Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2010 10:07:13 -0500
From: Tom Glendinning
Subject: Verbatim Minutes
While I appreciate the argument to keep all officials of a deliberative body accountable, minutes have a specific role in recording the business of assemblies.
The standards for minutes are:
1. the kind of meeting, regular, special, adjourned regular, adjourned special
2. the name of the society or assembly
3. the date, time and place
4. the fact of the presence of the chairman and secretary, or substitutes
5. reading of the minutes of the previous meeting, with amendments
6. all main motions, wording of all business brought to the body and its disposition
7. secondary motions not lost or withdrawn
8. all notices of motions
9. all points of order and appeals with dispositions
10. the hour of adjournment – last paragraph
Other rules are:
11. name of seconder should not be entered into the minutes unless ordered by the assembly
12. the number of votes on each side and establishment of a quorum
13. proceedings of the committee of the whole not entered into minutes
14. questions considered informally entered into minutes as under regular rules, as in debate
15. a committee report of great importance or of import to the legislative history of a measure (can be ordered into the minutes by the assembly “to be entered into the minutes”
16. name and subject of a guest speaker, without summary
Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised, 10th edition (RONR)
The minutes are instruments of record. As such they should reflect the identity of the body, the business conducted, and date, place, and time of call to order and time of adjournment. Discussion is not a matter of record except as listed above. If the minutes are to be published, speakers on each side of an issue should be recorded along with an abstract of the text of each address, called proceedings.
Corrections to minutes are made before adoption or approval. Once approved and entered, they may be modified by a motion to “Amend Something Previously Adopted.”
As a parliamentarian of more than twenty years, I appreciate the record afforded by minutes. More importantly, I appreciate brevity of both meetings and minutes. Long meetings border on disrespect for the time and intelligence of participants and audience. Information necessary for deliberation should be available beforehand to all participants/officals. The county website offers information to citizens, most of the time. Access is not guaranteed all the time.
More detail than most want to know, I am sure, but I err on the side of proper procedure. Since the proceedings are recorded digitally, those digital recordings should serve as sufficient record of what was said. The accurate recording of written minutes is the responsibility of the secretary and the officals adopting them. Minutes are signed by the secretary, not the president/chairman, unless the assembly so orders.
A summary of rules of order as modified by the county commission would be an interesting and necessary record. The body is governed by Robert’s Rules (RONR) but, obviously practices some variations on it. Any changes in rules should have been recorded as they impact each and every committee and board operating in the county. “Usual and customary” practice does not cover procedure unless amendments to bylaws have been adopted by a two thirds vote. In this case, the new rules should have been published under “special rules” of the body.
Tom Glendinning
American Institute of Parliamentarians Region V