Minute Taking – Six Top Tips

Minutes are considered to be legal documents and are vital to the governance of your organisation. Here are author Paul Ticher’s top tips for taking good minutes:

  1. Aim for the ABCD principle – Accurate, Brief, Clear and most importantly, Dull.
  2. You are an essential part of the team that ensures an effective meeting; try to get the meeting’s Chair to understand this.
  3. Don’t write everything down; focus on the decisions and action points.
  4. Don’t record what individual people say (with very limited exceptions).
  5. Write up your minutes as soon as possible after the meeting, while you can still fill in any gaps in your notes.
  6. Use limited, repetitive vocabulary – eg. noted, agreed, approved, discussed, concern was expressed etc.

Directory of Social Change's (DSC) new edition of Minute Taking by authors Paul Ticher and Lee Comer is published in February 2012, launching their new Key Guide series of titles. Your can pre-order the book on the DSC website.