[atlarge-discuss] A Quorum By Any Other Name...

[Walter Schmidt <walts@dorsai.org>]

Folks -

Taken From:
   http://www.csufresno.edu/comm/ppqa1.htm

See the last paragraph...

What, EXACTLY constitutes a quorum?

Unless otherwise defined in bylaws or some other code, a quorum is a
majority of the members and the minimum number of members necessary to
transact legal business at a meeting. Beyond that, it gets complicated.

There is no exact and perfect number for a quorum, and each organization
should carefully consider its nature and future in writing that section of
its bylaws. My university fraternity in the 1960s had a quorum of 90% of
the members, and in the five years I attended meetings, we never failed to
get a quorum; in this organization it was clear that meetings were
important and members were expected to be at them. On the other hand, my
wife was the first President of a non-profit organization called the
Fresno Lupus Foundation and in that group the quorum was set at a majority
of the members. At its first event it signed up about 250 members, almost
all of whom had come to hear the famous physician speaker and did not plan
to be active members. Anyway, this group never did get a quroum to have a
meeting for several months, in spite of its having generated a lot of
money to use. Needless to say, that group dropped its quorum to a
reasonable number. The English House of Commons, by the way, has thousands
of members, seats for only a couple of hundred, and a quorum of about
fifteen.

There isn't anything magical about the idea of a majority as the quorum,
although by common law in the United States it is the default definition.
Therefore, the answer to your question is "nothing exactly" in general,
but "something exactly" as defined in your bylaws.

21 Jun 1996

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