Approve the minutes: Once corrections are complete, the chair asks for a motion to approve the minutes. One member makes the motion, a second member approves it, and the chair calls for a vote. The approval of meeting minutes goes through with a majority vote.
Multiple company secretaries have also told us that, as a rule of thumb, they spend four hours writing minutes for every hour of meeting time. This isn't surprising when you consider that the transcript of an hour's worth of conversation can reach 10,000 words and 20 pages of A4.
Taking the minutes at a meeting involves proper documentation and at a board meeting, is one of the duties performed by a company secretary. You need to correctly record the attendance at the meeting with the corresponding time and be objective when filling the minutes template.
They highlight the key issues that are discussed, motions proposed or voted on, and activities to be undertaken. The minutes of a meeting are usually taken by a designated member of the group. Their task is to provide an accurate record of what transpired during the meeting.
Minutes should start with the attendance and continue through the motion to close the meeting (opening and closing of the meeting should have times attached.) Each topic that is discussed should have a brief paragraph summarizing what was discussed.
Who is responsible for taking minutes for a meeting? The corporate secretary generally takes notes and prepares meeting minutes. If there is no specific role for this in your company, the job should rotate between people who know how to take notes for a meeting.
Robert's Rules (Section -16) state that “the minutes should contain mainly a record of what was done at the meeting, not what was said by the members.” Minutes are not transcripts of meetings; rather, the document contains a record of actions taken by the body, organized by the meeting's order of business (agenda).
What do the minutes contain? Time, date and place of meeting. List of people attending. List of absent members of the group. Approval of the previous meeting's minutes, and any matters arising from those minutes. For each item in the agenda, a record of the principal points discussed and decisions taken.