where do you record corrections to minutes?

[Guest akamaiguy]

Question 1: Once the corrections to the minutes have been agreed upon, where are they actually recorded?

Example: If the minutes for April have been posted/read and corrections agreed upon at the May meeting, where are the corrections recorded? 1) Does the secretary note in the May minutes that the minutes for April have been corrected and state the actual, detailed, word-for-word correction in the May minutes? 2) Does he mention in the May minutes that the April minutes have been corrected/ammended and then go back and make an attachment of the corrections to the April draft minutes and identify them as the correction/ammendment , thereby leaving some record of the initial error or dispute? 3) Does he retype the April minutes completely with the corrections and place them in the permanent binder with no note of the changes since the first copy was merely a draft anyway?

Question 2: We have no by-laws regarding posting or distribution of the minutes. The minutes for our association were for years printed for each member and distributed at the next meeting. Members reviewed them at the beginning of the meeting and the President would as if there were any corrections. After construction of a community bulletin board, it evolved (with no directive to do so) that secretaries started posting the draft minutes in advance and distributing copies at the start of the next meeting. Recently, the new secretary was absent from a meeting due to an injury had not posted minutes from the previous meeting.. Because of his unexpected absence he also did not get the individual copies to the meeting. The President said they would be read at the next meeting. At the next meeting (two months later) when those minutes were read, there was outrage by a couple of members that the minutes should have been posted and the delay was inexcusable. (Nothing of any significance even occurred at the meeting and no action was pending ). Did the secretary violate anything in RONR?

[jstackpo]

Queston1 ): Make the corrections in the (draft - April in your example) minutes being corrected, then approve them. No need (or reason) to retain any erroneous text in the April minutes -- getting rid of any errors is why you are making the corrections. In you example, 3 is the correct course of action. The May minutes can say something like: "The April minutes were approved, as corrected."

An aside: it looks (I'm guessing) that you are putting more in those minutes than RONR requires. Take a look at RONR, pp. 468 ff. to see what you really need to include. You should NOT include debate or "what was said" -- only what was done, decisions, &c.

Question 2: How you distribute minutes, both draft and approved, is entirely up to the association. But adopt a set of "Standing Rules" so that folks will know what to expect, and a new secretary will know what to do. See p. 18 -- you have been using "custom", p. 19, which is OK too until something goes wrong. There is nothing wrong with delaying approval of minutes to a later meeting so tell the folks who were "outraged" to stuff a sock in it. (But tell them nicely, of course.)

[Dan Honemann]

I agree with John Stackpole's response.

The answer to question 1. is that he retypes the April minutes completely with the corrections and places them in the permanent binder with no note of the changes (your No. 3). The minutes of the May meeting simply reflect that the minutes of the April meeting were approved as corrected.

The answer to Question 2. is that the Secretary didn't "violate" any rule, as such, although he didn't perform his duty to see to it that the minutes were available for approval at the prescribed time. This may or may not have been his fault. In any event, these unapproved minutes should be approved at the next meeting, as has already been noted.

[Guest Edgar]

3) Does he retype the April minutes completely with the corrections and place them in the permanent binder with no note of the changes since the first copy was merely a draft anyway?

Just to cover all the bases, should these approved minutes be amended ("corrected") at a later date (e.g. at the June meeting), there would be no change made to the April minutes (though a note in the margin would be appropriate). The changes would be recorded in the minutes of the meeting at which they were made.

[Guest akamaibuy]

Thanks for your responses and clarification