minutes availability

[Guest Doris Maddox]

After a meeting, when can the minutes be made available to the committee officers. We meet once every 6 weeks and minutes were completed within 24 hours of the last meeting. However, when a member of the board requested a copy of the minutes, they were told that the copy could not be obtained until the next meeting. These minutes contained critical information/ decisions and needed to be reviewed before the next meeting.

[jstackpo]

Who told the member "No"?

Normally minutes remain in the possession of the Secretary and don't get "revealed" to the membership until the meeting when they are approved.

However, you could adopt a"Standing Rule" that the draft minutes (clearly marked as "DRAFT") be sent around as soon as soon as necessary. But you can't do that until the next meeting, or hold a special meeting to do so.

Meanwhile ask real politely, explaining the immediate need for information. Perhaps that will work

[David A Foulkes]

After a meeting, when can the minutes be made available to the committee officers. We meet once every 6 weeks and minutes were completed within 24 hours of the last meeting. However, when a member of the board requested a copy of the minutes, they were told that the copy could not be obtained until the next meeting. These minutes contained critical information/ decisions and needed to be reviewed before the next meeting.

RONR does allow for the practice of sending copies of the draft minutes to all members in advance of the meeting at which they will be approved. In such a case, while the chair would announce that this has been done and therefore the actual reading of the minutes will be bypassed, any one member may object and require that they be read aloud prior to corrections/approval. My point - RONR does not prevent this (pre-release of minutes draft), so whoever said this was not possible/allowed was wrong, per RONR. Whether it is done that way is another issue that Mr. Stackpole has addressed.

[Dan Honemann]

After a meeting, when can the minutes be made available to the committee officers. We meet once every 6 weeks and minutes were completed within 24 hours of the last meeting. However, when a member of the board requested a copy of the minutes, they were told that the copy could not be obtained until the next meeting. These minutes contained critical information/ decisions and needed to be reviewed before the next meeting.

I think you will find the paragraph that begins on page 355, line 12, of RONR (11th ed.) informative, including its reminder that "... the minutes do not become the minutes and assume their essential status as the official record of the proceedings of the society until they have been approved; and before this happens, the secretary's draft may be materially modified in the correction process."