Correcting minutes

[Guest M Woods]

My committee does not follow RONR in recording minutes, ie. They include the the topics of deliberation and often who said what.  In a past meeting, minutes now approved, some of what was in the minutes was demonstrably false.  Some of the "mistakes" were corrected, and some weren't, and the committee, over my objections, approved them anyway.  At a subsequent meeting, the deliberation for accepting the those minutes was now included with the corrections reflected by strike-through text.  I moved that the minutes should simply say, "The minutes of X meeting were approved as amended."  My motion was not approved.

The committee has informally said they want deliberations as part of minutes for future reference.  No formal vote has been taken.

What can be done at this point to address the situation.

[J. J.]

The "topics" should normally be recorded in the minutes.

The chair should ask it there are any more corrections to the minutes, and if there are none, declare the minutes approved. 

[Richard Brown]

The society itself is the ultimate judge of what should and should not be included in the minutes. This can be determined by rule, by custom, or on a case-by-case basis.

However, as you can see, when the minutes get into "he said - she said", it becomes very problematic. The minutes are intended to be a legal record of what was done, not what was said.

Edited February 20, 2018 at 02:08 PM by Richard Brown

[Guest Who's Coming to Dinner]

2 hours ago, Guest M Woods said:

My committee does not follow RONR in recording minutes, ie. They include the the topics of deliberation and often who said what.

In fact, committees should not have formal minutes unless they are very large or their work is unusually complex. So all this business of approving minutes is a waste of time, especially because your members insist on treating them like lecture notes.

[Joshua Katz]

1 hour ago, Guest Who's Coming to Dinner said:

In fact, committees should not have formal minutes unless they are very large or their work is unusually complex. So all this business of approving minutes is a waste of time, especially because your members insist on treating them like lecture notes.

Hmm.  My lecture notes certainly don't include discussion.

[Richard Brown]

3 hours ago, Guest Who's Coming to Dinner said:

In fact, committees should not have formal minutes unless they are very large or their work is unusually complex. So all this business of approving minutes is a waste of time, especially because your members insist on treating them like lecture notes.

I disagree. RONR does say that committees usually don't need formal minutes, but, without a doubt, every society and every committee is free to decide what it will put into its minutes and other records. If a committee wants detailed minutes, it may have detailed minutes. It is not for us to tell them what must and must not be in their minutes and Records

[Josh Martin]

11 hours ago, Guest M Woods said:

My committee does not follow RONR in recording minutes, ie. They include the the topics of deliberation and often who said what.  In a past meeting, minutes now approved, some of what was in the minutes was demonstrably false.  Some of the "mistakes" were corrected, and some weren't, and the committee, over my objections, approved them anyway.  At a subsequent meeting, the deliberation for accepting the those minutes was now included with the corrections reflected by strike-through text.  I moved that the minutes should simply say, "The minutes of X meeting were approved as amended."  My motion was not approved.

The committee has informally said they want deliberations as part of minutes for future reference.  No formal vote has been taken.

What can be done at this point to address the situation.

Since the rest of the committee seems happy with the way things are, it seems to me that your only recourse would be to take the issue to the parent assembly.