Any "rules of order" for running a committee via a mailing list?

[Paul Haas <paulh @ hamjudo . com>]

I'm on the board of directors of a small not-for-profit organization.  The
by-laws require that the board of directors approve contracts and some
types of expenditures.  This meant that once a month or so I went to an
intensely boring meeting. 

Now that all of the directors have e-mail, we're experimenting with using
a mailing list to replace some meetings. A document of suggested
guidelines could save us quite a bit hassle later on. 

Has anyone else run an organization effectively via an e-mail list?  Do
you have a set of guidelines for handling votes and discussions? 

E-mail now lets us micro-manage to new levels of inefficiency.  In the
physical meetings, we have a written agenda to keep the meetings moving
forward, we need the e-mail equivalent.  Are there other techniques to
keep the forum productive?  4 out of 7 of the directors went online
with-in the last 3 months.  A couple of them do not yet have full internet
access, so we are limited to email for now.

Any advice is welcome,
Paul Haas paulh@hamjudo.com