Writing Meeting Minutes

Taking meeting minutes is an essential part of a business meeting. When writing meeting minutes, you outline your project, along with important details such as who is responsible for what action, when, how, and so on.

Meeting minutes can be defined as written or recorded documentation that is used to inform people of what happened during the meeting and define the next step planned. To write effective meeting minutes you should include:

•            The names of the participants

•            Agend a items

•            Calendar or due dates

•            Actions or tasks

•            The main points

•            Future decisions

•            Documents: images, attached files

Before the meeting

You need to be prepared for the different topics to be addressed during the meeting, noting what you know about them in order to save time and to be able to focus on other important topics during the meeting. If not, you might end up on the margins of the meeting being too busy taking notes.

During the meeting

Meeting minutes are an effective part to successful meetings, yet they need to be appropriately written and distributed in time. The main problem with reports is that they take a long time to be written down properly, and that they must be sent quickly after the meetings to let everyone know about their next projects or actions.

You need to build your notes as the meeting progresses. A good way of organizing your notes is to differentiate actions from remarks as well as noting the different actions per person with a deadline.

After the meeting

Type out your notes in a logical manner and not chronologically. They need to be organized in order to be sent to your colleagues. Also, adding a short summary for each person and for each project at the end of the minutes helps your colleagues quickly look at the minutes and understand the actions they need to acknowledge.

Sample

Murray Co.Monthly Board Meeting Date: 3 March 2019

Time: 1:30 p.m.

Location: Main Boardroom, Murray Co. Head Office, Toronto, ON

Chairperson: Taylor Percy, General Manager

Secretary: Mindy Chen

Attendants

Sarah Lee, Director, Operations

Andrew Torres, Manager, Human Resources Sharon Glass, Director, Corporate Services Ryan Epstein, Director of Finance

Jerry Han, Director, Marketing and Sales Farah Khan, Special Planning Advisor Members absent:

Dawn Evaniuk, Special Planning Advisor

1. Review of Previous Minutes

Andrew Torres proposed a change to the wording of the fifth sentence of Item 9 to read “...on completion of the final report, committee members will each receive their own copy.”

Members accepted the proposed change and the revised minutes were adopted unanimously.

2. Review of Agenda—Chairperson

Items 9 and 10on the Agenda, both dealing with the development of the marketing strategy

and plan for next year will be deferred until the following meeting when Dawn Evaniuk will be present.

Action: Dawn Evaniuk

3. Status of Upcoming Operational Review

Sarah Lee passed out copies of her latest status report stating that progress was excellent and that preparation for the review is ahead of schedule.

She answered questions from members.

The Chairperson requested a breakdown of the costs todate to be tabled at the next meeting.

Action: Sarah Lee

4. Employee AssistanceProgram

AndrewTorres who tabled this item explained that the contract with our current service provider will be ending on 30 May. He stated that the costs for this service have been quite high over the last three years with the current contractor. Therefore, he is proposing that we solicit proposals to see if wecan find a more cost-effective service provider.

Members endorsed this suggestion. The Chairperson asked Andrew to proceed with the bid solicitation process so that the matter is resolved by the end of May.

Action: Andrew Torres

5. Closing Remarks

The Chairperson stated that he was very pleased with the status report.

Members were asked to continue with the development ofthe marketing strategy and plan for next year.

6. NextMeeting

The next meetingwill be held in the main Boardroom at 2 p.m. on 25 March, 2019

Now your turn：

Write a meeting minutes by using the following outline:

                                   Monthly BoardMeeting

Date:                              

Time:                    

Location: Chairperson: Secretary: Attendants: Members absent:  

1. Review of PreviousMinutes

A B

2. [ActionItem]

A.

Action:                                  

3. [ActionItem]

A.

Action:                                

4. [ActionItem]

A.

Action:                                  

5. ClosingRemarks

A.

B.

6. NextMeeting

The next meeting will be heldin