Guest Danielle Posted December 11, 2012 at 03:17 AM Report Share Posted December 11, 2012 at 03:17 AM The group that I am involved in is having an issue with the accuracy of minutes. The secretary notes say one thing, most of the parents remember it differently and are pretty upset about it all. The meeting updates on Facebook confirms what the majority of parents says and the secretary posts these updates. How should all this be handled? Do we call for a new vote? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Novosielski Posted December 11, 2012 at 03:26 AM Report Share Posted December 11, 2012 at 03:26 AM A new vote on what? I think we need more specifics.Do you mean a motion was voted on, and passed according to the secretary's notes, but the parents remember it as having failed? Are these "parents" the members of the group that is meeting, or some sort of spectators?I'm going to guess that you're including things in the minutes that don't belong there, like who said what, instead of including only a record of the business actually transacted.When the minutes are up for approval, any member may offer a correction, and if there is disagreement on the correction, then a vote is taken. No reason to get upset, because the minutes always end up the way a majority wants them. But if you include only what was done and none of what was said, it will be easier to get agreement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Danielle Posted December 11, 2012 at 03:41 AM Report Share Posted December 11, 2012 at 03:41 AM This is a school based group. A fundraiser was done and a vote taken as to how to split the money. The vote was recorded by the secretary one way but the parents say they voted on something different. The minutes only show what was voted on and the results but that is what is being disputed. Should a motion be made to re-vote this issue or do the minutes stand? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Britton Posted December 11, 2012 at 05:46 AM Report Share Posted December 11, 2012 at 05:46 AM This is a school based group. A fundraiser was done and a vote taken as to how to split the money. The vote was recorded by the secretary one way but the parents say they voted on something different. The minutes only show what was voted on and the results but that is what is being disputed. Should a motion be made to re-vote this issue or do the minutes stand?Once the minutes are approved, they are the minutes.According to RONR, they can be materially amended by adopting the motion Amend Something Previously Adopted. (beginning on p. 305).However, if your school group is required to follow a state's sunshine laws, you may have statutes which take precedence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Nancy N. Posted December 11, 2012 at 06:04 AM Report Share Posted December 11, 2012 at 06:04 AM Let's nail something down. Guest Danielle. Were these minutes approved at the next meeting (or, if necessary, at a later one)? Note that until minutes are approved by the assembly, they are not an official document: they are notes, an unapproved draft, and if posted or distributed anywhere (Facebook, the school bulletin board, some hapless volunteer parents' foreheads), they should be prominently labelled an unapproved draft.For approval, see Gary Novosielski's third paragraph (post #2).Once they are approved, and errors are later found in them, see Mr. Britton's post (#4).Capcha trial 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David A Foulkes Posted December 11, 2012 at 12:46 PM Report Share Posted December 11, 2012 at 12:46 PM The group that I am involved in is having an issue with the accuracy of minutes. The secretary notes say one thing, most of the parents remember it differently and are pretty upset about it all. The minutes are the (official) record of what happened at a meeting. More accurately, it is a record of what the majority of members agree happened. If, at the meeting, the assembly agreed to split the net proceeds of the fundraiser 50-50 between Group A and Group B, then that's what happened. If the secretary's draft of the minutes indicate the split agreed to was 60-40, then when the minutes are presented for approval someone should offer a correction, which can be adopted either by unanimous consent (no objection registered) or majority vote. It's not clear who the members of this school based group are, and what role the parents play in it, but one would hope that if "most of the parents" (a phrasing I'll equate to a "majority") believe the secretary is mis-remembering the facts, then someone should be able to bring about a correction where/when needed, whether it's the parents themselves or some other representative of theirs at the meeting.In theory, the approval of the minutes is not a mechanism that allows the modificiation of previously adopted motions. There are processes available for that. If the meeting adopted a motion to split the funds in a certain way, then that's what happened. Simply claiming it was a different split does not make it so, but if enough of the membership needed to correct the error fails to do so, then whatcha gonna do? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Novosielski Posted December 11, 2012 at 02:09 PM Report Share Posted December 11, 2012 at 02:09 PM Should a motion be made to re-vote this issue or do the minutes stand?Maybe neither. There should be no need to re-vote. The vote was taken, and presumably the motion passed. I wasn't there, so I couldn't tell you what passed, but those who were there should be able to figure it out.And the minutes do not stand if they're incorrect. That's why there is an approval process. Follow it, and the minutes will be correct.Note that "correct" does not mean that the minutes describe what we wish had been done; "correct" means that they reflect what was actually done. If there's disagreement, you vote to accept the correction or not. Majority rules. Therefore, there is no way that the minutes can say something that "most" members don't approve of.Longer term, make sure that your secretary is taking accurate notes, and make sure that your presiding officer is stating exactly, word-for-word, what is being voted on, before the vote takes place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David A Foulkes Posted December 11, 2012 at 05:01 PM Report Share Posted December 11, 2012 at 05:01 PM Longer term, make sure that your secretary is taking accurate notes, and make sure that your presiding officer is stating exactly, word-for-word, what is being voted on, before the vote takes place.And to add to this, make sure that when the minutes are up for approval, if anyone disagrees with what the secretary has offered as the record, to promptly offer a correction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Danielle Posted December 11, 2012 at 05:16 PM Report Share Posted December 11, 2012 at 05:16 PM Thank you all for your input. The minutes, to my knowledge, have not been approved. So the first order of business should be presenting minutes for approval then it can all be sorted out. This helps a lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Nancy N Posted December 11, 2012 at 05:47 PM Report Share Posted December 11, 2012 at 05:47 PM Yeah. And in the meantime, calm the parents down and make sure the secretary knows the score and is not offended, then everyone will get along and can come to Brooklyn for kosher pizza as long as it's fairly early, that was our mistake yesterday.captcha try 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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