Antleader
Guide
#6

Minutes and Record Keeping

The office of the secretary is an important responsibility whose records will provide continuity for your organization.

Choosing a Secretary

• Is this person reliable; do they keep their appointments?
• Is this person well organized; do they complete their task in a timely way?
• Is this person a good listener; are they able to be objective, not to make their own interpretations, and hear both sides of an issue?
• Is this person on top of what is going on; are they able to appropriately weed out the trivial information and record the important facts for the record?

Responsibilities/Minutes
Secretarial tasks can include correspondence to members as well as record­keeping. Historical records can be helpful for current members as a reminder of unfinished business and as a review for future officers. The secretary should be present at all meetings and records should be maintained of both general and committee meetings. Motions and resolutions should be recorded verbatim and should be read back during the meeting to make sure they have been adequately recorded.

The secretary should immediately ask for clarification if any subject being discussed becomes unclear. The following information should be included:

• Type of meeting (general, business, board, committee)
• Date, time and place
• List of attendees and those absent
• Time of call to order
• Approval and/or amendments to previous meeting minutes
• Record of proposals, resolutions, motions, seconding and final disposition, and a summary of the discussion
• Record of all voting results
• Time of adjournment
• Nomination or submission and transcriber's name

The chair or an executive officer should review a draft of the minutes before a final copy is produced. Members should receive a copy of the minutes in a timely manner and a master copy should be maintained in a notebook for the archives after minutes have been approved by the members.

Format
Minutes should be maintained in the following format:

• Capitalize and center the heading designating the meeting.
• Indent paragraphs five spaces.
• List names of those in attendance and those absent.
• Double space the text.
• Double space between paragraphs and triple space between each item in order of business.

Minutes can be recorded manually or on tape. If you choose to tape the minutes you can either tape the entire proceedings word-for-word and later re­listen to them pulling out the pertinent information following the guidelines outlined earlier. A second, more practical option is to record a summary of debates, agreements and disagreements with a sufficient explanation of the character of each. A third option is to record action minutes where only actual motions or resolutions are recorded, along with the individuals proposing the action. Delegated assignments should also be recorded.

Call the Office of the Dean of Students at (949) 824-5181 for more information on record-keeping.

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