In many cases it is required to keep a record of the meetings that your organization holds, in other cases employers may prefer to keep records so that they can refer back to them later. The notes that are kept for meetings are called minutes because they are a concise and accurate description of what goes on within a meeting minute by minute. It is important that these minutes are faithfully kept and recorded, so in many cases, a meeting minutes template is used to keep track on them.
There are many advantages to this sort of record keeping, the use of a meeting minutes template will keep each set of minutes consistent with other sets of minutes making them easy to read and reliable. Because your meeting minutes are considered a legal transcript there are several elements they must contain. If they do not contain these elements they can be dismissed in the event of a court case and be deemed unreliable in a dispute.
A meeting minutes template should be divided into several sections, if each of these sections are not completed then the validity of the minutes can come into question, so it is vital that you fill each section out completely and accurately. One of the first and most important parts of your template will be a place to fill out the names of everyone that was in attendance at the meeting. This is vital since it can reveal whether the meeting is valid in cases where not all members were in attendance.
You must also have a section that refers to the discussion of the last meetings minutes and ensures that all of those present approve those minutes, if they do not a reason needs to be given and a resolution sought. The meeting cannot go forward until all issues regarding the past minutes are resolved. Finally you will have a section for the current meeting’s minutes. This is the section that must be clearly and concisely filled out, you may not paraphrase but must write the minutes verbatim to ensure that no mis-interpretations are made.
Because the filling out of these minutes are so important it is crucial that you look for a meeting minutes template that is accurately set up and easy to use. You can probably find templates that are free but you can also find templates that may cost you a few dollars. Do not be afraid to spend a bit of extra money for this template, if this is what you need to do to ensure you have the proper template for your needs.