Back to Search Results

Training Course Summary:

Good minute-takers are worth their weight in gold. Minute-takers can do more than record the outcomes of meetings concisely; they can also help the Chair run the meeting more effectively. This programme brings participants up to date with the latest thinking on meeting records and covers all the practical skills of minute-taking. A key message is that minute-taking can only be effective as part of the wider process of meeting administration. Minutes should be brief, but how should they look? Examples in a range of formats will be used, and participants can take away ideas for improving the quality of their own work.

Who Should Attend:

Anyone who is responsible for recording minutes of meetings and noting important action points as part of their role.

Training Course Overview/Content:

Introduction & Objectives

Helping to make meetings work
What are minutes for?
• Purpose of meetings
• Types of meetings
• Benefits of good minute taking

Preparation and planning
• Writing styles
• What to avoid

Roles in a meeting
• Clarifying meeting objectives

What is an agenda?
• How to construct an agenda
• Using the agenda as an agent of control
• Keeping up

Active listening skills

How to intervene

Note-taking formats
• What to note down?
• Taking minutes
• How to create a table of actions
• Styles of minute taking
• Editing the minutes

Key words
• What was agreed?
• Action to be taken following the meeting

Feedback, summarising and closing
• Proof reading
• Final presentation
• Minute taking practice: The opportunity to take the minutes of a meeting
• Rewriting badly written minutes

Review of Programme