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As I mentioned in my previous post, I was giving a webinar on minute-taking yesterday.  There were a few questions that as I pondered last night, I wanted to give a more fulsome answer to today.  Since some of you are on my blog, I thought this would be a good way to answer those questions. Do you need to record in the minutes when someone abstains from a vote? This is a good question, but doesn't have a simple answer.  It all depends on what type of meeting you are recording at and what rules they follow.  The meeting recorder should have a good grasp of the rules of order that their meeting follows as that will help to answer questions like this.  But rest assured it is always OK to go back and find the answer.  I keep the rule book with me in the meeting and have tabbed it to some things that I want to be able to find quickly.  Here are some frequently asked questions about voting at a meeting. For the m...

Happy New Year everyone!  The new year is a good time to bring up the Look-Forward Agenda.  One of the challenges the recording secretary will have is to make sure they don't miss items that need to be dealt with at each meeting.  The Look-Forward Agenda is very helpful for this.  It is basically a list of items that are regularly dealt with throughout the year and provides a timetable of when these items need to be added to the agenda.  For example, our senior leadership team review financial statements each month at the first meeting after the 10th business day, and each year they need to set the annual budget in February to bring to our Board of Directors.  As well as business items, I put things such as the All-Staff Appreciation Breakfast and the Christmas Party.  These items are put on the agenda to make the decision on what date we will have it and who will arrange it. Small i...

Minute taking definitely isn't easy, but it doesn't have to be stressful. In its simplest form minutes are a record of discussion, decisions and actions to be taken and the date by when it needs to be completed. Below are a few tips so the task is not as daunting: Filling in the blanks I take minutes on a laptop so it is easy to make a template ahead of time which is based on the agenda. I put the items from the agenda on the template in the same order and with a space to put the discussion and decisions/actions from the meeting. Putting it in table format is the easiest, then it is just a matter of filling in the blanks. I use four columns with the headings: Item#, Discussion, Decision/Action, By when. Going in cold When you don't know the subject matter and are asked to take minutes, preparation is the key. Read three or four of the previous minutes to get familiar with the language of the meeting and the subjects that are discussed. If you can meet with the regular minut...