Committee Meeting Minutes

Carolina Beach Presbyterian Church

All church committees should maintain “minutes” as a record of the decisions they have made. Minutes are simply notes of things that were discussed and decisions that were made. They should aim for clarity and brevity. Preserving the minutes of all committee meetings is necessary to the mission of the church.

In addition to noting the outcomes of committee conversations, committee minutes should identify:

· the name of the committee,

· the time the meeting started,

· where it took place,

· who was present, and

· the time at which the meeting concluded.

Why? Because this information establishes the legitimacy and the authenticity of the decisions coming from the committee.

The body of the committee minutes should be as clear and succinct as possible. An example of a helpful entry would be: “The committee again discussed having an additional worship service each week. Reasons given against adding a service included concerns about adequate staffing and the concern that some members would feel separated from those who worship in a different service. Reasons given for adding a service included the large number of people who are asking for one, from within and outside the congregation. The committee decided to add an 8:30 service each Sunday, for a trial period of four months, and reevaluate in the spring.”

Armed with that in the committee’s permanent records, future members of the committee will always have the information on what was considered and why the committee ultimately chose to go in the direction they did.

If that paragraph went much longer, it could be too much extraneous detail, and future committees would have to sort through an awful lot of unhelpful words to try to find the information they needed.

On the other hand, if minutes are too short—“changes to worship were discussed”—they end up not saying anything useful.

Most committee meetings operate as fairly informal discussions with widely agreed-upon results. Sometimes—especially if an issue is somewhat controversial, complicated, or of unusually weighty importance—it is necessary to go a bit more formal. If and when your committee uses Robert’s Rules of Order, the motion needs to be written verbatim, and the results of the vote need to be recorded with the words “motion carried” or “motion failed.” (Your committee may decide whether or not to preserve anything more specific than that, such as “On a motion by _______, seconded by _______, the motion failed, 3-5.”)

A few more notes, especially for moderators and secretaries:

1. Full minutes need to be kept for every meeting, even if—or perhaps we should say especially if—the meeting was hastily called, only took a couple of minutes, and not everyone had a chance to attend.

2. One of the points of having a secretary is so that not every member of the committee needs to write down every decision. Committee proceedings can be dragged down by participants stopping the flow of conversation so they can take down exactly what’s been said, when that responsibility is already covered by the secretary keeping the minutes.

3. The moderator of the committee should not be taking minutes. Moderating already requires enough attention on the part of the moderator. A secretary should be appointed at the beginning of—or preferably before—the meeting. This secretary should understand that the valuable work they do is more or less a draft—don’t get hurt feelings if your minutes are amended by the committee. You, the secretary, play the most important role in making this draft, but the preservation of the record is a group process, and others may remember things differently, or wish for certain aspects of your minutes to be expanded or minimized. To that end...

4. Include reading of the previous minutes at the beginning of each committee meeting. The committee then votes on any changes to the minutes as presented, and that final version is the one that is preserved.

5. SOMETIMES, less is more: It may not be necessary to include the full content of all reports given. If it is just as helpful to say, for example, “_________ reported that there was an excellent turnout for the Buildings & Grounds work day,” then leave it at that without detailing unnecessary information. Even if a discussion went on for a long time or covered a lot of ground, if there is no outcome that needs to be preserved, leave it out. Incidental chatter never needs to be recorded.

6. Hard copies should be organized in a binder, to be passed from one moderator on to the next. This is the only way we can ensure continuity year after year.

7. Also, and this is new: computer files of approved minutes should be e-mailed to the church secretary, who will store them for posterity.

Without this ongoing record, committees lose track of what they have done, and when there’s turnover of committee members, there’s no way to track the decisions made or the reasons why they were made. With clear, concise minutes of the proceedings, committees always have access to a record of the deliberations that have shaped their response to the dynamics of our church life.

Thank you for your service!

Keith Grogg, pastor

July 21, 2010