Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Searchable Decision Log?

[Mac Thomson (macthomson]

Here’s a link to our Decision Log which explains how we record our decisions:
https://www.heartwoodcohousing.com/decision-log.html


I can’t imagine a community not having a clearly defined way of determining 
exactly when a community or team decision has been made and how those decisions 
are recorded and implemented. Seems like a recipe for trouble.


-- 
Mac Thomson

Heartwood Cohousing
Southwest Colorado
http://www.heartwoodcohousing.com


"If you are afraid of being lonely, don't try to be right."
               - Jules Renard
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> On Nov 23, 2021, at 11:10 AM, Sharon Villines via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l 
> [at] cohousing.org> wrote:
> 
>> David Heimann <heimann [at] theworld.com>
>> is the author of the message below. 
> 
>> We've had several times where someone
>> has insisted that we had reached a certain decision, but a search of the
>> Decision Log and the General Meeting minutes doesn't show a record of
>> it, so in fact we conclude that in fact no decision had been reached.
>> This has stopped a number of potential disputes in the bud.
> 
> Another side of this is decisions clearly categorized. One just came up here 
> about a change in quorum for decisions that are made in membership meetings 
> by all members vs just owners.
> 
> A few years ago during the recession when units were not selling, we had a 
> number of rented units. That meant we had a large number of members because 
> owners are automatically members and non-owners become members by signing an 
> associate membership agreement. This made our quorum for most decisions too 
> large to meet and hard to determine. Non-resident owners didn’t attend 
> meetings and often rental members didn’t attend meetings. So the number of 
> members required to meet a 51% quorum just kept growing. And required 
> frequent updates because the associate member numbers changed often.
> 
> We resolved the issue by stating quorum in set numbers, minimums rather than 
> percentages.
> 
> Those familiar with standard practice and bylaws, knew that this meant 
> amending our Bylaws. We were in effect passing a Bylaws amendment. It was 
> recently raised that we did not make the decision as a bylaws amendment. I 
> flabbergasted — you can’t change a quorum without amending the bylaws. Ever! 
> 
> So I tracked down the minutes last week and there is no mention of “bylaws” 
> or “amendment” in the minutes. It read as if we had decided to have the 
> parking gate open on Saturdays or change the color of the piazza chairs to 
> green.
> 
> Fortunately, there have been no disputes related to quorum caused by not 
> filing a bylaws amendment with the city, but if there had been, we would have 
> been bound by the original number and then any decision made using the new 
> quorum quorum could be declared null and void.
> 
> FWIW on Robert’s Rules of Order, a parliamentarian on the Robert’s website 
> said that rules of order have to be questioned at the time. They can’t be 
> invoked after the fact. This prevents haggling over technicalities. If the 
> quorum was not questioned a the time, it couldn’t be questioned later. 
> 
> I’m sure I talked about the quorum decision as  an amendment but it was not 
> recorded that way and I never noticed.
> 
> Another discussion on a policy was recorded in detail and it was long. But 
> there was no declaration of policy passed or consent achieved. The only clue 
> was in the meeting evaluation: “It isn’t good for us to have such long 
> discussions and not reach a decision. We should have decided next steps.”
> 
> Sharon
> ----
> Sharon Villines
> Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
> http://www.takomavillage.org
> 
> 
> 
> 
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