Keeping accurate minutes is an important part of ministry for at least these reasons:
- Shows respect and care for doing things "decently and in order"
- Helps the Team/Board/Committee stay unified, especially concerning decisions and history
- Enables healthy accountability to outside groups
- Elicits praise to God for His faithfulness during the Team’s history since minutes allow reflection on His faithfulness and work over time
Minutes should be formatted in this order, in general:
- Date and place of meeting
- Time the meeting started
- Who opened the meeting and how (prayer, devotional)
- Who attended and who was absent
- Major agenda items covered. Don't record all the various parts of dialogue or who spoke about what. Brevity is good, as long as the substance of the discussion and action is clear. Be more detailed with information where accountability is more important, like finances, employment issues, disputes, and the like.
- Formal actions or decisions made, including this content:
- Who “moved” or suggested the action
- What they “moved” or suggested
- Who “seconded” the motion
- Any discussion and/or changes to the motion
- Vote and outcome
- When and how the meeting was concluded (i.e. "The meeting was concluded with group prayer at 8:00 pm.")
- Signify at the end of the minutes that you were the author by this format: "Respectfully submitted, <Name>, Secretary"
Some helpful hints for keeping excellent minutes:
- Keep them brief/succinct, while still capturing the substance of actions and discussions
- Do not editorialize - "Just the facts, ma'am."
- Once you get a template down, just update that template at each subsequent meeting
Logistics of minute-keeping:
- As soon as possible, type them up and email them to the Team Chair/President/Leader for review
- Chair to email them to the rest of the Team for review
- Previous meeting’s minutes are formally approved at the next meeting