Correction of minutes

[Guest Muriel]

Can minutes only be corrected at the next consecutive meeting, or can minutes from a prior meeting be corrected? For example, can the minutes for the May 2015 meeting (which were not corrected at the next consecutive meeting which was held in November 2015) be corrected at the May 2016 meeting?

[George Mervosh]

Yes.  See RONR (11th ed.), p. 475, ll. 18-24

It's not a good idea to wait 6 months to approve minutes. A board or committee should be appointed to approve them.  See RONR (11th ed.), pp. 474-475

[Guest]

The Board meets every six months - May and November. So am I understanding correctly that the board can correct the minutes of a year ago, even though another meeting has been held since at which time those minutes were not corrected?

[George Mervosh]

1 minute ago, Guest said:

The Board meets every six months - May and November. So am I understanding correctly that the board can correct the minutes of a year ago, even though another meeting has been held since at which time those minutes were not corrected?

That's correct.

[Richard Brown]

1 hour ago, Guest said:

The Board meets every six months - May and November. So am I understanding correctly that the board can correct the minutes of a year ago, even though another meeting has been held since at which time those minutes were not corrected?

As Mr. Mervosh said, it's not a good idea to wait six months to approve minutes.  If the board meets only once every six months, then a committee should be appointed before the end of each meeting to approve the minutes. 

From the bottom of page 474 of RONR:  "When the next regular business session will not be held within a quarterly time interval (see pp. 89–90), and the session does not last longer than one day, or in an organization in which there will be a change or replacement of a portion of the membership, the executive board or a committee appointed for the [page 475] purpose should be authorized to approve the minutes."

[Dan Honemann]

"If for any reason there are minutes of other meetings in addition to the last meeting that have not been read previously, they are each read and approved first, in order of date from earliest to latest."  (RONR, 11th ed., p. 354)

[Richard Brown]

1 hour ago, Guest said:

The Board meets every six months - May and November.

Guest Muriel, does your organization or your board have an executive committee that meets more often than every six months?  If so, a special rule of order can be adopted to authorize the executive board to approve the minutes of the board meetings.