Minority Report to accompany meeting minutes

[Guest Wendy]

If the minutes of a meeting, according to 1/3 of the body, fail to represent the general discussion on a policy issue, do members of the body have the right to file a minorty report to accompany the minutes?

[Guest Edgar]

If the minutes of a meeting, according to 1/3 of the body, fail to represent the general discussion on a policy issue, do members of the body have the right to file a minorty report to accompany the minutes?

The minutes should not attempt to represent any discussion. They are intended as the official record of what was done (e.g. motions), not what was said (e.g. discussion and debate). Follow this rule and there'll be no need for any minority report.

That said, the minutes can include whatever a majority wants them to include.

[JohnR]

And if they are still unhappy, the answer is still no, there isn't any such right.

[Gary Novosielski]

A minority report refers to the report of a committee, or rather to a report of a minority of a committee who disagree with the committee's report. Reports are typically recommendations for action. So it's not uncommon to have several ideas on what is the proper course of action.

But minutes are a factual record of what was decided at a meeting. As such, there should not be different schools of thought about what actually happened. So "minority minutes" would be some sort of alternate reality, and don't belong in the real minutes.

[JohnR]

I think this happened in Star Trek once, though. Suddenly the secretary had a beard and was pushing an utterly evil version of the minutes.