The Act also provides that a quorum meeting of a public body does not constitute an “assembly” if they “participate in social gatherings, conventions, conferences, training programs, press conferences, media events or other gatherings, provided that the public body does not discuss the specific business of the public body which, at the time of the exchange, the participating members expect that to be an enterprise of the public body a later date” or “to attend a duly notified meeting of another public body, provided that the participating public sector body does not take any action in relation to its activities”. 1 V.S.A. §§ 310(3)(C)-(D). Since there is no strict number that represents a quorum, best practices suggest that a quorum is set at a simple majority of members in an organization. It is also possible to specify a fixed number in the articles of association of a company, in which case it prevails over the simple majority if this number is higher. It is important that the number decided is not so small that it does not accurately represent all the members, but not so large that it becomes difficult to hold a meeting legally. A quorum is required for the settlement of all transactions. In the absence of a quorum, pending trading is suspended and no transaction, no matter how privileged, can be made with unanimous consent. The minutes of the previous sitting may not be read or approved without a quorum and the word “non quorum” may be made at any time before the end of the reading. However, the prayer of a chaplain of a legislative assembly does not require a quorum, and the Speaker refuses to consider a “no quorum” item before offering the prayer. The quorum is usually made up of a group considered as large as possible to attend all company meetings, which is a qualitative assessment. The plural of a quorum is “quora”. The Mississippi Supreme Court found that regular meetings of a number of council and mayor members over a two-month period, none of which were open to the public, violated the law.
Mayor & City Council & Columbus v Commercial Dispatch, No. 2016-CC-00897 (September 7, 2017). The term quorum was used in the commission formerly issued to justices of the peace in England. At a time when local bank jurisprudence was the exception rather than the rule, when appointing members of the court, it was necessary to add one, two or three lawyers with sufficient training and experience to perform the technical tasks of the court. These became known as quorum, without which the court did not meet. For a meeting to be called, there must be a quorum. See Utah Code, § 52-4-103(6)(a). “Quorum is defined in the Open Meeting Act as `a simple majority of the members of a public body, unless otherwise provided by applicable law`. Id. § 52-4-103(11)(a).
“Quorum” does not include a meeting of two officers elected alone, unless a formal or informal decision is made on a matter over which those elected officers have advisory powers. Id. § 52-4-103(11)(b). In Hickel v. Southeast Conference, 868 P.2d 919 (Alaska 1994), the Supreme Court held that the Redistribution Board violated the OMA by “meeting outside of advertised meetings to resolve the issue of redistribution.” In particular, the Supreme Court noted that council members held one-on-one meetings with each other to discuss redistributive issues and district preferences and seek advice from each other, and also noted that “the lack of [substantive] discussions on the case, combined with the manner in which some members of the Commission were conducted at trial, as well as other evidence presented at the main hearing, convinces this court that important decisions and substantive discussions took place out of the public eye. The Supreme Court reiterated its earlier decision in Brookwood Area Homeowners` Ass`n v. Anchorage, 702 P.2d 1317, 1323 (Alaska 1985) that “a `meeting` encompasses every stage of the deliberative and decision-making process when a government entity meets to conduct public business.” The Hickel court reiterated that the Brookwood Supreme Court had concluded that “the question is not whether the quorum of a government entity was present in a private session.