03/08/2022

The Ins and Outs of Taking Effective Board Meeting Minutes

They act as a road map for the board

Imagine this scenario: Your board of directors is having its first meeting of the term. The first item on the agenda is to approve a service contract that was initially discussed six months ago. There’s just one problem. Since all of the directors are newly elected, none of them participated in the original discussion. They can’t reach consensus because they’re missing some key historical details, and the meeting is dragging.

Then, the board secretary proposes a simple solution: Check the previous minutes. Good idea. Minutes are an essential part of board meetings because they are an objective historical record of decisions, actions and spending. They also act as a road map for the board because reviewing the documents can give excellent detail as to the health of the organization.

If you want to look at the pulse of an organization, the minutes can tell you a lot. A board without minutes is like the kid in school who “did his homework” but forgot it at home. Words can only go so far in trying to “say” what the actual minutes provide. Therefore, appropriately storing or filing the minutes is just as important as taking them.

Please select this link to read the complete article from ASAE's Center for Association Leadership.