Meetings, agenda, papers, minutes

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Introduction

All Parish Councils (PC) must have meetings. Minimum 6 meetings a year some, upwards of 16 a year. Council and committee meetings require an agenda, papers and minutes. All these need to be drafted, edited, approved, discussed, posted on ‘noticeboards’ and online.

We nearly all use software these days and we have all discovered ways to make it easier to do. A small example is to keep the same headings each time on the agenda and morph that into the minutes at the post meeting stage. Using your smart phone to record the meeting also assists.

The process is a circular, repetitive and probably the most time consuming activity for a clerk. The documents revolve around the meeting but we will put the meeting as an item in the loop because the meeting requires actions too. The clerk should be focussing on the actions.

Using your preferred writing software you create an agenda template and a minutes template. DC provides a template for you to start with.

All the documents are written to the file storage area and shared from there.

What needs to be done for a meeting?

Set a date
Book a venue
Pay for venue
Publish the date
Send invite
Send reminder
Change date
Change location
Inform attendees of changes

The process

Action	Days	Agenda	Papers	Minutes
Prepare. Draft	D-9	Draft
Circulate for approval	D-8	Draft
Edit	D-7	Draft
Approved	D-6	A
Prepare papers			Draft
Link papers to agenda		A	A
Post to website	D-5	A	A	Draft
Post to information boards (physical)	D-5	A		Draft
Hold meeting	D
Display/ project agenda and papers	D	A	A
Take minutes	D			Draft
Read, approve and sign minutes of previous meeting	D			A
Take minutes	D			Draft
Draft minutes	D+2			Draft
Circulate for approval	D+4			Draft
Edit	D+5			Draft
Final draft ready	D+6			Draft
Process starts again
Prepare. Draft	D-9	D

From the minutes Action Plans can be developed.