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countrigal
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« on: March 09, 2005, 09:41:19 pm » |
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The main issue I see with doing minutes is getting with the Chair(s) and finding out the expectations. What format do they desire? How much information do they want included in the minutes? What is the desired turn-around time on the minutes? How much technical or topical knowledge will you be expected to have when doing the minutes (applying to the topics you are responsible for understanding and summarizing)?
I generally have found most minutes I've done to follow the formats provided by the other posters, with the only additional piece being a short narrative discussion field, which is where I am expected to summarize the discussion. The recommendations and actions each have their own heading and are not included in the discussion field. Oh, and the dates all of these are required goes in the minutes too.
Generally, if the meeting is well-run, you can take minutes on any meeting with or without knowledge of the topics, though it is easier if you have some knowledge. I generally ask those who are due to report to submit me their handouts prior to the meeting (to ensure I get them to all members and to give myself an opportunity to review them) and a summary of what they will be stating during their presentation. This usually ends up being the discussion portion of my minutes. Generally they can take say a budget report of 8 pages and summarize it up into 1 paragraph of the highlights which they will be focusing on. That eliminates a lot of actual note-taking during the meeting, requiring only the actions and recommendations to be actually written down. If a meeting is not well-run, then it's definitely harder to walk into cold-turkey and take good minutes, but hopefully those Chairs would then be more willing to work with you on getting the minutes the way that they like them.
Main thing I always tell folks... if you can take notes in a class (high school or college level) and use them to help study for a test, then you can take minutes. The same basic concept is there. Good luck!
CountriGal
Peer Moderator
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