Search the Community

I am a new board secretary for a small non-profit organization. I am having a difficult time with the contents of minutes. It appears that the only items I put in the Unfinished Business and New Business sections are items that actually had a motion made and voted on. What happens to topics in which an individual took or was given responsibility to follow up on or action items that were assigned. Here are a few of examples which came up in a recent meeting: Our building received a fire violation and the Director of Properties said he would contact the inspector. I discovered a local business had a volunteer program which we could benefit from and our vice-president was tasked to contact the business. There was no motion or vote but the VP was assigned by the president. We had a fund raising opportunity but the head of the committee did not have time to do it so she decided the "Beautification Committee" within our community (not affiliated with our organization) could take it on. Which organization would take this on had been discussed in previous meetings. I have a hard time not documenting these items as a history of what took place and for the purposes of following up on commitments. Any guidance you can give me will be greatly appreciated! Darlene

Please provide your opinion on this because I know I will see this brought up again in my organization: I made a motion to remove a sentence from the minutes and use RONR 10th edition (the edition they use per bylaws) and stated among other reasons that minutes contain a record of what was done at the meeting, not what was said by the members. p 451 l. 27-29 and therefore want some (inflamatory) words that were said to be removed from the minutes. On this point the counter argument is to say that if minutes are "published" they can keep it in and they quote "In an ordinary society, unless the minutes are to be published, they should contain mainly a record of what was done at the meeting, not what was said...." RONR (10th ed) p 451 lines 25-28 Question (1) Does the word "published" in RONR 10th ed on p 451 refer to that which is distributed to the public at large for distribution (as for governmental bodies)? Question (2 ) Or does "published" in RONR refer to anything a society (one with rules for membership) decides to print up and give their members? My thinking is "published" as used by RONR does NOT mean anything and everything once printed up and sent to members, no matter how many members, is "published" ; but that instead "published" in RONR is a term that refers to making records available to the general public (through for example distributing it via notices in newspapers and not restricting nonmember access to records/minutes as per their state law) I have the 11th edition, but the nonprofit corporation in this matter uses RONR 10th edition. (thankfully the words were removed, but I need other viewpoints since this is going to come up again at future meetings when they want to keep in objectionable sentences or words)