Best Practices

Preparation

If you are required to take the minutes of the meeting, bring along pens, writing paper, and blank motion forms. Arrive at the meeting site early to ensure that everything is ready. To take the minutes, have plenty of materials available (paper, forms, etc) to get through a possibly lengthy session. Make sure you have a copy of the agenda, the roster, as well as any reports, financial statements, or other documents that may be referred to during the meeting.

What to Record

The most difficult part of taking minutes is deciding what information has to be written down verbatim, what can be paraphrased, and what is nonessential for the official record. Minutes are meant to be concise, factual and objective records of what has happened during the meeting. Therefore, you cannot allow personal preferences to influence your note-taking.

It can be very difficult to discriminate from among all the opinions and facts just what will be recorded in the minutes, and to record the proceedings fairly, it is necessary to take a disinterested position. As a recorder, you must listen carefully and ask the president or chair for clarification if needed.

It is necessary to record motions verbatim as well as names of the individuals those who made them. You may want to have blank copies of motion forms or index cards for this purpose.

Recording Guidelines

To begin your note-taking, follow these guidelines.

• Write down the date, location and time the meeting begins.
• Record the names of those present and absent (usually if the number is 20 or less). A quorum check is necessary for larger meetings.
• Identify the type of meeting (such as general membership, board of directors, special).
• Identify the presiding officer and secretary or their alternates.
• Record the action. When the meeting begins, key your notes to match numbered items on the agenda. When drafting, you simply refer to your agenda to transcribe the key.
• You may want to number the motions as you receive them in order to place them correctly as the action occurred.
• When you receive a copy of the motion, make sure it contains the name of the person who made the motion, whether there was a second, the date, and whether the motion was made in the board of directors or membership meeting.
• Remember: If a motion is withdrawn, it is as though it never happened.
• If deciding to personalize a template to help record the minutes for meetings, make sure the template is consistent with the agenda that is drafted. You may want to bullet your entries in order to facilitate the recording of all actions.
• Consider making a template for the order of business and make it available for the minutes review committee to follow the proceedings as well.
• Record the time of adjournment.

Since the minutes serve as the official records of meetings, they must be objectively recorded and conscientiously transcribed into a final document.