Often some of the most challenging questions a chair must handle during an annual meeting come from members of the “opposition” who don’t believe the board is being fair to them, and who are afraid their rights will be violated by something that happens at a meeting. When owners take this type of concern to an extreme, they may appear to be conspiracy theorists, convinced that the board and manager are conspiring to deprive them of their rights.
Boards behaving badly
I live in a single-family community with less than 100 homes and have the following questions:
Q: Can homeowners’ association board members be removed from office for lack of service?
Parliamentary Procedure & Association Meetings
“The object of Robert’s Rules of Order is to assist an assembly to accomplish the work for which it was designed, in the best possible manner” according to Henry M. Robert, Robert’s Rules of Order preface, 1876.
Robert’s Rules of Order is a series of procedures written by Mr. Robert, who was a U.S. Army engineering officer. When asked to preside over a meeting, Robert realized that there was no international standard of conduct with which to rule. As a result he studied parliamentary law and wrote Robert’s Rules of Order.
What is Parliamentary Procedure? It is a set of rules for conduct at meetings that allows everyone to be heard and to make decisions without confusion. Robert’s Rules of Order is the most well-known and documented book addressing meeting conduct.
Meeting Moment – March 2011
You know the law says homeowners have a right to attend regular open board meetings, but what do you do when an owner wont stop speaking and keeps asking really challenging questions on topics the board is not even voting on? How can you enable homeowners to participate meaningfully in a board meeting yet still keep that meeting on track and on time?