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Minutes are usually taken at both informal staff meetings and business gatherings or at formal business meetings. Minutes are usually prepared immediately after the meeting. Prior to the next formal meeting, each member should receive a review copy of the minutes of the prior month.

Some Common Checklist of things to do:

If you are recording the minutes, make sure you aren’t a major participant in the meeting. You can’t perform both tasks well.

Take attendance.

Sit as close as possible to the Chairperson

Focus on action items, not discussion

Avoid inflammatory or personal observations

Get the minutes approved. Minutes aren’t finalized until they’ve been approved and submitted by the meeting’s chair or the secretary.

To ensure accuracy of the minutes, a voice recording is usually made during the meeting. The recording is later transcribed to the minutes of the meeting. If notes are taken during the meetings, these are used by transcriptionists to ensure accuracy. However, if a voice recording is to made, it is proper to inform participants ahead of the meeting. Read some tips on How to record minutes of meetings

Preparation prior to the meeting is essential to ensure success. Have available copies of the agenda, pens, meeting packets, maps of the area and anything else that would be helpful to the participants.

When the meeting begins, try to adhere to the time lines that was set for the meeting. At the conclusion of the meeting, it is always a good practice to summarize the relevant discussion points, findings, conclusions or recommendations. Remind participants of the assignments. This is also a good time to engage them by asking for volunteers in other projects!

Here is a sample Minutes of Meeting, just plug in the values in items that are italicized:

Minutes of the Organization Name
Month Day, Year

The monthly Board of Directors’ meeting was held at location_of_meeting. The Board of Directors’ meeting was called to order at time_of_meeting by Officer_name.

Present: Names of participants present at the meeting
Absent: Names of participants that were absent at the meeting

Minutes of the Prior_Month were read and approved.

Minutes of first topic that was discussed.

Minutes of second topic that was discussed.

Meeting was adjourned at time_of_adjournment

Time, date and place of next meeting

Name of person taking the minutes.