Meeeting Minutes! A Living Document?

[James]

First of all, if your chapter, does not put out minutes within a day or two of the last meeting there is something seriously wrong with you.

Minutes are not only a record of what happened in a meeting but a great tool to keep everyone on the same page.

Making your Minutes into a Living Document:

Pre-minutes

Most of the better organized chapters meet at the beginning of each semester to establish what the chapter will be doing for the following semester.

Sometimes its not exact, but even if the exact event is not known, dates are set aside for something.

You want your minutes to reflect your progress in completeing events and projects as well as tracking the future ones. And you want that update every week. By the time the third week rolls around EVERYONE will know which dates are important.

So your minutes should be divided into four sections:
[list=1][*]Events completed[*]Events Planned[*]Events in Planning[*]Meeting Report[/list=1]

*Notes for above: Every event should have the name of a lead person on it (even if its a committe) so the chapter knows who to praise (or blame).

*Every event, even the ones in planning should have a date on them! That puts presure on the chapter members to make it happen, and it makes it more real in people's minds.