "absent" at that
meeting, 
and therefore my  opinion, based on our own by-laws, was not applicable.

A "point of order"  is an assertion that some part of the meeting has
not proceeded according to  the proper procedures.  The chairman must
evaluate the point of order  and decide whether there has, in fact,
been a violation.  In the January  meeting, Jim ruled that the point of 
order did not have merit and denied  it.

Mr Marsh then made a motion to overrule Jim's decision, an  action
that is formally called an "appeal from the decision of the  chair".
A parliamentary body has the right to challenge any decision made by  the
chair, although it is rarely done in practice.  THAT is the motion  that
was debated at length and eventually voted on by secret  ballot.

When the motion to overrule the chair passed, the procedure in  that
point
of order was executed, resulting in the automatic promotion of  Jim and
Marilyn, leaving the 2VP chair empty.  Jim never had the  opportunity to
present the plan we had agreed on.  (Ironically, the  resulting makeup of
the board was exactly identical to what it would have  been, had Jim been
allowed to speak.)

However, a point of order cannot  change by-laws or P&Ps.  In January,
reasonable people read the same  documents and came to differing
conclusions, and that situation could still  happen again.  In order to
fix that and remove any ambiguity, we formed  a committee to study what
modifications might need to be made to the by-laws  and/or P&Ps.

The document I presented today was the recommendation of  that committee.

A question came up asking whether the proposed amendment  was "read"
today,
for purposes of the amendment procedure in Article 8 of  the By-Laws.
In my opinion, since the motion to accept the recommendation  was
postponed
until November, we can't really say that the proposed  amendment was
read, since it hasn't really been proposed yet. Thus, as I see  it, if
the motion to accept the report is approved in November, we will not  be
able to vote on adopting the changes it proposes until  January.

Special committees dissolve when the president that formed  them
goes out of office.  Thus, if the motion to accept the  recommendation is

voted down, Marilyn would need to form a new committee  to continue that
work.  Alternatively, she could decide to do nothing,  and defer action 
on this for some future year after things have settled  down.

If you have questions on or disagreements with what I've said here,  
please let me know.
--
Tim Roberts, timr at probo.com
Providenza &  Boekelheide,  Inc.
_______________________________________________
ofsrdc-all mailing  list
ofsrdc-all at squaredance.gen.or.us
http://www.probo.com/mailman/listinfo/ofsrdc-all





************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://probo.probo.com/pipermail/ofsrdc-all/attachments/20070912/130f4a90/attachment.html