Meeting etiquette

Harriet:

What has your president done about this? IF nothing then they should be scolded for not backing a fellow board member. To answer your question, yes he can be kicked out of a meeting for disrupting or abusive language. I am not 100% sure on protocol but I think your president has to be the one to ask him to leave. As a board you should have a united front and back one another when this type of stuff happens.

HarrietM

First, I recommend that this person be given the opportunity to express his opinion and/or complaint or whatever. Make sure notes are taken and that his concerns are summarized and repeated back to him so that he knows you and the board heard his complaint and understood.

Second, act on his complaint. If it is without merit, then explain why. But if it has merit, then it deserves action. The action should be taken and the person should be given feedback.

Often, angry complaints can be defused by giving the person his "day in court" and feedback that someone is listening and hears.

Third, if the person still persists after consideration and feedback, then the response should be that the board received the complaint, considered it and provided feedback — the classic "asked and answered" response.

Fourth, I hope your bylaws require Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised (RONR) as the parliamentary authority. One of the RONR principles in a meeting is that each person is given the opportunity to speak on a subject, and cannot speak again until all others have had the opportunity to speak. There is no need to argue. Just announce this principle and others (all defined in RONR) at the beginning of the meeting, and then politely ensure the meeting is run by the rules in RONR. WilliamT's thoughts concerning conduct of the meeting are consistent with RONR.

Fifth, any consideration of ejecting the person should only be considered after reasonable means have been taken to give the person a voice.

Isn't this what you would expect as a member addressing the board?

Randal,
Been there I usually interupt them and explaine the following.

Excuse me Mr/Mrs__________ I have done nothing but speak to you in a calm professional manner and expect the same courtesy from you. If they are interupting you speaking. Excuse me but I am speaking and provided you the same courtesy of not interupting you while you were speaking. When I am done I will provide you the opportunity to respond in a calm professional manner or I will have to ask you to leave.

As president of our association I have also interupted when things get heated up and explained these ground rules. Yours should do the same it is his or her job to control the meetings. I have also explained when making these interuptions that I realise thar our homes are many of our members largest investments and I realise we are all very passionate about our homes but hollering and screaming about these issues is going to get us nowhere to resolving them but a reasonable discussion will.

Hope this helps
Greg

Randal, Why do you feel that there's a "clique" who is against you? You'll find it easier and more productive to work with the rest of the members rather than against them. You can calmly suggest alternatives and calmly ask questions. And calmly make suggestions.

Sometimes it's best to compromise rather than loose on every issue. And once you begin compromising, the others are more apt to compromise on the issues you feel strongly about. I'll give you an example: We are drafting an amendment to the CC&Rs that would allow homeowners to put their trash out the evening prior to the collection date rather than on the morning of the collection date. Personally, I’m fine with the way it is, but I'm retired and I can get up in the morning and put the trash out. Most homeowners are on their way to work and find themselves dressed in a coat and tie and trying to put bags of leaves and piles of yard debris out without getting their work clothes dirty. So now I'm representing the other homeowner's wishes, not mine. The board has a discussion on what actual time trash should be permitted to be placed curbside. I say 7:00 PM. Someone else says 9:00 and someone else says 8:00. My response is "any of these is fine with me". Someone else "gets to have his/her way" and I have a few "points" that I can use on another issue that I might feel strongly about.

If you constantly find that everyone disagrees with you, it's possible that they are "right" and you are not. It may be too late for you if you've developed a reputation as a troublemaker. If you do get re-elected, try my suggestions.

There are plenty of good books to choose from that will give a complete guide to running and controlling meetings. Since you are the VP and at any time could be called upon to run the meeting, I suggest you get one of the books.

Just do a Google search for "how to run a successful meeting" and plenty of them will show up.

Looking at how to run a meeting as a whole will be much better for you than just having someone tell you how to control one person.

Also, this subject has been discussed on the forum and you can do a search and find other examples.

Ronald, Let's see here, why do I think the Board's clique is out to get me....

They tried to remove me by vote of the Board until an attorney told them I could probably take them to court. They took the neighborhood website and email network away from me so they could control the flow of information to the neighborhood (it quickly became neglected). They locked me out of the pools pump room and accused me of sabotaging the pools chlorinator unit (turned out to be clogged lines). They leave me off distribution of Board emails (when I catch them they just don't understand why I didn't receive it). They won't provide me with official Board documents when I request them (or drag it out for weeks before they do). Repeatedly catch them telling lies. There's always some form of verbal attack during a Board meeting (even if I stay low key). I'm accused of secretly sabotaging the voting on transitioning from voluntary to mandatory dues (though all I'm doing is giving straight and honest answers to the questions that residents ask me about it). They keep talking about how there are going to be major changes in the Board makeup after the next election (which is next week). Naaaaaaa...... I don't have any reason to think they're out to get me.

Remember, just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they aren't out to get you!

During 2005 I lead the neighborhood opposition to prevent a company from locating the access to their 1800+ vehicle per day gas station directly across from our subdivision access (already a dangerous situation without the gas station). Company came back again in early 2006, I did the same thing and held them at bay again. Company came back again in Jul/Aug 2006. They actually met with Board this time. Board BS'd back and forth and never came to a decision one way or another. It came down to two weeks before the company was to ask approval of the town planning commission and the Board was still setting on it's butt so I did the same thing I had done before (and they knew that was my intent) and informed the neighborhood about what we needed to do again.

Attorney who sits on Board started a big stink saying it wasn't in our Bylaws to get involved in this, we could be sued by the company, yada, yada, hot air everywhere. Board never authorized it (they hadn't before either but there were no issue about it then). Then he and a couple of his friends starting rewriting history to say that none of the previous actions had been authorized. Board seized control of the website and email network from me (or so they thought) in order to control the flow of information. They didn't consider that both of these were really independent entities (that I owned and was paying for) anyway so I disassociated my neighborhood network from the Board. Informed the residents about the split, gave them the option to opt-out (none did) and continued on my merry way keeping them informed about neighborhood issues (being careful to avoid Board politics). Let the Board keep using the website I had set up not really wanting to make an issue of it at the time. Board illegally changed the copyright on my intellectual property on the website over to them (didn't tell them they were violating the law). I offered an olive branch at the start of 2006 which they accepted and then less than two weeks later I caught them illegally changing the domain name over to them. (Both are issues I can sue them over and win according to an attorney) But it's the same small group of people that just can't stand not being in control of every aspect of the HOA or having someone point out(which I do in a civil manner) where and how their actions are in violation of our Bylaws or rules. My email network continues to be far more successful than the one they set up and residents keep contacting me with their questions.

As for the election coming up, because of apathy we can't attract candidates, the board is seeking the proxy votes so they can manipulate the Board elections. Two of the clique and I are up for reelection. There are four positions so all they need to do now is find two other potential candidates and they can throw all their proxies behind the four of them leaving me to come in 5th and off the Board. In the past ballots were sent out so residents could vote on Board members. The clique has now decided that isn't fair because there could be someone at the meeting that suddenly decides they want to run (even though everyone's been told numerous times to submit their nominations) and that wouldn't give the neighborhood a chance to vote on them. So now the 2007 Board will be decided by those in attendance (<30 households) and the proxies held by the Board (of which the clique is the majority).

When I'm done with all this I'll be ready to dive into the dirt of running for a real public office.

Randal, you've obviously burned all your bridges and made several enemies on the board. I doubt it can be fixed and if you do get re-elected, nothing's going to change, it will only get worse. Personally, from your description of events, I would tend to side with the others.

I think your best bet here is to not run for re-election, take down any website or e-mail group that you have set up, and let the elected majority run things. You mention apathy so apparently most of the members are satisfied with the way the rest of the board is operating. It can’t be that bad.

InRandal's defense, why should certain people always stifle their oopinions just to 'go with the flow'? What do you do when a President cuts evetuone off and disagrees with what everyone says? These are not paid positions; they are elected and voluntary. They are not running the house on PennAvenue, they are running the association on behalf of all residents. BTW, the former President elected herself President; the other members did not vote on that title. Whan a few residents questioned it, we were told that it's not important to know people's titles because they all work together! I am so surprised at the number of problems people are having with HOAs. I am a first-time homebuyer so all of the politics (in thios arena- I am also a teacher) are new to me.

Held our annual meeting last Saturday and as expected the Board controlled the meeting to their benefit, refusing to follow Roberts Rules of Order saying it didn't matter what Roberts Rules said. Pretty much a lot of the discussion time was spent attacking me for not being a team player and not going along with what they decided was in the neighborhoods best interest.

About 2 1/2 hours later when the smoke cleared, all the incumbents (President, Secretary, and myself) had been voted out! I had always told them they should just fire us all, I guess I was a little more convincing than I thought.

On the bright side, my proxies provided the margin needed to remove the President and Secretary! She had fewer votes than they had proxies so they didn't bother to even use them to reelect her. Proved to be quite a shock to both of them. That only leaves one other person on the Board that needs to be removed but with his buddies gone hopefully his power base has eroded too. Money is that he'll resign before his term expires.

At least most of the four replacements seem to be good guys (we do have one attorney, can only hope he's nothing like the last one). Now I can go back to doing some more enjoyable activities within the neighborhood.

I agree with Gregory B's response and his manner. One thing you can ask to be enforced is Robert's Rules of Order. That helps to keep control. We have a few on our board that get "carried" away as well.