Last year’s agm mintues have been sent out for a meeting later this month.  My name has been used for proposing items when I did not.  What can I do about it?

There are two things you can do. The first is attend the AGM and when the minutes are confirmed, stand and point out that you did not propose certain items and insist that the minutes be amended to reflect that.

The problem that may cause, is that the meeting may not recall who did propose the items. If they cannot recall, then that is still not your problem – it is the problem of the meeting and the minutes may then be amended to read the proposer could not be identified.

The second thing you can do if you cannot attend the meeting (and this worth doing even if you can attend) is formally write to the secretary of the organisation requesting that the changes be made to the minutes. If the items are a big issue for you, you could insist that the minutes, with the corrections be reissued.

What is the difference between an ordinary meeting and a special meeting?

The best way to think of an ordinary meeting is one which you have regularly, like a monthly meeting held on the 2nd Monday of the month for instance. These meetings are where the general running of the organisation takes place.

A “Special Meeting” is usually one where there is an important issue to discuss which requires notice to be given to all the members. General  meetings are usually one of two types – an Annual General Meeting, or a Special General Meeting – here is where the term “Special meeting” comes from.

However, without wishing to rain on anyone’s parade, there is another possible interpretation. Some organisations may decide to hold a “special meeting” to discuss a particular issue, such as employing a staff member, or applying for a grant, or what to with some money the organisation has been given. They call this a special meeting simply because it outside the regular schedule. This type of meeting not a Special General Meeting.

The bottom line is, make sure you know whether it is just a special meeting or whether it is a Special General Meeting, because the latter is a “big deal!

Do you have to table minutes of an ordinary meeting at a special meeting?

I hate being pedantic, but it does depend on what you mean by a “special meeting”. I’ll explain what I mean.

If you have a meeting that is outside the regular timetable, for instance, on the 3rd Monday instead of  the 4th Monday, some people call that a “speacial meeting”. It’s not really a special meeting. it’s just that the day you meet has changed.

If you have an additional meeting, as well as your regular meetings, for instance to discuss a particular issue, then some people call that a “special meeting”. It’s not wrong to call it that, but it can be confusing if you ever have “Special General Meetings”.

So, if you have a special meeting like the last one I explained – a meeting to discuss something in particular, or at a different time or place, then the minutes you table at that “special meeting” are the ones from the last ordinary meeting because in meeting terms, this meeting is just a regular meeting – the only thing that makes it special is that it is called outside the normal timetable.

If however, Tepora is talking about a Special General Meeting, then that is whol;e new ball game.

A Special General Meeting is exactly the same as an Annual General Meeting, except that it is held between Annual General Meetings usually to make a decision on something important like a constitution change.

In this case, the minutes that are tabled at a Special General Meeting, are those of the last “General Meeting” which would probably have been the Annual General Meeting.

A “General Meeting” (whether is and AGM or an SGM) is one where every member has to receive a notice of the meeting in the prescribed format and time frame and also a notice of the business that is to be conducted at the meeting. No other substantial business should be conducted at that meeting.

What can you do if you are unable to locate the preceding AGM minutes due to poor record keeping and changeover of staff? The financial statements are available but the ensuing discussions are not recorded. Can we table a summary of items discussed at the preceeding AGM in place of the item, Minutes of the [year before] AGM?

The answer is really in the question.

The reality is that if the minutes cannot be found, then they can’t be presented.

Your suggestion to present a summary of items is a good one.

If it is queried, what else can you do?

The document with the summary should of course then be included in the meetings of this AGM with statement as to why they have replaced the minutes.

Do you actually have to read the minutes from the previous year’s AGM at the next AGM so they can get approved?

I assume you mean by read,  ”read aloud”.  If you do, then this is a practice that (thankfully) died decades ago. In today’s world of photocopying and email, the minutes can be sent to everyone or a copy can be given to everyone at the meeting.  Then the motion to approve the minutes can be moved and put to the vote.

The essential thing is that people have the opportunity to approve the minutes and to do that they need to know what is contained in them. Reading the minutes aloud is, as I have said, an ancient practice and does not really give people an understanding of what went on because it gets so boring listening  - people switch off.

A much better practice is to send a copy of the minutes to everyone or make them available and then the people at the meeting have a hard copy (or have had the opportunity to see a hard copy) and they can accept them or modify them based on that. Reading the minutes aloud is a very inefficient way to deal with the confirmation of the minutes.

If a well meaning , but “old fashioned” person does start to read the minutes aloud, then anyone can simply interrupt them and move that the minutes be taken as read – this is what a person who is savyy about meetings would do.

In regards to when the minutes should be sent out, you may like to read my previous post at  http://masterofmeetings.com/index2/annual-general-meeting-minutes

Please Note: The author accepts no responsibility for anything which occurs directly or indirectly as a result of using any of the suggestions or procedures detailed in this blog. All suggestions and procedures are provided in good faith as general guidelines only and should be used in conjunction with relevant legislation, constitutions, rules, laws, by-laws, and with reasonable judgement.

There are really only two types of “general meeting” – the Annual General Meeting and the Special General Meeting (SGM) which is sometimes called an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM).

If the meeting is a “general meeting” as opposed to an ordinary or regular meeting, then the minutes which are approved are those of the last general meeting.

So if you have an AGM, and no other general meeting is held until the next AGM, then the minutes which are approved are those of the last AGM.

If you have an AGM, and then during the year you have an SGM or EGM, then the minutes that are approved at the SGM are those of the AGM – the last general meeting. Then, at the next AGM, the minutes which are approved are those of the SGM since it was the most recent general meeting.

Please Note: The author accepts no responsibility for anything which occurs directly or indirectly as a result of using any of the suggestions or procedures detailed in this blog. All suggestions and procedures are provided in good faith as general guidelines only and should be used in conjunction with relevant legislation, constitutions, rules, laws, by-laws, and with reasonable judgement.

Ordinary Meeting or Regular Meeting

Most meetings are ordinary or regular meetings. These are meetings which are held usually on a regular basis and conduct business for which no special notice needs to be given (according to the organisation’s rules or constitution). The monthly meeting of a sports club or a parents’ group  is are examples of regular meetings.

Special or extraordinary Meetings

A special meeting (sometimes called an extraordinary meeting)  can have two meanings. The first meaning is simply a meeting that is outside the regular timetable. This meaning tends to be simply a colloquial term that is used for something out of the ordinary.

It is usually called to discuss something important or unusual. This type of meeting usually requires no special notice but it is good governance to advise everyone who is eligible to attend, that the meeting is being held, and the purpose for it being held outside of the normal timetable – that is the topic of discussion.

The second type of special meeting is one that is defined in your organisation’s rules or constitution and has special requirements. These requirements may be length of notice for the meeting, it may be a special quorum (the number of people required for the meeting to transact business) or there may be other requirements written into your rules or constitution.

A special meeting may also have special voting requirements – for instance it may allow proxy votes.

The Annual General Meeting

This is the meeting which most organisation have once each year and the retirements are usually found in the rules or constitution, and also often in the legislation under which the organisation is constituted.

An Annual General Meeting (usually referred to as an AGM) will often have the reports of the major office bearers, consideration of the annual financial report, election of officers, adopting the budget for the next 12 months (which should include the membership fee if there is one) and also changes to the constitution.

AGM’s have special requirements in terms of the period of time for which notice of the meeting has to be given and often also, the nature on information that must be provided in advance – financial reports for instance.

The word “general” in the AGM means that anybody who is a member of the organisation is entitled to attend and vote in most cases.

The Special General Meeting

The Special General Meeting (SGM) is sometimes called an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM). This meeting has exactly the same powers as an AGM and must meet all the same requirements such as a minimum period for notice of meeting.

Special General Meetings must have a specific purpose. The most common is to consider changes to the constitution. Another is consideration of the budget for larger organisations.

Rule of Thumb to Maintain Good Governance?

The rule of thumb is to know your constitution or rules. These should clearly describe when a special meeting can and should be held and the rules under which it must be held.

Please Note: The author accepts no responsibility for anything which occurs directly or indirectly as a result of using any of the suggestions or procedures detailed in this blog. All suggestions and procedures are provided in good faith as general guidelines only and should be used in conjunction with relevant legislation, constitutions, rules, laws, by-laws, and with reasonable judgement.

General books on meeting procedure

Meeting Procedure Made Easy

By David Julian Price

Published by Cascade Publishing

Available at www.meetingsinstitute.com

Guide for Meetings and Organisations

By N.E. Renton

Published by the Law Book Company

Available at bookshops

Take the Chair

By David Price, Harold Luxton and Bill Smith

Published by Australian Rostrum

Available from Rostrum Western Australia

Books for Company Meetings

Company Meetings, What you need to know

By Greg Bateman

Published by Butterworths

Available at bookshops

Books for more legal and technical information

Joske’s Law and Procedure at Meetings in Australia

By Eilis S Magner

Published by The Law Book Company

Available in bookshops

Horsley’s Meetings. Procedure, Law and Practice

By A.D. Lang

Published by Butterworths

Available in bookshops

Please Note: The author accepts no responsibility for anything which occurs directly or indirectly as a result of using any of the suggestions or procedures detailed in this blog. All suggestions and procedures are provided in good faith as general guidelines only and should be used in conjunction with relevant legislation, constitutions, rules, laws, by-laws, and with reasonable judgement.

Presiding over a meeting as the chair or chairman or chairperson is a role not a physical position. So if in your role of chairing the meeting, you physically move in order to carry out a duty or function, then you do not cease to be the chair of that meeting.

Even though you may be a member of an organisation which actually has a gavel which is used by the chair, if the chair moves away from the gavel, it does not mean that they do not take with them the authority of the chair.

In Karen’s case, she is a member of an organisation where a different member chairs each meeting, but there is an elected president who sits next to the person chairing the meeting. (This is unusual but not unheard of.) In this case, Karen would have the option of temporarily handing the meeting over to the president while she performed her other duty from another place in the meeting room, or simply stating when she moved that she was maintaining her role of chairing the meeting but she would be conducting her next function from the front of the room. My suggestion is the latter course of action – maintain the role and make a statement to that effect.

The words the person could use could be as follows:

“In my role as chairman of this meeting I am now going to go to the front of the room to make a presentation.”

You do not have to appoint a temporary chair when you physically leave the position from which you are chairing the meeting – your role continues where ever you are in the meeting room.

Caution: The term vacating the chair does not mean that you are physically vacating the chair, it means that you are vacating the role of chairing the meeting, which means that another person must assume the role of chair. Moving away from the position of the chair is not the same as vacating the chair.

Some legislatures and parliaments have a custom where the “chair” of the parliament – often called the Speaker or the President, must always sit in the designated position. Do not confuse this with everyday meetings which are usually  not subject to such strict customs.

Please Note: The author accepts no responsibility for anything which occurs directly or indirectly as a result of using any of the suggestions or procedures detailed in this blog. All suggestions and procedures are provided in good faith as general guidelines only and should be used in conjunction with relevant legislation, constitutions, rules, laws, by-laws, and with reasonable judgement.

The trick here is to prepare in advance. If you prepare the agenda and make it very detailed, then when the meeting is running, all you have to do is fill in the gaps on the agenda document and it becomes the minutes.

Most minute takers I know who move to taking minutes on a laptop, never go back to doing it manually.

Remember the key understanding you must have about minutes is that minutes are a record of what is decided and what is done, NOT what is said. Once you have that understanding then taking minutes on a computer is a breeze because you simply capture main points during discussion and then the final decision and then the action that is required.

People who have the most difficulty with minutes whether they are manual or on a computer are those who try to capture what people say – and this is not what minutes should be.

A great advantage of taking minutes on a laptop is that there is no transcribing later – a huge time saver!. You may need to edit slightly but it’s a much easier task than trying to transcribe handwritten notes.

I have been training in minute taking for over 25 years and now, about 70% of the minute takers I meet take their minutes directly onto a laptop and would never go back to handwriting.

It may take a person not used to a laptop a couple of meetings to get used to the idea of taking minutes directly onto the laptop but it is worth persevering.

There are other hidden advantages also. People who take minutes on a laptop are generally more highly regarded by the other people in a meeting than those who hand write minutes – it sounds crazy I know, but it’s true.

Also, if you do the minutes on a laptop, you can distribute them very soon after the meeting and that goes down very well indeed. It is ridiculous, but true, that minute takers are judged by the time it takes the minutes to be distributed far more than they are judged by the content of the minutes! The reason is that almost no-one reads the minutes, but they know when they receive them!

Please Note: The author accepts no responsibility for anything which occurs directly or indirectly as a result of using any of the suggestions or procedures detailed in this blog. All suggestions and procedures are provided in good faith as general guidelines only and should be used in conjunction with relevant legislation, constitutions, rules, laws, by-laws, and with reasonable judgement.