Minutes are crap..embarrassed to send them

[CrackersNCheesePlease]

Last Monday I was asked to minute a meeting at work. I couldn’t understand most of it and have to send them back to the chair before the end of the week. They’re crap, and I feel a fool sending such crappy notes.

I can barely sleep worrying about them. What can I do?

Have you taken minutes before or was this something unusual that was thrust upon you? What was it that you didn't understand about the meeting?

Can you ask the chair or one of the other who attended to look over some of the sections you struggled with. If there was a lot of jargon, acronyms and technical discussions, it is totally understandable you need some clarity.

Say you accidentally deleted them, so have done what you can from memory and apologise for any missing bits. Ask chair to add in anything that's missing..

And don't stress. They're probably not as bad as you think. Even if they are, it will not matter in ten years' time. Probably won't even matter in ten days' time.

Can you run bits of it through chatgpt?

Was there a deck? If so try to get as much context / wording from the deck to inform your minutes. In the future read the deck, then structure your minutes so you know which section each comment aligns to.

You think people read Minutes?

Was it an online meeting? If so, can you download the transcript?

Are you an EA?

I'd ask people separately for clarification of the points you're unsure of.

Don't say you lost them, be honest and say you're unclear - you'll show initiative and an interest in understanding.

If you have to do them again, you'll have more idea about what they're talking about.

Don't make up a story about deleting them.
Is minute taking part of your job normally?
Is it a meeting someone else normally minutes? If so look at the previous minutes, use the same template and try to copy the style / layout.
Get someone to check for typos.

If there isn't a template then follow something like this

Meeting title,date, attendees.
Number each paragraph. Add page numbers to the document.
Make sure they are all full sentences and make them fairly generic. Eg it was agreed that xxx, PG (initials) provided some information about yyy, and a discussion ensued specifically about ff, GG and RR. Key points raised were lll

Mark all actions as action: Jim to send documents to sally. (It clear names) And bold them

Any bits or acronyms you didn't understand have a go at and highlight in yellow etc. my PA is dyslexic and finds minutes hard but she tends to write enough to remind me what it was and I can amend etc.

Hope that is useful,sorry if any is patronising/ obvious

Depends what they're for.

OP, was there an agenda? Did the chair do any prep? My job role literally says chair in it and I do it all day, obv our admin team dont do the job so dont always understand the things we day so when my minute takers have an issue with making sense of what I said or what someone else was talking about then they always just ring me and we figure it out and quite often I say just send me it I'll fill in the gaps

Can you put them into chat gpt and ask it to improve them

Take the Agenda and use that as headings with the numbers.

Add the date/time/location.

Add names of attendees (and initials so you don't have to keep typing the full names).

Did anybody declare interests? If they did, say so, if not 'No interests were declared'.

Go to each heading and find what sounds like it related to that subject. Just type the paragraph, you can move it later. Make it simple language, don't fluff it up yet. If there were things they intend to do afterwards, have a line at the end saying

ACTION: Mangle the worblegrummit - AB.

Copy the bold actions into a list at the end of the document (or beginning, if that's the format they usually take).

If you need to described a ten minute diversion where they were all arguing and trying to blame one another/the Chair was just wittering on about what a marvellous person he is, say

'The proposal to offer the Chief Fuzzledungler a purple unicorn for his actions in ensuring the dungler didn't defuzzle the worblegrummit was robustly discussed

ACTION: Chief Fuzzledungler Remuneration - to be discussed at next meeting' and

'The Chair shared experiences from the Conbulationatoryfic Atrroppication sector'

You can, instead of transcribing a full row about what the Hell some ridiculously expensive bit of kit is for, have

Questions

Q. What is the purpose of the tribblipolituoloplipic spuldgeriifier? (TM)
A. That is uncertain at this time (FP)

ACTION: Tribblipolituoloplipic spuldgeriifier purpose to be investigated and clarified in next meeting - CD

For the bits you can find no trace of 'To be discussed at next meeting' or where they've been banging on about something when they were supposed to be discussing something else 'Discussed under 5.0'

Finish with

Any Other Business. Otherwise known as 'the shit they've sprung on the committee without warning or documentation in the hope it'll be agreed without proper scrutiny'

Date & time of next meeting
The time the meeting finished
Signed as a true record.........Date
Approved by...............Date

The actions sheet. If you do it as a table, you can copy things over onto the next meeting quickly.

Then go back and try to work out what the rest of the burble was and where it fits.

Maybe have a quick chat with the chair first to clarify all the points? Just admit you didn't understand everything

I got told off once for sending out minutes to everyone without approval (which i didn't know I needed having never done it before). But minutes are hard, lawyers are supposed to do them, not anyone without training!

@NeverDropYourMooncup bet you get lumbered with minutes a lot. What a brilliant way with words.

That’s official board minutes for corporate purposes like ratifying transactions that lawyers have to do. Not standard meeting minutes.

Yes, very Douglas Adams!

Nah, not any more. They found that I would minute what was actually said and agreed, not what they wanted to be recorded as having said and agreed.

Somebody who can switch from that to a full verbal transcription when necessary so that they're damned by their own words rather than toeing the line can be a right pain.

It’s a thing of beauty @NeverDropYourMooncup

Don’t use chat gpt. You want a concise summary of what was actually said. If your notes aren’t clear enough, do your best tomorrow morning then go to the chair and ask for help. The longer you leave it, the harder it will be for them to help (because they may not have taken full detailed notes when there’s a minute taker)

DO NOT PUT IT IN CHAT GPT.

For many companies this would involve sharing priviledged information and could get you in serious trouble.

This. You would be fired doing this where I work.

Most minutes I do, they don't want them verbatim, just bullet points. I rarely understand what they're talking about either. I mostly wing it. Look back through previous minutes, that often helps me understand a point made, or find specific company names, etc.

We have a system that novice minute takers shadow senior minute takers until they feel confident. Maybe something to consider for the future. I have never yet had someone shadow me and actually let me see their minutes so I can offer any pointers though.

I've been lumbered with doing the minutes of a meeting this week that someone else should be doing, but she's one of those chronic public sector piss takers who's always out sick. I am (well, was) a decent minute taker, used to do it all the time thirty odd years ago but am seriously out of practice. I'm dreading this meeting, the first time I've looked after it in my fairly new job. So I'm placemarking for hints, tips and ideas.

Message the people who were in the meeting and say ' I just want to clarify exactly what you said in the meeting... Was it X or was it Y?

If you do this to two or three people you should have your minutes.

People do not want what they said to be taken out of context/ misrepresented, so they'll be happy to help.

Not sure whether the meeting was online or in person??

If it's online, record it. If you can't, at least take a snapshot of everyone's face so you know who's who.

If it's in person, draw a table on a piece of paper and put each person's initials to correspond to where they were sitting. Easier to remember what people said that way

If people keep using acronyms, write them down and Google them later.