Very interesting and gave a new insight into how meetings are run and conducted

ORGANISATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

How To Minute Meetings

The secretary of the meeting is the second most important person at any meeting.

Meetings are an essential tool for establishing communications links in organisations and for enabling decisions to be made and acted upon. Too many meetings are overly long and have unclear, fuzzy objectives. The meeting secretary has an important role to play to ensure a meeting's success. Preparing papers and agenda, taking notes and typing up minutes is just a small part of the work of a meetings secretary.

The meeting secretary is a history-maker. The minutes of a meeting are an historic document. Minutes serve many purposes including recording decisions, providing a factual record demonstrating transparent actions, identifying whose responsible for a given task.

Aims of workshop

The aims of this workshop is to promote an understanding of the role of the meeting secretary.

Objectives

At the conclusion of the programme, participants should be able to:

• Outline the role of the meeting secretary in ensuring a smooth running meeting
• Identify rules and procedures in sending out notice of meetings
• Describe the importance of the agenda to a meeting
• Identify the two key skills every meetings secretary must have
• Understand the different types of minutes

Outline of Workshop

Participants are introduced to a broad range of subjects drawing on:

• Role and responsibilities of the meeting secretary
• Preparing for the meeting
• Choosing and 'stage managing' the venue
• Working with the chair
• The hand that rocks the cradle may rule the world, but the hand that drafts the agenda controls the meeting
• Law and protocols of meetings
• Active listening skills
• Assertiveness
• Note making methods
• How much to take down and what to leave out
• Summarising and structuring your notes
• Qualities of good minutes
• Minute making: styles and methods; length and layout
• After the meeting: following up on action points
• Specific Situations, e.g. minuting disagreements, case conferences, informal meetings [or others nominated by participants in advance of the session]