policy changes

What constitutes a meeting? What are board members permitted to discuss outside of board meetings, either with home owners or other board members?
We have 5 members on our board, 3 new ones. I’m a new one. Can individual members, say 2 or 3, discuss what is going on within the board verbally or via mail/email the without it being a meeting, or jeopardizing the board in any way? (I’m thinking of the earlier discussion of the board who held a discussion at a workshop, thereby having a meeting—oh the security camera discussion.) Some purposes would be tofigure out what’s going on, clarify issues, and see other points of view.

Board Member “A” began to update a written policy and sent it out to board members for input. A couple of us sent back questions and ideas. Some of those minor suggestions—mainly sentence structure or more appropriate word use were incorporated—but more important ones regarding fines and laws were not, and the person who wanted to update the policy ended the project. Personally, I thought his was a good idea, and hate to see it stopped. It was about done. The inclusion of the suggested additions would have made the policy more understandable for board members and home owners.

Being new and feeling my way, I’d like to talk to the other members but do I need to wait until our next meeting, or can I discuss these issues with either board members or homeowners outside of meetings? Since this is attempted alteration of written policy, shouldn’t the home-owners have input? I don’t think the idea should be simply stopped because “A” or A and B, didn’t like some of the suggestions.

JC3, what constitutes a meeting depends on your state's statutes (if any) and your By-laws. If a state statute resticts what you described because it is defined as a Board meeting then could you appoint a committee to do this and bring it to the Board?

So JC3 that is not a Board meeting unless there is a state statute specifying that if X Board members attend the committee meeting it is defined as a Board meeting. You can surely figure out ways to comply and still prepare for Board meetings

If you are just discussing things and no votes are being taken, there is no law about just talking. However if you and 2 others are standing out on the street on a Saturday and are talking and the 3 begin to turn your discussion into a vote of yeah let's mulch the playground for $1,800.00, then you would need to hold off and have a meeting of the entire board.

Most states do allow for an "Action without Meeting", however the recordation of the votes would have to be taken and documented.