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Minutes


L. Thorson

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The minutes of our Board meeting are so brief that it is impossible to determine what has actually happened. For example, here ia an actual quote from the minutes:

"I move the Board approve language in the Corporate Policy Manual Cover Page and Section 1-General as recommended by the Bylaws and Board Affairs Committee and distributed to the Board as Control File Item 18, dated 07/22/10. The motion was seconded and approved 10-0". This motion as verbally made and written is meaningless to a member who does not possess Control File Item 18. Is it not proper that the motion and minutes contain the language that was adopted? The minutes are posted on the corporate web site.

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Yes, it's pretty much meaningless to everyone who doesn't know what Control File Item 18 says. But yes, it looks to me as if the minutes do contain - exactly - the language that was adopted. The solution is probably to put Control File Item 18 onto the corporate website. Probably also the Coprorate Policy Manual too. The problem, if there is one, is not in how these minutes are done. The secretary should be canonized. Maybe bronzed.

[Edited on principle.]

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Is it not proper that the motion and minutes contain the language that was adopted?

Whatever words came out of the mouth of the mover (or technically, whatever words the CHAIR uttered when stating the motion, or when putting the question) is the official wording of the motion, and is the wording to appear in the minutes.

So, "no," you do not, as a secretary, cross reference the cited document by a word-by-word insert of the external document.

Example #1:

If a Tea Party meeting were to adopt a motion, "That we use the Libertarian Party's Statement of Principles as our statement of principles," then you records just those words in the minutes.

Somehow, either as an addendum or coda, you may have to document what words comprise that Statement of Principles. But the secretary himself is under no obligation to do the research, as far as Robert's Rules of Order goes, for secretary's responsibilities, or for minutes' formatting.

Example #2:

If a meeting of the Copenhagen Interpretation Caucus were to adopt a motion, "That we reject Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle as accurate and consistent with String Theory," then the secretary is under NO OBLIGATION to describe Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Nor to describe String Theory.

A timely footnote for Example #2:

A quantum memory may be all scientists need to beat the limit of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, according to a paper published in Nature Physics. According to a group of researchers, maximally entangling a particle with a quantum memory and measuring one of the particle's variables, like its position, should snap the quantum memory in a corresponding state, which could then be measured. This would allow them to do something long thought verboten by the laws of physics: figure out the state of certain pairs of variables at the exact same time with an unprecedented amount of certainty.

Our ability to observe particles at the quantum level is currently limited by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Heisenberg noticed that when someone measured one variable of a particle, such as its position, there were some other variables, like momentum, that could not be simultaneously measured with as much precision—there was a small amount of uncertainty applied to one or both of the measurements.

- www.arstechnica.com 08-02-2010

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The minutes of our Board meeting are so brief that it is impossible to determine what has actually happened. For example, here ia an actual quote from the minutes:

"I move the Board approve language in the Corporate Policy Manual Cover Page and Section 1-General as recommended by the Bylaws and Board Affairs Committee and distributed to the Board as Control File Item 18, dated 07/22/10. The motion was seconded and approved 10-0". This motion as verbally made and written is meaningless to a member who does not possess Control File Item 18. Is it not proper that the motion and minutes contain the language that was adopted? The minutes are posted on the corporate web site.

It's not unusual for lengthy documents to be referenced in this way, but the document should then be attached to the minutes, so there is a complete record of the assembly's business.

Example #1:

If a Tea Party meeting were to adopt a motion, "That we use the Libertarian Party's Statement of Principles as our statement of principles," then you records just those words in the minutes.

Somehow, either as an addendum or coda, you may have to document what words comprise that Statement of Principles. But the secretary himself is under no obligation to do the research, as far as Robert's Rules of Order goes, for secretary's responsibilities, or for minutes' formatting.

Example #2:

If a meeting of the Copenhagen Interpretation Caucus were to adopt a motion, "That we reject Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle as accurate and consistent with String Theory," then the secretary is under NO OBLIGATION to describe Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Nor to describe String Theory.

There's a substantial difference, in my opinion, between an assembly adopting a document as its own rules and an assembly referring to something which is purely external. In the former example, I don't believe the minutes can be considered complete without including what the assembly actually adopted as its statement of principles, whereas the latter would be complete without scientific explanation.

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