amending minutes from 2004

[Guest Joyce Gray]

Let me clarify what I was asking in the beginning. It's obvious all of you are experts in this and I confess I am NOT.

As a facilitator for our annual book club meeting (12 members, 8 present), I presented amendments to several different items contained within minutes from 2004 - 2010, for purposes of cleaning up the phrasing and writing something more succinct. Each item was discussed and approved by a unanimous vote or show of hands. I distributed the minutes along with an attachment (same document we worked from when amending) showing the changes we approved in italics/red print and simply removed the text that had been eliminated. Should I have used strikethroughs for this rather than italics/red print? A member who was absent said that I did this incorrectly and that I should have shown a motion and 2nd for each item. We are an informal group and we have a few guidelines for our membership but they aren't as rigid as a set of Bylaws. I don't like being accused of doing some procedurally wrong and it's bothering me. I thought that a unanimous show of hands was all that is needed for approval.

[hmtcastle]

I don't like being accused of doing some procedurally wrong and it's bothering me. I thought that a unanimous show of hands was all that is needed for approval.

Frankly, I think you should have left six years worth of minutes alone.

[Guest Joyce Gray]

Frankly, I think you should have left six years worth of minutes alone.

I would have liked to but it had to be done. The wording was inflammatory and unclear because the women recording the minutes in the past weren't very thorough and didn't understand how to state things positively. Everyone wanted the changes and I was designated to handle them so I didn't force any of this on anyone. I would have been ashamed for anyone to see them otherwise.

[hmtcastle]

the women recording the minutes in the past weren't very thorough and didn't understand how to state things positively.

It sounds like they were too thorough! Debate and discussion doesn't belong in the minutes (which, as we always say, are a record of what is done, not what is said) but once it's in there, it's in there for good. If approved minutes are amended, that fact is recorded in the minutes of the meeting at which they're amended, not in the minutes of the original meeting (though you can place a note in the margins to that effect). Even in the extreme case of adopting a motion to "rescind and expunge" (which should only be used to express displeasure with an action, not to clean up the text), the original text remains legible. So what the group wanted to do was, essentially, impossible.