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Kathleen, the situation that you describe is clearly most unfortunate and inappropriate in my opinion.
The president, or chair, of the meeting has general managerial responsibilities in addition to leadership responsibilities, which includes controlling the meeting. Generally speaking, all comments at the AGM should be addressed to the chair of the meeting.
While the chair may plan for things to go smoothly, it is important that the chair also plan for the unexpected and have a plan to deal with disruptions. While such a plan may not go as hoped, it certainly should help mitigate unfortunate situations such as that which you describe.
Most certainly there should have been an apology to the group for the disruption and maybe a reminder of appropriate and respectful behaviors (civility) in meetings, conversation and written communications.
I would hope that the chair in question simply was taken by surprise and was not able to personally catch up to what should have been an appropriate intervention. The other possibility might be that the chair was really was unqualified to fill that position.
Most unfortunate. …./David
