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new board, old minutes


Ruth.L

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At the last membership meeting of my Florida co-op there were several new board members elected and also a new secretary. The old secretary is still a member of the board. At the next board meeting,  the board will be approving minutes written by the OLD secretary, and these minutes contain a number of mistakes. Who should be making the corrections - the old or the new secretary?

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Thank you for your reply - it certainly makes sense and seems to be the logical thing to do. I'm just anticipating that it will be awkward for me, as the NEW secretary, to be making all these corrections to someone else's work when she's right there. How would the minutes be signed..."written by HER, corrected by ME"???

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Signed like this:      Approved, [date], your signature.

No need for anything more.  Don't forget, it is the association correcting and approving the minutes, not you; you are just the instrument.

Take a look at page 468ff.  I'll bet your predecessor was putting way too much in the minutes which could be the source of the errors.   Don't fall into that trap.

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13 hours ago, Ruth.L said:

Thank you for your reply - it certainly makes sense and seems to be the logical thing to do. I'm just anticipating that it will be awkward for me, as the NEW secretary, to be making all these corrections to someone else's work when she's right there. How would the minutes be signed..."written by HER, corrected by ME"???

If you notice far enough in advance of the meeting that there are numerous mistakes in the draft minutes, there is nothing wrong with you or the president contacting the former secretary who took the minutes and asking if she would consider submitting a revised draft of the minutes. If you are on good terms and if she acknowledges the mistakes, that could make the approval process go faster and will produce cleaner minutes with fewer Corrections.

As an alternative, if there are numerous errors, you or someone else may submit an entirely different draft of the minutes. The board can then decide which version to approve, or at least which version to use as the starting point. Nothing prevents other members from submitting their own draft version of minutes.

As Dr. Stackpole pointed out, it is the assembly (in this case the board), not the former or present secretary, which actually makes the corrections to the minutes once they are on the floor for corrections.

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5 hours ago, Richard Brown said:

As an alternative, if there are numerous errors, you or someone else may submit an entirely different draft of the minutes. The board can then decide which version to approve, or at least which version to use as the starting point. Nothing prevents other members from submitting their own draft version of minutes.

I'm not sure I agree. The Secretary is responsible for presenting a single version of the minutes to assembly, and this can subsequently be corrected. But there is no process for substitution of the minutes.

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2 hours ago, Alexis Hunt said:

But there is no process for substitution of the minutes.

Then what do you call corrections?  You do not vote on the Minutes themselves, but on the corrections offered.  As such, if necessary, another member could offer a completely different set of Minutes by way of moving to correct the Minutes with a new set of Minutes.  Something along the lines of "I move that the Minutes be corrected through the draft version offered by Joe Smith."  Someone else will likely provide a more accurate motion.

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I'm surprised that no one has mentioned that RONR advises that when there will be a periodic change in the membership of the assembly (as by an election), the assembly should appoint a minutres approval committee to approve the mintues of the last meeting preceding the change. (I don't have my book handy to provide a cite, but I'm sure someone else will provide it.) That won't help the current situation, but it certainly could alleviate similar concerns in the future.

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