Minutes for a meeting are often a highly important part of any type of meeting. Although many people try to avoid being the minute taker, the fact of the matter is, you often need to have a set of minutes for each meeting that is held at your business.
But, why do we need minutes to be taken at a meeting? There are a few reasons why minutes are an important and vital part of your meeting.
They are often needed for legal purposes
If you want to keep your business in line with certain business laws and regulations, you need a clear set of minutes from each meeting that is held. Minutes will often provide the actions of the board, committee or company leaders and can be the main source of proof for any legal issues that may arise in the future. Meeting minutes are considered legal documents by auditors and the court system. Often if something isn’t mentioned or listed in the minutes of a meeting, it is considered that it didn’t in fact happen.
Better structure for your meeting
If you want a well-run meeting, chances are you need to add more structure to the meeting. Minutes can help achieve this in the way it is formatted and the types of information that is recorded. A minute-taker will often note down how those in the meeting come to an agreement or a solution for any issues and the minutes will describe how this decision was achieved. The name of the organisation, date and time of the meeting, attendees and who called the meeting to order is all listed in professional minutes. Any motions made, conflicts of interest, members abstained from voting and any other important facts about the meeting are all recorded. At the next meeting, the previous minutes are also approved by the leadership team. Minutes can help to provide more structure for all meetings and helps everyone involved to be on the same page.
They are used for measuring progress
If you have minutes from meetings that specify actions to be taken, who is responsible and what issues are to be resolved and by when this can provide you with a good accountability tool for your organisation. You can use the minutes to check on the progress of any issues and solutions that are due to be completed and achieved. It can help people who are listed as being responsible for certain actions to be more accountable in their role.
They help get work done
When you have meetings and it is not structured properly and nothing gets noted down, chances are staff and people involved rarely listen or go ahead with any work that is discussed in the meeting. If you have minutes recorded at your meetings, it gives people more drive to actually get the work done set before them. The minutes are plain and simple to see who needs to do what, by when and how. Meeting minutes also help those who couldn’t attend to understand who will be responsible for what actions.
Minutes can help state ownership
If votes are conducted at a meeting, the minutes will detail who voted and how they voted. Each individual name is recorded alongside each vote and this is highly important when it comes to legal complications in the future. The minutes can help provide legal protection in the event a lawsuit is filed against those who voted for a certain outcome in the meeting. Those voting in opposition can also gain legal protection thanks to the minutes taken at the meeting.
It’s fair to say that minutes conducted at a meeting can provide everyone involved with a valuable reason to have minutes taken each and every time. Depending on the nature of your meetings, you may have extensive and through minutes with plenty of details, or you may have short and simple minutes that include the basic information required. However, all key information will need to be included. The minute taker should have a decent knowledge of what this information should be in order to have the correct minutes.
If you’re looking for a professional minute-taker in Sydney and surrounds, Meetings Into Minutes can help you and your organisation. Whether it’s a one-off meeting, monthly or weekly meetings, we can assist with professional and accurate minutes. Contact Meetings Into Minutes today on 0421 388 337.
