WHY MEETING MINUTES ARE IMPORTANT
You shouldn’t
be intimidated by the term “minutes” since it’s actually a little misleading.
After all, your committee or Board doesn’t want or need a record of its meeting
proceedings minute by minute! But it is
important to capture the essence of the meeting, including details such as:
Decisions made (motions made, votes, etc.)
Next steps planned
Identification and tracking of action items
Minutes are a tangible record of the meeting for
its participants and a source of information for members who were unable to
attend. In some cases, meeting minutes can act as a reference point, for
example:
When a meeting’s outcomes impact other
collaborative activities or projects within the organization
minutes can
serve to notify (or remind) individuals of tasks assigned to them and/or
timelines
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WHAT’S INVOLVED WITH MEETING MINUTES?
There are
essentially five steps involved with meeting minutes:
Pre-Planning
Record taking - at the meeting
Minutes writing or transcribing
Distributing or sharing of meeting minutes
Filing or storage of minutes for future
reference
1. PRE-PLANNING:
A well-planned
meeting helps ensure effective meeting minutes.
If the Chair and the Secretary or minutes-taker work together to ensure
the agenda and meeting are well thought out, it makes minute taking much
easier. For example, depending on the meeting structure and the tools you use
(see Tools below), the minutes-taker could work with the Chair to create a
document format that works as an agenda and minutes outline as well – here’s
are some examples.
Minutes
Outline
Meeting agenda
= outline:
At the very
least, it’s important to get a copy of the meeting agenda and use it as a guide
or outline for taking notes and preparing the minutes – with the order and numbering
of items on the minutes matching those of the agenda. In addition, the agenda
and/or meeting notice also provides information that will need to be included
in the minutes, such as:
The names of
all the meeting attendees, including guests or speakers
documents that are sent out with the agenda
or handed out in the meeting – copies (digital or hard copy) of handouts should be stored with the meeting
minutes for future reference and for sharing with those who were unable to
attend the meeting (and others as determined by the meeting’s Chair).
CLARIFYING EXPECTATIONS:
When you take
on a new role as minutes-taker or Secretary, be sure to ask the Chair of the
committee or Board what their expectations are of your role during the meeting,
as well as the type of detail he/she expects in the minutes. For example, if your Board or committee will
be dealing with motions, or voting on items/issues, be clear on whether you
need to offer names of those making motions, seconding, etc. If you will be
dealing with this type of procedures, you (and your Chair) may want to refer to
Robert’s Rules of Order – here’s a link to an online “Introduction to Robert’s
Rules”.
2. RECORD TAKING - WHAT SHOULD BE
INCLUDED?
Before you
start taking notes, it’s important to understand the type of information you
need to record at the meeting. As noted earlier, your organization may have
required content and a specific format that you’ll need to follow, but
generally, meeting minutes usually include the following:
Date
and time of the meeting
Names of the meeting participants and those unable to attend (e.g.,
“regrets”)
Acceptance or corrections/amendments to previous meeting minutes
Decisions made about each agenda item, for
example:
Actions taken or agreed to be taken
Next steps
Voting outcomes – e.g., (if necessary,
details regarding who made motions; who seconded and approved or via show of
hands, etc.)
Motions taken or rejected
Items to be held over
New business
Next meeting date and time
TIPS THAT MIGHT HELP YOUR NOTE TAKING:
Create an outline – as discussed earlier,
having an outline (or template) based on the agenda makes it easy for you to
simply jot down notes, decisions, etc. under each item as you go along. If you
are taking notes by hand, consider including space below each item on your
outline for your hand-written notes, then print these out and use this to
capture minutes.
Check-off attendees as they enter the room
- if you know the meeting attendees, you can check them off as they arrive, if
not have folks introduce themselves at the start of the meeting or circulate an
attendance list they can check-off themselves.
Record decisions or notes on action items
in your outline as soon as they occur to be sure they are recorded accurately
Ask for clarification if necessary – for
example, if the group moves on without making a decision or an obvious
conclusion, ask for clarification of the decision and/or next steps involved.
Don’t try to capture it all – you can’t
keep up if you try to write down the conversation verbatim, so be sure to
simply (and clearly) write (or type) just the decisions, assignments, action
steps, etc.
Record it – literally, if you are concerned
about being able to keep up with note taking, consider recording the meeting
(e.g., on your smart phone, iPad, recording device, etc.) but be sure to let
participants know they are being recording. While you don’t want to use the
recording to create a word-for-word transcript of the meeting, the recording
can come in handy if you need clarification.
3. THE MINUTES WRITING PROCESS
Once the
meeting is over, it’s time to pull together your notes and write the minutes.
Here are some tips that might help:
Try to write the minutes as soon after the
meeting as possible while everything is fresh in your mind.
Review your outline and if necessary, add
additional notes or clarify points raised. Also check to ensure all decisions,
actions and motions are clearly noted.
Check
for sufficient detail: For Board of Director’s minutes, an Association Trends
article (by lawyers Jefferson C. Glassie and Dorothy Deng) suggests the
following for Board minutes:
include a short statement of each
action taken by the board and a brief explanation of the rationale for the
decision
when there is extensive deliberation
before passing a motion, summarize the major arguments
Edit to ensure brevity and clarity, so the
minutes are easy to read
WHAT
NOT TO INCLUDE: EffectiveMeetings.com offers some these tips from the
International Association of Administrative Professionals (IAAP):
Be objective.
Write in the same tense throughout
Avoid using people’s names except for
motions or seconds. This is a business document, not about who said what.
Avoid inflammatory or personal
observations. The fewer adjectives or adverbs you use, the better.
If you need to refer to other
documents, attach them in an appendix or indicate where they may be found.
Don’t rewrite their intent or try to summarize them.
Want to see sample Board meeting
minutes?
This post –
Basic Sample of Board of Directors Meeting Minutes – in the Free Management
Library – offers a typical format and content of board meeting minutes.
4. DISTRIBUTING OR SHARING MEETING
MINUTES
As the
official “minutes-taker” or Secretary, your role may include dissemination of
the minutes. However, before you share these, be sure that the Chair has
reviewed and either revised and/or approved the minutes for circulation.
Online sharing
The method of
sharing or distribution will depend on the tools that you and your organization
use. Since minutes and other documentation can create a pile of paper, it’s
great if you can use a paperless sharing process. For example, if you are using
a word processing tool (e.g., Microsoft Word) that doesn’t offer online
sharing, you might want to create a PDF of the document and send this and the
other attachments or meeting documentation via email. Alternately, if you are
all using Google docs – for meeting invitations, agenda and additional document
sharing – you can simply “share” the document with that group once it has been
finalized. Committee or Board members can simply read the documents online and
save a few trees!
Sharing in the Cloud?
If your
organization is using a cloud-based membership management system (like Wild
Apricot), you can publish the minutes as a web page and give access only to the
committee or Board members, depending on your organization’s needs. Through
members-only webpages, you can create a secure online Intranet for your Board
and committees.
Tools Specifically For Meeting Minutes:
If you are
wondering about the types of tools you might use specifically for meeting
minutes, here are some tools that we found outlined on Quora:
Google Docs - Also supports collaborative
note taking. [There are sample templates for minutes in Google docs. If you send out a meeting request using
Google Calendar, you can attach a Google doc agenda outline. Once minutes are
crafted (using the outline), you can simply share the document with the group
(using their email addresses.]
OneNote (if you are a Microsoft user) -
Very fast allows for organization of notes.
Also support audio recording with corresponding note time-stamping
Evernote - Great note taking tool
Meeting Mix - Pretty good all in one tool,
also support agenda sharing
Textpad / TextMate - Fast, light weight,
non-intrusive, requires that you manage your notes in txt files or export to
another collaborative environment.
Agreedo: supports creation of meeting
minutes and tracking the results.
In addition,
here’s a post from the library that outlines Five Best Meeting Minutes
Services.
5. FILING/STORAGE OF MEETING MINUTES
Most
committees and Boards review and either approve or amend the minutes at the
beginning of the subsequent meeting. Once you’ve made any required revisions,
the minutes will then need to be stored for future reference. Some organizations may store these online
(e.g., in Google docs or SkyDrive) and also back these up on an external hard
drive. You may also need to print and
store hard copies as well or provide these to a staff member or Chair for
filing.
In closing…enjoy your new role
Meeting
minutes are important – “they capture the essential information of a meeting.”
But taking and preparing minutes doesn’t have to be a daunting task. We hope
this article helps meeting minutes newbies in getting started in creating
effective meeting minutes for your organization. For additional information,
you can check out some of the sources of information we used to create this
article in the “sources” noted below.
Sources:
While the
author has personal experience writing meeting minutes, we also referred to the
following sources to create this article:
Dealing with your meeting notes – David
Allen (EffectiveMeetings.com)
Don’t get too wordy with Board meeting
minutes – Jefferson C. Glassie,ESQ, Dorothy Deng, ESQ. (Association Trends)
How to Record Useful Meeting Minutes –
EffectiveMeetings.com
How to Take Minutes at a Business Meeting –
eHow.com
How To Write and Keep Meeting Minutes – Nancy
Sylvester, MA. PRP, CPP-T, (Empowering You and Your Organization)
Introduction to Robert’s Rules of Order
Recording Meeting Minutes –
EffectiveMeetings.com
Taking Meeting Minutes – An Important Skill
– Dawn Rosenberg McKay (About.com Guide)
Tips for Writing Meeting Minutes – Lynn Gaertner-Johnston ( Business Writing)
TAGS
PROCEDURES AND METHODS OF WRITING MINUTE IN MEETINGS, WHY MEETING MINUTES ARE IMPORTANT, WHAT’S INVOLVED WITH MEETING MINUTES? RECORD TAKING - WHAT SHOULD BE INCLUDED? TIPS THAT MIGHT HELP YOUR NOTE TAKING:
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