Academy/Membership & Annual Meetings
Owner resolutions
What an owner resolution is, how it reaches a vote, and whether your board has to follow it.
An owner resolution is a member's formal proposal for the membership to vote on, treated the same as any other main motion under Robert's Rules. Once seconded, the member has a right to have it debated and voted on. Whether the result binds the board depends entirely on your declaration and bylaws.
A resolution is a member's motion, made formal
When a member wants the membership to take a position on something, replacing a landscaping vendor, asking the board to reconsider a rule, they can bring it as a resolution. Robert's Rules does not treat a resolution as a special category with its own rulebook. It is a main motion like any other, and it follows the same path onto the floor. A member proposes it, another member seconds it, and from that point the chair cannot simply set it aside.
"If seconded and still ignored, the member has the right, according to Robert's Rules of Order, to present the motion to the assembly, initiate debate, and call for a vote."
Source: Robert's Rules of Order: Role of Members, Cedar Management Group
The vote it takes to pass
Once a resolution is on the floor and debate closes, it passes or fails on a vote. Robert's Rules fixes what the words themselves mean, even though the threshold your bylaws actually require can be set higher than the default.
"The word 'majority' in this context means, simply, more than half."
Source: Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, Official FAQ, Robert's Rules Association
The same FAQ is just as firm the other direction: a two-thirds requirement means at least two thirds, and nothing less will do. Check your bylaws before you assume which of these applies to a given resolution, some associations reserve certain topics for a supermajority.
Whether it binds the board
This is the question a resolution's sponsor actually cares about, and it is not a parliamentary question at all. Whether a passed resolution obligates the board to act, or is simply the membership's recorded opinion, depends on what your declaration and bylaws say about which decisions belong to the members and which belong to the board. Read those documents, or ask the board's own counsel, before treating a resolution's outcome as a directive rather than a request.
Check yourself
Answer before you read the explanation, recalling it is what makes it stick.
A member's written resolution asking the board to reverse a parking policy passes by a majority vote at the annual meeting. What happens next?
A member proposes a resolution from the floor, another member seconds it, but the chair moves on to the next agenda item without addressing it. What is true under Robert's Rules?
An owner resolution is up for a vote and the bylaws are silent on what threshold it needs. Under Robert's Rules default, what vote is required to adopt it?
Sources
- Robert's Rules of Order: Role of Members, Cedar Management Group
- Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, Official FAQ, Robert's Rules Association
Membership & Annual Meetings
Next: see how ordinary motions move through a meeting in Owner motions.
Whether an owner resolution binds the board, and what vote threshold it needs to pass, depends on your declaration, bylaws, and any parliamentary authority they name.