Rules for a quorum, how strict?

[Spinningplates2]

Our Church budget meeting is tomorrow and I know it is always hard to get a quorum. I do not think our session purges the membership roles as often as the Book of Church Order requires. How should I approach things if I think we may not have an actual quorum?

 

[Notthemama1984]

Depends. If the vote looks like it is not going the way you want it to, then bring up the objection. If the vote is going your way, leave it be.

 

[Scott1]

If you've adopted Roberts Rules of Order, the answer is probably that you can unofficially conduct business, but it must be later ratified by a meeting with a quorum.

(Make the effort to recruit a quorum.)

 

[fredtgreco]

How big is the church? The PCA bco for example does not have large quorum requirements. The largest is 1/4, but it can go as low as 1/7.

 

[Edward]

Remember, the quorum is based on 'resident communing members', not total member or total communing members. So that lowers the barrier even more.

Any member present should be able to challenge whether a quorum is present, and if not, the congregational meeting will have to be re-noticed and rescheduled.

I'd do the challenged by appealing to the chair if the determination of quorum was made without an actual count of members present. The hardest part of the process will probably be finding out how many resident communing members they have on the roll and from which they are making the calculation.

See Book of Church Order - Chapter 25

 

[Spinningplates2]

What I'll do is ask what number they were looking for and ask for proof of how many Members on on the roll. Thanks

 

[N. Eshelman]

In the RP Church we require 1/4 quorum for a budget meeting. 1/2 is required for more important business like purchasing property, calling a new session member, etc.

And 1/4 of active resident communicant membership is usually pretty easy to come by (in my experience).

The number of required members should be announced before the people are called- ask your Session what the number is. If there are not enough- ask for a 'point of order' and respectfully say that the group cannot conduct business because there are not enough members present.

I have been at a meeting where the Session has called people on the phone and asked them to come in.