Combined Annual and Special Meeting?

Started by GeorgeS21 • 8 replies • 728 views

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GeorgeS21 (Florida)
Posts: 3,808

Posted:

Hi All,

Our next Annual Meeting is in January 2019.

In addition to Director election, and the usual summaries, committees and business discussions, we may want to approve the rewritten Bylaws (still trying to decide whether to do this by the Board per the Developer turnover, or by the entire neighborhood - recall this HOA is "voluntary" with deeded CCRs).

We would do a Special Meeting if all we wanted to do was a Bylaws approval vote - is there an issue, assuming suitable time for review and notice, to trying to accomplish all at the Annual Meeting? Would the terms Annual Meeting and Special Meeting need to be in the notification language? How much time would be appropriate to give residents for reviewing the Bylaws rewrite? Florida requires 14 days for meeting notice - if the amended By-laws were in the notice package, would this be sufficient?

Thanks!

BenA2 (Texas)
Posts: 1,273

Posted:

I see no problem with doing both at the same time. If your governing documents require a special meeting for approving the bylaws, then I would include both names in the notice. If you are not required to have a special meeting I would just include it in the annual meeting and call it such.

I think 14 days is more than enough time to review the new bylaws.

GenoS (Florida)
Posts: 4,276

Posted:

I'd just add the Bylaws approval as an agenda item for the Annual Meeting. You could have the Annual Meeting and then the Special Meeting immediately before or after, but that seems needlessly complicated. I think a members meeting is either an Annual Meeting or a Special Meeting. I wouldn't use both terms to describe the same meeting.

KerryL1 (California)
Posts: 14,550

Posted:

Ia free that the Bylaws topic should just be a part of your Annual Meeting agenda.

You also note, George, that you have "business discussions" during the annual meeting. Shouldn't they be during a regular board meeting? What do these business discussions consist of?

GeorgeS21 (Florida)
Posts: 3,808

Posted:

Sorry Kerry ... was just referring to New and Old Business ... used wrong term.

Thanks for the thoughts, All. I think I'll go down the path of including the amended By-laws clearly in the Agenda and attaching the draft to the notice.

KerryL1 (California)
Posts: 14,550

Posted:

Don't know if this would appeal to you, George, but in our HOA we hold a regular board meeting first with the usual: Committee reports; unfinished Biz, New Biz. We try to keep it brief. We have regular attendance of maybe 20 to these monthly regular meetings.

Then we adjourn to the Annual Meeting for the election (and, in your case, the bylaws.) though we don't need a physical quorum because of mail in ballots, we make a little party out of it with wine and appetizers. The ballots are counted during this meeting and the results announced at the end by an Inspector of Election.

After the Annual Meeting, as required by our bylaws, we adjourn to our Organizational Meeting, where we directors select officers for the upcoming year.

GeorgeS21 (Florida)
Posts: 3,808

Posted:

Good idea, but we have some, reason, special limitations ...

Age demographic precludes that level of complexity and time required ...

I’ve tried talking about social context with wine, etc ...cold stares from Baptists 🙂

GeorgeS21 (Florida)
Posts: 3,808

Posted:

Supposed to say, “we have some, er, special limitations”

GenoS (Florida)
Posts: 4,276

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By KerryL1 on 07/01/2018 6:32 PM
Don't know if this would appeal to you, George, but in our HOA we hold a regular board meeting first with the usual: Committee reports; unfinished Biz, New Biz. We try to keep it brief. We have regular attendance of maybe 20 to these monthly regular meetings.

Then we adjourn to the Annual Meeting for the election (and, in your case, the bylaws.) though we don't need a physical quorum because of mail in ballots, we make a little party out of it with wine and appetizers. The ballots are counted during this meeting and the results announced at the end by an Inspector of Election.

After the Annual Meeting, as required by our bylaws, we adjourn to our Organizational Meeting, where we directors select officers for the upcoming year.

That's what we do except with a lot less fun. Does any actual business get done at either of the board meetings bookending the Annual Meeting? We have the annual committee and officer reports (usually a waste of time) at the 1st board meeting and at the 2nd board meeting - the 2nd one - besides the election of officers nothing else gets done. We routinely go from a board meeting in early November to the end of February and nothing of consequence gets done or decided for the 3 months in between. I wonder how common that scenario is? We're thinking about moving the Annual Meeting from January back to March where it used to be 20 years ago.

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