As a volunteer treasurer or other board member, it can be difficult to understand what exactly should happen at a board meeting. This is especially true if you’ve never served on a board before. Being able to record your board’s agenda, as well as taking notes, or the minutes of the meeting, doesn’t come naturally and by instinct for anyone.

Requirements vs Discretion

There’s a lot of important information that needs to be taken down when NFPs meet, so it’s vital that someone gets the details right when they take down the minutes. Some of what happens during board meetings is required to be recorded by various regulatory or oversight bodies. Other events and details can be recorded at the discretion of the secretary taking the minutes.

It’s important for the person that records the minutes to have a thorough understanding of what information needs to be captured, what information should be recorded in order to assist the board later, and what information should be left out of the minutes entirely. How to keep all of the requirements straight, in addition to one’s other duties, is difficult for most secretaries, regardless of how much experience they have with the board.

Helpful Resource for Setting the Agenda and Recording the Minutes

The Minutes Handbook: The Complete Guide for Not-for-Profits Boards is a helpful new resource that is now available from The Institute of Community Directors Australia. Not only is this an indispensable guide for the secretary, the rest of the board should find it useful as well.

In addition to explaining what should and should not be included in the minutes, the Guide contains a number of detailed examples, drafts and templates for both agendas and the minutes. The guide also comes with a decision making tool and a list of follow up tasks to help the secretary and others stay on track before, during and after their meetings.

The guide also assists boards by helping them learn what the types of business that they should go over during their meetings and assists them with setting the agenda. This is a particularly useful feature since having a detailed agenda helps the board to stay on track during their meetings and increases productivity.

If you’re ready to improve your board’s minutes of the meeting and make your meetings more interesting and effective, be certain to get your copy of The Minutes Handbook today!