Meeting Minutes Examples

Taking meeting minutes this week for the first time? Or maybe you decided that the way you’ve been taking meeting minutes just isn’t working anymore. It doesn’t matter! The first thing you need to realize is that in order to learn how to take minutes effectively you have to do what others are doing just 1o times better. The best way to get started is to take a look at meeting minutes examples of other organizations and people and learn from them.

Before we get started with the meeting minutes examples, there are a few things you need to learn about meeting minutes.

Meeting Minutes: How It Works Step by Step
First you should record the attendees and absentees, then you should begin recording your meeting minutes. Do some role playing and write or type like a pro by taking on the meeting minutes as a writing assignment for a reporter; follow the meeting by topic or from person to person and write down (or type) a short summary of what has been said, concentrate only on the facts and the decisions that have been made. At the end you should come up with a list of tasks or a “to do list” of things that need to be accomplished before the next meeting. Don’t forget to clarify and record when the next meeting will be taking place.

Did You Know?
Meeting minutes are actually an important document for many NGO’s, Charities, Board of Directors and Municipalities. Actually by law many organizations are required to make these public or readily available to the public on their sites or in their written records.

Meeting Minutes Examples
Even if you’re in a really unique niche and your organization is nothing like any other one, you can still learn from what others are doing and then create your own meeting minutes sample. So let’s take a look at a couple of meeting minutes examples that you can use when taking meeting minutes:

• USDS Bureau Meeting minutes
• Society of Professional Journalists
• Michigan Cancer Consortium Meeting Minutes

Click here for additional meeting minutes examples.

How to Write Meeting Minutes:
When writing meeting minutes it’s important to pay attention to the “small stuff.” For example. did you address the presentations and figures that were presented at the meeting? It’s a good idea to include those as an attachment when sending your meeting minutes out. You’ve probably heard that it’s important to do the minutes as close as possible to the end of the meeting, help yourself accomplish this goal by setting a deadline and even schedule it as a meeting our into your calendar to keep the minutes relevant and current.

What Else Can You Do To Make Your Meeting Minutes Rock?

1. Prepare a list of attendees before the meeting and check off their names as they arrive or circulate the attendance sheet and ask people to check themselves off, it’s a good idea to ask attendees to add their email beside their name as well.
2. Remember that your meeting minutes are like a report. They should not be a transcription of the meeting, there’s no place for “he said, she said” instead avoid personal observations and stick to the point.
3. To be a successful minute taker you should always go over the agenda before the meeting. Ask for any presentations or handouts that will be used at the meeting before hand as well, this isn’t too much to ask for and the meeting organizer should be able to provide you with these.
4. Don’t be afraid to ask questions while you’re taking the minutes, it’s better to ask your questions now than risk not having all the information when sending out the meeting minutes. Besides that, if you don’t understand something that has been said chances are someone else missed the point as well, so you’re actually performing public service
5. Try to stay as brief as possible, the best way to do that is to stay to the point when taking down information and follow the agenda.

If you’re the one creating the agenda, check out this 10 second meeting agenda format, which I constantly use.

Meeting minutes don’t necessarily need to make you sweat; if you learn from successful meeting minutes examples and add a little bit of your own expertise to the mix you will be able to create minutes that will impress even the most organized and efficient minute takers.