Answer to Mind Bender for March 2005:

All references are to RONR 10th ed

Question: A section of the bylaws provides as follows:

New members shall be endorsed by an Association member in good standing, who is not a member of the same household, and who has been an Association member for at least one year and is familiar with the applicant. The names of sponsors and applicants shall be published in the Association newsletter, along with their address, city, and state.

In the past, some sponsors did not meet this criteria. Are the members they sponsored now in question? If the full address of applicants was not accurately published in the newsletter, is there now a problem, years later? Recently a special meeting was held for which notice required by the bylaws was not given. Is the business conducted at that meeting valid? Regarding the timeliness rule - how do you know for sure when it applies?

Answer: Of all of the violations of the rules cited, I would say that only one would create a continuing breach about which a point of order need not be timely. That one is the one dealing with the special meeting that had been improperly called, without the notice required by the bylaws. Anything adopted at such a meeting would be null and void, as it would be a violation of absentee rights, and a point of order can be raised anytime later. This falls into the very short list in Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, 10th Edition, p. 255 and p. 244 of violations of the rules that may be challenged later.

The timeliness rule is a good one, else nothing would ever be finally decided by a society, as someone who disagrees would forever be looking for technicalities to undo decisions made by the assembly in good faith. This would result in utter chaos. Robert's Rules wisely does not allow this, by requiring that a point of order must be timely, with the exception of those few instances shown on p. 244 and p. 255, which are essentially of three types:

1. violations of basic rights of individual members,

2. violations of absentee rights, and

3. violations of rules which embody fundamental principles of parliamentary law.

If a motion is adopted that is itself in conflict with the bylaws, then it is null and void and a point of order can be raised anytime later. Note, however, that it is the adopted motion ITSELF that is in conflict with the bylaws, and NOT the method or procedure used in adopting it that causes it to be null and void, UNLESS the violation was of the kind noted above. In other words, technicalities may not be used later to overturn decisions. If someone notices a breach of the rules, the time to speak up is right then and there at the time of the breach, else they have lost forever their chance to object.

So what if a sponsor of a member had not themselves been a member for at least a year, and so what if the address wasn't properly published? The opportunity to object was at the time, and it is too late to object now -- their election to membership stands. On the other hand, if your bylaws provided that "a member shall not hold the office of President until they have held membership in the Association for at least five years", it would be a continuing breach if a member of only two years were elected to that office, and a point of order could be raised anytime later during the continuance of the breach, i.e. until they no longer held office (or got their five years in). The decisions made during the time they held office would stand, unless it could be proven that their one vote could have made a difference in the outcome, and such "proof" would be nearly impossible to come by later (since individual votes are not usually recorded in the minutes).

It's kind of like what is said at weddings, "Speak now or forever hold your peace." If one is going to object to the marriage, they need to speak up at the time and cannot wait years to voice their objections to the wedding.