KEY POINTS:
Taking accurate notes at meetings has changed a lot in the past few years. Shorthand is out and text language is in, according to one minute-taking expert.
Robyn Bennett says many people believe that being able to write shorthand is the first step to becoming a competent business meeting minute writer. But says many people now type notes straight into a laptop computer or use ther own vrsn of txt lang 2 get the job done.
"Shorthand is a dying art," she says. "And is not being taught much now. Many people are surprised that shorthand is not needed to take minutes. Also, a lot of people are using laptops to take down minutes as it avoids the double up of handling the information twice. Then after the meeting there's a bit of a tidy-up job on the computer rather than copy typing the notes in."
Bennett says people who work as administrators, personal or executive assistants and secretaries need to know how to take accurate minutes as they can form part of the audit of a business. They are also legal documents she says that can be used in court. Because of this last point Bennett cautions those people mentioned in minutes to check they have been correctly quoted.
"You normally only get one chance to correct minutes," she says. "And that is at the next meeting when they are signed off as a true and accurate account of the last meeting."
Bennett says being able to take minutes is a sought-after skill by many employers.
"But it's a job that a lot of people hate doing - some people do all they can to avoid it," she says. "And it's because they have never had the training. There is not much formal training out there for this so people just fall into the role and as a result they are never quite sure if they are doing it correctly."
Bennett says some of the common challenges untrained minute takers experience include not being able to separate waffle from key points, incorrectly recording everything that is said, worrying over what format the minutes should take when typed out, and they often don't have the knack of noting down important remarks and decisions while listening to the conversation.
"Taking minutes means being able to listen to what's going on and analysing it at the same time," says Bennett who has been running one-day courses covering the business of writing minutes for the past three years.
She says her one-day certificated course is perfect for beginners to intermediate level administrators and is perfect for anyone faced with a job that includes taking minutes.
"Minutes are also an historical record of what happened at a meeting. They show people how decisions were reached and the discussions behind those decisions. They also serve as a record for people who were not at the meeting."
She says people who take minutes need to have good knowledge of the official information Act, be aware that minutes are audited and that anything written down could be presented as evidence in a court of law.
"Good minutes will include a list of actions to be taken that can be referred back to at the next meeting."
Bennett says she stumbled into the career after resigning her job in 2000 to become a professional minute taker in her home town of Christchurch.
"I worked as a contract minute taker attending about ten committee meetings a month," says Bennett. "I did that for five years until I was invited to run a course at Christchurch Polytechnic on minute taking."
Bennett says although she hadn't trained as a teacher she thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
"I knew it was an opportunity I didn't want to miss and when I finally did the teaching I discovered I had found my passion and after that a whole new career started."
Today, Bennett travels the country delivering her courses at places such as the University of Auckland. She also offers seven other courses for administrators but says the minute-taking course is the most popular.
"Having delivered the course every week for three years you would think everyone would now know how to take minutes at meetings," she says. "But I'm still running full courses just about everywhere."
Requirements
Meeting minutes should include:
Meeting date
Who attended
Absences
Sign off of last set of minutes
Topics discussed
Decisions made
Actions agreed upon
Who is to complete the actions, by when
Is there anything special the reader of the minutes should know or do?
Is a follow-up meeting scheduled? If so, when? where? why?
Any other business
Date, time, place of next meeting
Write up your minutes within 24 hours.
Robyn Bennett will be running a course at the University of Auckland on Tuesday 14 August. See: www.cce.auckland.ac.nz/pdcourses
