Minutes of Board meetings are an essential tool for fostering transparency, accountability, and risk reduction. The way your minutes are recorded can determine their effectiveness or not. If they’re required in the future for legal reasons, poor, inaccurate or unclear minutes of board meetings could be a liability. It’s crucial to know what information should be included and what information can be not included.
The date time, location and date This will ensure that the minutes are a true account of the meeting. You’ll also need to know whether it was a regular or special meeting.
Summary of the agenda: Include the major aspects of any reports that were presented to the board as and any alternatives being taken into consideration for key decisions. Also, you should record the outcomes of the decision-making process and any votes taken.
Attendance: having the same person take minutes of each meeting, and having an alternate in case they’re absent will result in more consistent, clearer board minutes. It’s also beneficial to use past minutes as templates, so that any new minute-taker is familiar with the process.
Be objective – not the emotional drama Make sure you keep critiques, personal disagreements or disputes, and political commentary out of your time. Idle chats, jokes news recaps, current events, and any other unrelated conversations should be removed from the minutes as well. It is also essential to record any changes made to the minutes.