Published minutes

[The Fessor]

What’s the definition of “published minutes”? Does it mean published solely to the members, or available to the public at large?

[Hieu H. Huynh]

Generally the minutes are to be made available to members to review. Whether the minutes would be made available to the public is up to your rules.

[Gary Novosielski]

But making them available to members, even after approval, is not "publishing".  In virtually all ordinary societies, you can safely ignore rules regarding "published" minutes.

 

[Josh Martin]

13 hours ago, The Fessor said:

What’s the definition of “published minutes”? Does it mean published solely to the members, or available to the public at large?

Why do you ask? The fact that the minutes are or are not published is of no consequence so far as the rules in RONR are concerned. I will say that, generally speaking, to “publish” would refer to making a document available to the public at large.

The minutes must be made available to the members of the assembly, but they need not be made available to the public at large unless required to do so by the society’s rules or applicable law. Even if the assembly is required to (or chooses to) make its minutes available to the public, this has absolutely no effect on the rules pertaining to the minutes.

5 hours ago, Gary Novosielski said:

But making them available to members, even after approval, is not "publishing".  In virtually all ordinary societies, you can safely ignore rules regarding "published" minutes.

Especially since there are no longer any such rules. RONR no longer uses the term “published minutes,” no doubt to avoid the confusion caused by that phrase.

“Sometimes a society wishes to have a full record of its proceedings made available to the public, and when such a record of the proceedings is to be published (in which case it is often called "proceedings," "transactions," or the like), it frequently contains, in addition to the information described above for inclusion in the minutes, a list of the speakers on each side of every question, with an abstract or the text of each address... Any such record or transcript of the proceedings prepared for publication, however, does not take the place of the minutes, and it is the minutes which comprise the official record of the assembly's proceedings.” (RONR, 11th ed., pgs. 475-476)

Edited June 20, 2018 at 05:57 PM by Josh Martin

[The Fessor]

Thanks for your responses everyone....I appreciate your time.