Who "owns" minutes?

[c kelly]

I am not a member of the committee in question, but have been asked to offer an opinion about the following matter. The committee is an academic departmental committee at a college.

In the customary practice of this committee the secretary distributed electronic copies minutes of a meeting to the members of the committee, marked as draft for their review prior to the next meeting (at which they were on the agenda for approval). At that next meeting the secretary arrived to find that the chair had made his own changes to those draft minutes. These were distributed as paper copies to the committee as members arrived for the meeting. These minutes were the minutes that were considered for adoption.

The secretary believes that it was not appropriate for the chairman to modify her minutes on his own. The chairman maintains that since he is the chairman he had the right to make the changes he made. My view is that the secretary is correct. Minutes and their preparation and maintenance are specified duties of secretaries, not of chairmen. Would any of you concur? Or, would any of you hold a different opinion? The chairman and secretary of this committee are not speaking to each other because of this. This situation threatens the ability of the committee to function. My department chairman wants an external opinion to help settle the disagreement.

[Tim Wynn]

I am not a member of the committee in question, but have been asked to offer an opinion about the following matter. The committee is an academic departmental committee at a college.

In the customary practice of this committee the secretary distributed electronic copies minutes of a meeting to the members of the committee, marked as draft for their review prior to the next meeting (at which they were on the agenda for approval). At that next meeting the secretary arrived to find that the chair had made his own changes to those draft minutes. These were distributed as paper copies to the committee as members arrived for the meeting. These minutes were the minutes that were considered for adoption.

The secretary believes that it was not appropriate for the chairman to modify her minutes on his own. The chairman maintains that since he is the chairman he had the right to make the changes he made. My view is that the secretary is correct. Minutes and their preparation and maintenance are specified duties of secretaries, not of chairmen. Would any of you concur? Or, would any of you hold a different opinion? The chairman and secretary of this committee are not speaking to each other because of this. This situation threatens the ability of the committee to function. My department chairman wants an external opinion to help settle the disagreement.

The secretary is right. The chair is wrong.

[Guest Edgar]

Would any of you concur?

I expect you'll find that all of the regular contributors to this forum will concur with your secretary.

If that's not enough for the chair, the burden of proof is on him to cite a rule giving him the authority to alter the secretary's draft prior to submission. The burden of proof is not on the secretary, or anyone else, to prove that such a rule doesn't exist.

Which is not to say that the chair, or indeed any other member, can't offer corrections, even extensive corrections, to the draft submitted by the secretary for approval at the next meeting. But that doesn't appear to be what's happening here. The proper sequence is submit, correct, approve, not correct, submit, approve.

[Gary c Tesser]

Mr Wynn's reply correctly conveys the position of RONR. It the department's rules convey more authority than what RONR prescribes, ask the chairman to show you where it says that.

[Gary c Tesser]

Didn't I just say that, only later?

[c kelly]

Thank you very much everyone for your input. I am the parliamentarian of our institutions academic senate and departments often call on me to resolve questions they have about their departmental committees. I felt a special obligation to be absolutely sure about this one since the people concerned are people I see everyday. I felt that my review of the duties of the secretary, orders of the day and minutes all pointed to the conclusion that the secretary was right about this. The committee chairman also happens to be an attorney though. He will understand the reply that it is his burden to prove he was right. This committee has by laws, however nothing in those by laws is more restrictive than RONR.

[rthib]

My only quibble is the title question.

The Secretary is responsible for preparing the minutes that are to be approved.

Until they are submitted by Secretary they are just the secretaries "notes".

Once submitted and afterwards, the membership "owns" the minutes.

[Sean Hunt]

Thank you very much everyone for your input. I am the parliamentarian of our institutions academic senate and departments often call on me to resolve questions they have about their departmental committees. I felt a special obligation to be absolutely sure about this one since the people concerned are people I see everyday. I felt that my review of the duties of the secretary, orders of the day and minutes all pointed to the conclusion that the secretary was right about this. The committee chairman also happens to be an attorney though. He will understand the reply that it is his burden to prove he was right. This committee has by laws, however nothing in those by laws is more restrictive than RONR.

I would add the point that the chair, as a member of the assembly, does have the right to offer corrections at the meeting and, if they are contentious, should be voted on. But based on my experience with academic institutions and minutes, there is probably more in the minutes than ought to be there. In an academic institution, having meeting notes around as institutional memory is a good idea, but they should not be part of the minutes.