Board meeting attendance policy
The BoardSource self-assessment indicated that we should have a policy for meeting attendance. There are some examples and resources for this online:
- https://managementhelp.org/boards/board-attendance-policy.htm
- https://www.ncfp.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Board-Member-Attendance-Policies-policy-central-board-meetings-job-descriptions-and-rotation-policies.pdf
- https://www.govenda.com/blog/board-of-directors-attendance/
The common elements seem to be:
- A statement of expectations, like director should:
- reserve the regular meeting time in their schedules
- attend meetings
- send regrets if they're unable to make them
- inform the chair if they have an ongoing conflict or reason they cannot attend
- Expectations for how the chair should handle absence - ie. check in with a director in cases on un-notified absence or recurrent notified absence
- A non-attendance threshold at which the director's absence is referred to the board for consideration. One of the above examples states this as:
- Two un-notified absences in a row
- Three notified absences in a row
- One third of all meetings in a 12 month period
- Record keeping and publication of director attendance (particularly relevant for when directors seek re-election)