[wplug-board] Schedule for the March 10th meeting

[Vance Kochenderfer]

Bill Moran wrote:
> The big problem I have is that if the membership meeting starts at
> 10:00 AM, everyone who wants to vote in person will need to have their
> ballot in by that time when we close the polls.

Procedurally, the polls do not automatically close when the
meeting is called to order.  The actual motion will come up
under General Orders.  At that time, if it appears that everyone
has had a chance to vote, the polls can be closed by general
consent (RONR pp. 274-275).

The motion could be postponed until later in the meeting if it
appears that there are significant numbers of voters who wish to
turn in ballots that have not yet.  On the other hand, I think
the "you snooze, you lose" rule is applicable here.  Should we
really bend over backwards to accommodate voters who choose not
to arrive at the scheduled meeting time and who do not take
advantage of the *weeks* they will have to mail in their
ballots?

> Also, the last time we had a vote, it took a _long_ time to count them
> up.  Technically, the tellers should report their findings to the
> membership in an official capacity.  These ballots will be significantly
> simplier than the last, but if the tellers take very long, we're going
> to end up in a nasty time crunch.

The part that is likely to take the most time for the tellers is
verifying that each vote was cast by an eligible member.  The
actual counting should be trivial, and their report should look
very much like the one on the bottom of RONR p. 403 (or the
middle of p. 75 in RONR In Brief).

> What if we split the presentations?  Have half of them early, then
> combine the pizza eating with the membership meeting?  That would
> allow us to have the polls open the whole morning, but still have
> plenty of time for ballot counting?

It would be perfectly acceptable to have a recess in the middle
of the business meeting for the purpose of counting the votes.
Presentations could be given during the recess, and the business
meeting called back to order to announce the result.

The main danger here is that if members leave before the
meeting is called back to order, we could lose quorum.  This
would mean that the result of the vote could not be announced
until the next meeting.

I'm picturing the following sequence of events:
  a. Call business meeting to order
  b. Approval of minutes
  c. Officer reports
  d. Committee reports
  e. Bylaws amendment (close polls and appoint tellers)
  f. Recess business meeting
  g. Start presentations
  h. Call business meeting back to order (once tellers are done)
  i. New business
  j. Adjourn business meeting
  k. Continue presentations
  l. Pizza
  m. Finish presentations

Hopefully period g. will be short (10-15 min?).  Your thoughts?

(BTW, thanks for your hard work on this, Bill and Dave.)

Vance Kochenderfer        |  "Get me out of these ropes and into a
vkochend at nyx.net          |   good belt of Scotch"    -Nick Danger