correcting minutes

[Guest Sara]

When Minutes(draft) are distributed via e-mail; our secretary says "Kindly review and advise me of any corrections you would like made to these minutes before we approve them at the next board meeting"

So, if her request is followed, how does she ensure that ALL members have rec'd all the corrections except to read the minutes at the meeting, which defeats the purpose of e-mailing them.

My suggestion would be to have the corrections presented AT the meeting so all are able to hear and make their corrections on their Drafts.

What do you think?

[Robert B Fish]

When Minutes(draft) are distributed via e-mail; our secretary says "Kindly review and advise me of any corrections you would like made to these minutes before we approve them at the next board meeting"

So, if her request is followed, how does she ensure that ALL members have rec'd all the corrections except to read the minutes at the meeting, which defeats the purpose of e-mailing them.

My suggestion would be to have the corrections presented AT the meeting so all are able to hear and make their corrections on their Drafts.

What do you think?

"If it is desired to approve the minutes without having them read, it is necessary to suspend the rules for this purpose." p457.

-Bob

[hmtcastle]

What do you think?

The secretary is free to incorporate any suggestions she receives into the minutes she submits for approval. There is no requirement that all, or any, members receive a copy of her final draft prior to submission.

[Josh Martin]

When Minutes(draft) are distributed via e-mail; our secretary says "Kindly review and advise me of any corrections you would like made to these minutes before we approve them at the next board meeting"

So, if her request is followed, how does she ensure that ALL members have rec'd all the corrections except to read the minutes at the meeting, which defeats the purpose of e-mailing them.

My suggestion would be to have the corrections presented AT the meeting so all are able to hear and make their corrections on their Drafts.

What do you think?

Either method is acceptable. If you believe yours is preferable, make a motion at the next board meeting. Majority rules.

[Matt Schafer]

Summary

I believe that corrections should not be made to the minutes outside of a meeting. If corrections are made outside of a meeting, the minutes should always be read before they are approved.

Reasoning

Here's the process for approving minutes, as far as I can see in RONR:

• Draft minutes may be distributed by the secretary before the meeting. [p. 457, l. 9-10]
  
• If draft minutes are distributed, reading of the minutes is not done unless requested by a member. [p. 343, l. 13-16 and p. 457, l. 11-13]
  
• If draft minutes are not distributed prior to the meeting, the secretary reads the minutes. [p. 343, l. 10-35 and p. 456, l. 28-32]
  
• The chair asks for corrections, which are usually done by unanimous consent. [p. 343, l. 18-19 and p. 456, l. 28-32]
  
• The minutes are then approved, usually by unanimous consent. [p. 343, l. 19-22 and p. 456, l. 28-32]
  

By this process, the secretary isn't free to incorporate any suggestions into the minutes submitted for approval. Mr. Mountcastle is correct that there is no requirement that the members receive a copy of the final draft, but such a requirement isn't necessary. Since all corrections are done at the meeting, all of the members should have the exact same copy of the draft minutes: the only one that the secretary distributed.

While corrections and approval of the minutes are usually done by unanimous consent, if there is an objection, a motion can be made, followed by debate. Debate cannot occur in the absence of a meeting. Furthermore, a member has no way of knowing if someone else has suggested a correction to the minutes that contradicts his or her recollection of what happened in the previous meeting if the correction is made prior to the meeting and the revised draft minutes are not read.

Good Practice

A secretary worth his or her weight in gold would jot down every suggestion for a correction, along with the person who made it, and would tell each member to bring up the correction at the next meeting. But the draft submitted for approval is the same one that was originally distributed. If one of those suggestions isn't made at the meeting, the secretary can remind the chair to ask the member for the correction.

If the changes are incorporated into the final draft of the minutes, the chair should have the secretary read the new version of the draft minutes. And if he's on top of things, he should tell the assembly that this version is different than the draft they have, so that confusion is reduced.

[Kim Goldsworthy]

So, if her request is followed, how does she ensure that ALL members have rec'd all the corrections except to read the minutes at the meeting, which defeats the purpose of e-mailing them?

She doesn't.

There is no requirement that 100% coverage is even necessary.

The minutes will be amended at the meeting. - Members will make motions so.

My suggestion would be to have the corrections presented AT the meeting so all are able to hear and make their corrections on their Drafts.

What do you think?

Bad idea.

Waste of time, when you already have the secretary's open-door policy for input.

A duplication of effort.

Time wasted inside a meeting is a bigger loss that time wasted outside of a meeting.

[Larry Cisar]

The secretary could collect all the proposed corrections and email out a final draft just before the meeting. Thus all would have the same copy at the meeting and a lot of time might be saved.

[Rev Ed]

As I act as Secretary for a Not-for-Profit group, I can tell you what I do: I write-up a draft copy of the Minutes following a meeting, then send them out by e-mail (as an attachment, as I write them up in Microsoft Word.) I then ask for corrections or alterations. Once I have received a few comments, I'll edit the Minutes and re-send them out to members, again asking for more corrections. This usually will be sufficient. I have yet to do more than two drafts (although that is technically possible.) As the latest draft will go without corrections before the meeting, I simply ask for a motion to "Dispense with the reading of the Minutes of the "month", "day", "year" meeting and approve them as presented." This motion will be moved and seconded and approved by unanimous consent. This has generally been accepted as it saves time from dealing with a routine issue so the Board can get onto more important issues.

[David A Foulkes]

When Minutes(draft) are distributed via e-mail; our secretary says "Kindly review and advise me of any corrections you would like made to these minutes before we approve them at the next board meeting"

So, if her request is followed, how does she ensure that ALL members have rec'd all the corrections except to read the minutes at the meeting, which defeats the purpose of e-mailing them.

My suggestion would be to have the corrections presented AT the meeting so all are able to hear and make their corrections on their Drafts.

What do you think?

Okay, I have to ask....... with "all" these corrections being submitted to the Secretary post-meeting, what the heck was she doing at the meeting? Apparently not taking very good notes. If the minutes are kept to the "what was done" parts, and the "what was said" parts are left out, it would seem a simple task to track motions made and carried or lost, with a few other mentions of reports given and so forth. Oh sure, I suppose some meetings can get a little more involved, but still...... how often are officers elected, bylaws amended, etc?

If the Secretary incorporates, as best she can, the several corrections she receives (some quite possibly conflicting with others, and then what?), and then emails a "final draft" or even does it the old-fashioned way and reads them at the next meeting, some people (unaware of corrections submitted by others) may be disturbed by "her" record of what transpired and consider replacing her for ineptitude, lest she also keep track of which member submitted what correction, and noting how she may have altered it in her draft, if at all. Again, keeping to "done-not-said should leave very few corrections to be made, if any, I would think.

I will welcome any page citations suggesting the secretary solicit, or even accept, any "corrections" to her minutes outside the meeting. Quite likely I haven't gotten to that section yet.

[Gary c Tesser]

Don't hold your breath. And more likely the writers haven't gotten to that section yet, and are unlikely to.

[Josh Martin]

As the latest draft will go without corrections before the meeting, I simply ask for a motion to "Dispense with the reading of the Minutes of the "month", "day", "year" meeting and approve them as presented." This motion will be moved and seconded and approved by unanimous consent.

You should discontinue this part of the practice. "Dispense with the reading of the minutes" is a term of art in parliamentary law, and is used when it is desired to read the minutes at a later time. (RONR, 10th ed., pg. 456, line 35 - pg. 457, line 6) Since the latest draft of the minutes has been distributed in advance, a motion is unnecessary - the minutes are not read unless a member demands it. (RONR, 10th ed., pg. 457, lines 11-13)

[Rev Ed]

Okay - thanks for that.

[Gary c Tesser]

N. B. While it may be that a life is priceless, a darn good secretary can be hired for a lot less than her weight in gold. (I suspect that the estimable Matt Schafer lost track of the figure of speech. If it weren't one of my betes noires, I'd have let it go. No RONR citation comes to mind: bad sign.)

[Matt Schafer]

N. B. While it may be that a life is priceless, a darn good secretary can be hired for a lot less than her weight in gold. (I suspect that the estimable Matt Schafer lost track of the figure of speech. If it weren't one of my betes noires, I'd have let it go. No RONR citation comes to mind: bad sign.)

Fair enough. I only suggested it as a way to help expedite the process of approving minutes. I completely agree that there is nothing in RONR that would justify my suggestion. But if I distribute draft minutes, and one of the members sends me a message, "I think that the motion in paragraph 3 was actually . . .", then I would write back, "Thanks for the suggestion. Be sure to say that at the next meeting when the chair asks for any corrections to the minutes."

[hmtcastle]

if I distribute draft minutes, and one of the members sends me a message, "I think that the motion in paragraph 3 was actually . . .", then I would write back, "Thanks for the suggestion. Be sure to say that at the next meeting when the chair asks for any corrections to the minutes."

But if someone sends you a message, "You misspelled the name of our President, you have the date of the meeting wrong, and you put exclamation points in every place a period was called for", would you make those corrections before submitting your draft?

(By the way, I don't think Mr. Tesser was questioning your parliamentary reasoning, just your choice of idioms.)