approval of previous meeting minutes - and quorums

[Guest anne]

If a meeting is held in March and the attendees were: mary, john, cathy and joe, the absentees were: anne, bob and adam, for the minute approval in April does it matter who is in attendance to approve the minutes?  For example if in the April meeting if anne, bob , john and mary were in attendance and the others absent but still there is a quorum, can the minutes be approved solely by the chairman or does it have to be tabled until those that were in the March meeting are there?

[Rev Ed]

Nope.  As long as there is quorum it does not matter who is at one meeting and who is at another meeting.

[Transpower]

That's actually an interesting question.  It's possible that the minutes could be approved by a majority of individuals who were not actually at the previous meeting.  Of course, the minutes could always be amended later....

[George Mervosh]

If a meeting is held in March and the attendees were: mary, john, cathy and joe, the absentees were: anne, bob and adam, for the minute approval in April does it matter who is in attendance to approve the minutes?  For example if in the April meeting if anne, bob , john and mary were in attendance and the others absent but still there is a quorum, can the minutes be approved solely by the chairman or does it have to be tabled until those that were in the March meeting are there?

 

" It should be noted that a member's absence from the meeting for which minutes are being approved does not prevent the member from participating in their correction or approval."  RONR (11th ed.), p. 355

[Guest Edgar]

It's possible that the minutes could be approved by a majority of individuals who were not actually at the previous meeting.  

 

Since the approval of the minutes is not subject to a vote I'd have to say it's not possible.

[Rev Ed]

Since the approval of the minutes is not subject to a vote I'd have to say it's not possible.

 

The Minutes as a whole maybe, but not individual corrections.  Just because this is normally handled through unanimous consent does not mean that there is not a vote at times.

[Guest anne]

confused...regarding guest edgar

 

the approval of minutes are subject to a vote.....

[David A Foulkes]

the approval of minutes are subject to a vote.....

Not according to RONR:

 

Reading and Approval of Minutes. The chair says, "The Secretary will read the minutes." However, in organizations where copies of the minutes of each previous meeting as prepared by the secretary are sent to all members in advance, the chair announces that this has been done, and the actual reading of them aloud is omitted unless any member then requests that they be read. (RONR 11th ed., p. 354 ll. 9-15)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

After any proposed corrections have been disposed of, and when there is no response to the chair's inquiry, "Are there any corrections [or "further corrections"] to the minutes?" the chair says, "There being no corrections [or "no further corrections"] to the minutes, the minutes stand [or "are"] approved [or "approved as read," or "approved as corrected"]." The minutes are thus approved without any formal vote, even if a motion for their approval has been made. The only proper way to object to the approval of the secretary's draft of the minutes is to offer a correction to it. It should be noted that a member's absence from the meeting for which minutes are being approved does not prevent the member from participating in their correction or approval. (RONR 11th ed. p. 354 l. 34 - p. 355 l. 11)

[Josh Martin]

If a meeting is held in March and the attendees were: mary, john, cathy and joe, the absentees were: anne, bob and adam, for the minute approval in April does it matter who is in attendance to approve the minutes?  For example if in the April meeting if anne, bob , john and mary were in attendance and the others absent but still there is a quorum, can the minutes be approved solely by the chairman or does it have to be tabled until those that were in the March meeting are there?

 

No final vote is taken on the approval of the minutes. After any corrections are handled, the chair declares the minutes approved. Most corrections are handled by unanimous consent, but a majority vote is sufficient if there is disagreement. Members are free to participate in this process regardless of whether they were present at the meeting in question, but as in all cases, the members should use their best judgment.

 

The assembly is not required to postpone (not table - see FAQ #12) the approval of the minutes to the next meeting on the basis that not many members from that meeting are present at the current meeting, but it certainly can do so if it wishes. The motion to Postpone to a Certain Time is debatable, amendable, and requires a majority vote for adoption. This should generally be unnecessary, but it may be desirable if there is serious disagreement over what happened at the meeting in question.

 

That's actually an interesting question.  It's possible that the minutes could be approved by a majority of individuals who were not actually at the previous meeting.  Of course, the minutes could always be amended later....

 

The Minutes as a whole maybe, but not individual corrections.  Just because this is normally handled through unanimous consent does not mean that there is not a vote at times.

 

As noted, it is not possible for the minutes to be "approved by a majority of individuals who were not actually at the previous meeting," but yes, it is possible for an individual correction to be approved (or rejected) by such a majority. This may or may not be a problem. The correction may be based on a disagreement over the rules regarding the content of the minutes, in which case, the members' presence or absence at the previous meeting is immaterial. I acknowledge that this may be problematic if the correction is based on a dispute over the facts of what happened at the previous meeting, but this problem really shouldn't arise.

 

Firstly, it should be very rare that a correction is the subject of disagreement. If this happens with any degree of frequency, this suggests one or more of the following problems (in which case, the individual correction or set of minutes at issue is just a symptom of such problems):

• The assembly is not following the rules regarding the content of the minutes (in particular, such problems frequently arise when assemblies summarize what was said in debate).
• The assembly is not following the rules regarding the approval of the minutes. For instance, perhaps an assembly waits a year to approve the minutes of the annual meeting, rather than using a minutes approval committee as RONR recommends for such cases.
• The assembly's Chair and/or Secretary fail to follow basic procedures which help to ensure accuracy in the minutes, such as requiring members to provide motions in writing.
• The assembly's members fail to understand the purpose of approving the minutes - that is, to confirm their accuracy, not to rehash debates over the motions in the minutes.

Secondly, even if there is disagreement over the correction, one would hope that members who haven't the slightest idea whether the correction is accurate would abstain, even though they are not required to do so.