Academy/Membership & Annual Meetings
What is a membership meeting?
The gathering every owner is entitled to attend, and the one your board cannot skip or reshape on a whim.
A membership meeting is a gathering of every owner in the association, not just the board. Every association holds a bylaw-fixed annual meeting each year; it can also call a special meeting between annual meetings to handle one named matter. Owners get advance notice and a right to speak at both.
Two kinds of membership meetings: annual and special
A membership meeting brings together everyone who owns a lot or unit in the association, as opposed to a board meeting, which only involves elected directors. There are two kinds. Every association holds an annual meeting, a standing, once-a-year event whose date is locked in by the bylaws, not something the board decides to call or skip.
"An association shall hold a meeting of unit owners annually at a time, date, and place stated in or fixed in accordance with the bylaws."
Source: Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, section 3 108, Vermont Legislature
An association can also call a special meeting between annual meetings to address one specific matter, at the request of the president, a majority of the board, or a minimum share of owners. The exact ownership percentage needed to force a special meeting, and who besides the president and board can trigger one, is set by your state's statute and your own bylaws; check both before assuming a number.
What has to happen before and during the meeting
Whichever kind of meeting it is, owners are entitled to written notice stating the time, date, and place before it happens. How many days of advance notice are required, and whether that window can shrink for an emergency, depends on your state's statute and your bylaws, not on a single nationwide number. Once the meeting is underway, owners do not just watch silently.
"Unit owners shall be given a reasonable opportunity at any meeting to comment regarding any matter affecting the common interest community or the association."
Source: Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, section 3 108, Vermont Legislature
A board that skips comment time to save a few minutes is not saving time, it is cutting off a right the law specifically protects.
Membership meeting vs. board meeting
A membership meeting and a board meeting are not the same event with different attendance, they run under different rules. Model act law sets separate default quorum figures for a members' meeting and for an executive board meeting, using two different numbers for the two bodies. Both figures are defaults that your association's bylaws can raise or lower, and other states set their own numbers entirely. Look up your quorum in your own bylaws and state statute, not in a percentage you heard somewhere.
See Member quorum for how to find yours.
Check yourself
Answer before you read the explanation, recalling it is what makes it stick.
The board decides not to schedule this year's annual meeting because nothing important is going on. Is that allowed?
An owner asks the board to add a new topic to a special meeting whose notice already went out for a different matter. What's true?
During the annual meeting, the chair moves straight from the treasurer's report to adjournment without letting any owner speak on it. What's wrong here?
Sources
Related elsewhere in the Academy
Membership & Annual Meetings
Next, find out exactly what your bylaws have to spell out about your own annual meeting.
Whether a specific ownership percentage can force a special meeting, how many days of notice are required, and how quorum is counted for a members' meeting all vary by state statute and by your own bylaws.