Can the membership 'vote' to ban a future conversation?

It's a stupid idea. If you take a look to see how many people are interested in getting pool and the majority say yes or no, that's the direction you move. You still have to do some re and it may be after running the numbers the pool doesn't make financial sense for the community.

Besides, communities change - as time goes on, those who are opposed may change their minds or move out - whether it's in a U-haul, ambulance or hearse is another matter.

I agree it's silly.

The best way to quash unworkable ideas from homeowners is to put them in charge of investigating what it would take to make their idea happen. There is a *lot* involved with a pool: appropriate location (involving size, area drainage, parking, maybe changing facilities, and proximity to homes), cost (insurance, maintenance, water usage, and the capital improvement itself), and legal (security and the necessary steps to approval capital improvements and possibly amend the CC&Rs). People generally talk themselves out of their bad ideas when they see how much they will cost them personally - and if there currently is no pool, it's probably likely that there is no workable location for one unless you have something like unused tennis courts that the community is willing to get rid of.

I have to say, though, as a card carrying member of the Olde Folkes Group, a pool is one of my deal-breaker items (I don't want it and refuse to pay for it). Fair Housing laws ignore the fact that older people tend to use the pool in different ways than kids do. The oldsters often like swimming laps or water aerobics for exercise, neither of which they can do safely when there are a bunch of kids playing and not watching what they're doing. So in practice families get to use the pool and the Olde Folkes get to pay for it. No thanks...

(When I was a kid, it was common to have adult swim for 15 minutes out of every hour. At a quarter of, the lifeguards would blow their whistles, the kids would get out, the adults would get in and swim their laps, and at the top of the hour everyone would swap places. Everybody got to use the pool safely in ways that they enjoyed. Of course this is now illegal.)

Agree with the others and add that any action passed by a motion approved by the members could be rescinded the same way at a future meeting.

Yes. Maybe state:

Discussion of whether to consider installing a swimming pool occurred. However, this was not on the agenda, so no action (meaning neither motion nor vote) could be taken.

You request that the Minutes be ameneded to record only actions and topics, not a verbatim discussion.

If the Secretary says no and the Board agrees with the Secretary, then your only remaining recourse (to stop such slovenliness and incivility in Minutes in the future) is to run for the board with a like-minded group of people and win a majority of the board seats.

any idea which robert's rules section/paragraph/etc? I can get it from the library and get a photo copy of the rule to reference.

Yes, our CCR's say that we follow roberts rules.

Passing such a motion is silly in practice but it's clear that pool discussions are not desired and will not be entertained by the current Board of Directors. The BOD is not obligated to address any pool conversations and it's legitimate that any citizen or board member could be ruled "out of order."

The active members of your HOA do not want a pool. They even cheered its demise. As others suggest, time will change but Bob will need more influence within the neighborhood and that's hard-earned over time.

Good luck

"At the meeting, someone motioned that the HOA forever ban any future consideration or talk of a pool and everyone loudly proclaimed victory."

Notice the words "forever ban" and "or talk of a pool". Assuming this is what they actually said, it doesn't get any sillier.

I think the appropriate thing to do is add:

Secretary's note: This was not an agenda item.<.i>

To me the point is to be transparent. Folks need to understand why a vote is either not recorded or, if recorded, to be clear that it counts for nothing, since the topic was not on the agenda.

A lot of owners will have no understanding of why proper notice is required. Just tell them notice is required by law and the covenants/bylaws.

Whether to have a pool or not is not up to the board. Instead, it would first require an amendment to the covenants, which of course requires a vote of the owners, with all the legal i's dotted and legal t's crossed.