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Committee Meetings - No requirement for minutes?


anon

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RONR (11th ed.). p. 500, XVI. 5 says, "In small committees, the chairman usually acts as secretary, but in large ones and many standing committees, a secretary may be chosen to keep a brief memorandum in the nature of minutes for the use of the committee."

Is there a more explicit citation that allows committees to forego taking meeting minutes? Or is the silence on this requirement to be interpreted as no requirement for it?

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4 minutes ago, anon said:

RONR (11th ed.). p. 500, XVI. 5 says, "In small committees, the chairman usually acts as secretary, but in large ones and many standing committees, a secretary may be chosen to keep a brief memorandum in the nature of minutes for the use of the committee."

Is there a more explicit citation that allows committees to forego taking meeting minutes? Or is the silence on this requirement to be interpreted as no requirement for it?

Not directly, but:

"The official record of the proceedings of a deliberative assembly is usually called the minutes, or sometimes—particularly in legislative bodies—the journal."  RONR (11th ed.), p. 468

A committee is not a deliberative assembly.  See §1. THE DELIBERATIVE ASSEMBLY 

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I'm still confused...Our condo association has a Parking Committee.  Are we required to keep minutes?  If yes, do they have to be approved by vote at the next meeting, or can approval be done via e-mail?  What do you do about the minutes of the last meeting of the committee?  How do they get approved?

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On 1/24/2020 at 4:33 PM, anon said:

I can see what I'm up against trying to learn from a book in this case.

I recommend that you don't try to memorize rules but, rather, try to understand the principles.

A committee is not a deliberative assembly. A deliberative assembly keeps records of its actions, which are motions. That record is the minutes. A committee, on the other hand, does not take actions but makes recommendations to the deliberative assembly. It doesn't need to take minutes to keep a record of that, since the committee's report and recommendations are the record of what the committee did.

Hope this helps.

1 hour ago, Guest Susan said:

Parking Committee.  Are we required to keep minutes?

No. And the rest of your questions become moot.

Edited by Atul Kapur
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