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Writing The Record / Minutes

Writing clear and accurate minutes is important for any deliberative group to have a record of decisions made and actions planned. Minutes should include the key details of the meeting such as the date, location, attendees, motions discussed and their outcomes. While not a verbatim transcript, minutes should capture the exact wording of motions to reduce confusion. Minutes are a property of the group and usually only available to members, providing an official summary of the group's work.

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64 views

Writing The Record / Minutes

Writing clear and accurate minutes is important for any deliberative group to have a record of decisions made and actions planned. Minutes should include the key details of the meeting such as the date, location, attendees, motions discussed and their outcomes. While not a verbatim transcript, minutes should capture the exact wording of motions to reduce confusion. Minutes are a property of the group and usually only available to members, providing an official summary of the group's work.

Uploaded by

mustaqim ramli
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Writing the Record / Minutes

Writing the Record


Putting it in writing is always a good idea. A written record of events will always be
more accurate than what someone remembers. A written plan of action reduces
confusion and provides a concrete target for debate and discussion. A deliberative
assembly, such as the meeting of a club, committee, board, or other group has a
special need to use written communications to improve communications between
members of the group.
There are several kinds of written materials of concern to an organized group. These
may include the following.

 Announcements, bulletins and incidental publicity or informational materials.


 The journal or minutes of the meetings of the group and its boards and
committees.
 Reports by the officers such as the treasurer's report of the financial position
of the group.
 Reports suggesting action on some issue from committees or officers
 Annual reports of officers or committees.
 Organizational documents such as bylaws

It is the minutes of the meetings that are often most misunderstood and tend to
generate excess meeting overhead trying to meet imagined requirements at
meetings of committees, boards, or a small group.

Minutes of meetings

A proper record of the meetings is one of the responsibilities of the secretary of the
group. In most cases these minutes are not what are called "published" minutes
which are close to an edited transcript of the meeting. Rather the minutes are a
summary of the decisions of the group. Robert's Rules list the following information
that should be in the minutes of a meeting.

 kind of meeting
 name of the group meeting
 date, time, and place of the meeting
 identification of the Chair and Secretary
 the action on minutes of the previous meeting
 the exact wording of all motions discussed and their disposition
 secondary motions (not generally used in meetings of committees or small
boards)
 notices of motions (for those motions requiring advance notice)
 points of order and their resolution (not generally used in meetings of
committees or small boards)
 the time of adjournment

Perhaps the primary difficulty is for the secretary to obtain exact wording of the
motions made and put up for discussion. This requires a bit of formal effort on the
part of the Chair of the meeting and is a reason behind the steps in Managing the
Action of stating the question and putting the question.
Note that the name of the person who seconds a motion is not to be entered into the
minutes unless so ordered by the assembly. When a count is ordered in a meeting,
or ballot or roll call vote taken, the vote on both sides and sufficient vote to verify a
quorum should be noted. Otherwise all that is needed is just the decision of the
group.
Minutes are the 'property' of the group whose meeting they record. They are
normally available only to members of that group. A model and example for the
minutes of a meeting can be found on pages 462-463 of Robert's Rules.

Reading and approval of the minutes

This should be no big deal. The minutes should be sent to members (a preference,
not a requirement) along with the meeting call and agenda so that there is no need
for time to be taken out of the meeting to actually read the minutes. A drawback to
this method is that copies will exist without any corrections made.
After the minutes have been read, corrections can be requested. Corrections and
approval of the minutes are normally done by the process of unanimous consent.

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