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Meeting Minutes: Just the Facts


What do the minutes of your meetings say about your parent group? If your group is like many, they probably say too much.

Minutes serve as the official record of the actions that occurred at a meeting. Often, members want to make minutes as complete as possible to serve as a historical record. But including too much detail is unwise from a legal perspective.

Minutes should be kept at all board meetings and general meetings. If your group is incorporated, keeping minutes demonstrates that the group is functioning as a corporation. It’s also one way you maintain the protection from individual liability for your officers that incorporation provides. For organizational purposes, you might want to keep minutes at committee meetings, as well. As a general rule, keep minutes at any type of meeting where people vote.

Minutes should include four basic types of information:

Time, date, and location of the meeting.
The fact that proper prior notice of the meeting was given or that notice was waived by those attending the meeting.
Who was in attendance (names of board members or the approximate number of people attending) and whether a quorum was present.
The official actions taken by the meeting participants (motions made and approved or defeated).
Not required to be included in minutes are:

Names of those who make and second motions.
The vote (number voting for and against) for each motion.
Detail of the debate that occurred regarding each motion.
Why So Hush-Hush?
Meeting minutes serve as legal documents that may be examined when an organization is being investigated or sued. Therefore, it is important to keep accurate meeting records but not to include unnecessary information that could prove harmful in the future.

Including the names of those who make and second motions can help potential plaintiffs find “friends” and “foes.” Providing vote counts in the minutes makes public how divided the group was and are unnecessary. Only that a motion passed or failed is needed. (However, meeting participants may request that their negative votes be recorded in the minutes.)

Because debates infrequently reflect a balanced view or consensus of the members—either the minority or majority view is argued more strongly—including debates in the minutes might create a skewed historical record. In addition, including debate detail could create a public appearance of divisiveness when a united public front is more desirable.

Say, for instance, your group decides to sponsor a fall carnival. You debate in detail the activities to be included at the carnival and their safety. Unfortunately, a child is hurt on the moon bounce. The parents sue the PTO, saying the organization knew or should have known the dangers. If your meeting minutes catalog the safety debate, that could work against you.

To make the minutes easier to draft and use, it’s a good idea to have them follow the agenda. For each item on the agenda, there should be a corresponding item in the minutes. In this way, the supporting reports and documents may be attached to and kept as part of the agenda. Someone reviewing the minutes later can then easily reference the agenda and attachments.

[ 08-11-2006, 11:30 AM: Message edited by: Rockne ]

beachmom, U state was meant to be a UNITED state, as in a state of the USA.

to differeniate from the other 'states' around the world. many BBers are at overseas schools, hence the distincition.

“Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.”

Taking Minutes
These days, many of us find ourselves in the position of taking minutes without a clue of how to go about it. The following is a guide for making this task easier:

Ensure that all of the essential elements are noted, such as type of meeting, name of the organization, date and time, venue, name of the chair or facilitator, main topics and the time of adjournment. For formal and corporate meetings include approval of previous minutes, and all resolutions.
Prepare an outline based on the agenda ahead of time, and leave plenty of white space for notes. By having the topics already written down, you can jump right on to a new topic without pause.
Prepare a list of expected attendees and check off the names as people enter the room. Or, you can pass around an attendance sheet for everyone to sign as the meeting starts.
To be sure about who said what, make a map of the seating arrangement, and make sure to ask for introductions of unfamiliar people.
Don't make the mistake of recording every single comment. Concentrate on getting the gist of the discussion and taking enough notes to summarize it later. Think in terms of issues discussed, major points raised and decisions taken.
Use whatever recording method is comfortable for you, a notepad, a laptop computer, a tape recorder, a steno pad, or shorthand. It might be a good idea to make sound recordings of important meetings as a backup to your notes.
If you are an active participant in the meeting, be prepared! Study the issues to be discussed and have your questions ready ahead of time. If you have to concentrate on grasping the issues while you are making your notes, they won't make any sense to you later.
Don't wait too long to type up the minutes, especially while your memory is fresh. Be sure to have the minutes approved by the chair or facilitator before distributing them to the attendees.
Don't be intimidated by the prospect of taking minutes. Concise and coherent minutes are the mark of a professional. The very process of recording minutes can give you a deeper understanding of the issues faced by your organization along with ability to focus on what's important

To add to what Critter said, even who voted for what is not supposed to be in the minutes.

Based on the flow of the meeting, someone in support of a certain action may vote against the motion to pass it because s/he disagreed with the details. If you are having tough debates, (our group isn't really here) Who voted for what previously could come up in the arguments, without context, and muddy the debate.

Only names of those making motions are recorded.

I am not sure that names of who spoke for or against get included.

I agree with critter...only actual work done, motions, motioners should be noted...publication of off-hand comments could jeopardize the integrity of the organization....

Per Roberts Rules of Order, only the work that is DONE and not what is SAID should be recorded in the meetng minutes. That is, the text of the motion, and the name of the motioner, and the vote outcome, but NOT the individual comments during discussion or names of people who commented. That protects the group from feeling exposed when their free-flowing comments show up in black and white text (like you experienced first hand).