As promised, today's post is about minute taking. 

Of course if you have good shorthand skills you can take the minutes verbatim, but few of us have these skills today.  An alternative is recording the meeting, but some people feel uncomfortable about being recorded, and in fact in the long run it can lead to a much longer spell at the computer transcribing.  If you feel a bit nervous and can arrange to get the equipment you might want to tape the meeting as a back up, but I would advise that you get used to taking effective notes.  You will be developing a skill that does not rely on technology which is always useful.

The obvious thing to remember is a selection of pens and plenty of paper.  I have seen people take minutes using a laptop, but I found the clicking on the keys a bit annoying, so I would not recommend that method, except perhaps with a techie group who will like the fact that you are using IT!  Make sure you have a couple of spare pens in your bag.

Now, where do you sit? I would tend to sit next to the person chairing the meeting, that way they can whisper in your ear if they need to.  If the chair or main speaker is at the front of the room facing the group, then taking a seat in the front but at the edge is probably best.  That way you can be handy should you be needed to support the speaker, but not in full view.  If there is a risk that you might be called out of the room to deal with a problem or call, sit in the back row so that you don't disturb people if you have to move.

So long as there are not too many people, I would draw yourself a map of the names of the participants, where they sit and their initials (or you could give them nicknames like 'dopey' 'sleepy' 'scary man').  You can quickly refer to it when noting what they say.  When transcribing your notes later you may find the map helps you visualise exactly who was speaking at a particular point.  You may prefer to pass around a piece of paper and ask people to enter their names.  You can use the order of the list as a reminder of which order people were sitting in (assuming people don't come in late and mess up the order!).  Make a note of the 'apologies' i.e the people who couldn't make it this time.

You don't necessarily need to take down every single word, instead put down key words that give a sense of the content.  For example, say a speaker called John Smith says 'the company needs to look to the future and learn from the past', you can write 'JS:  co look to future learn from past'.  You will actually be able to read most words by just writing down the consonants.  Transcribe this phrase for me:

Ply n th prk wth a bll (if you are struggling try speaking it out loud)

Did you get 'play in the park with a ball'?  You may struggle with this because you do not know the context of the sentence, but if you did, and you were at the meeting you would find the technique fairly easy.  Practice while you are watching TV.  Transcribe an announcer using only consonants, then go back and see if you can understand your notes.  Hopefully you will find it fairly easy even if you do need a bit of practice to get your speed up.  I would encourage you to develop your own short forms for special words.  You may work in a business that deals with photography, so you can shorten it to Phy if that makes sense to you.

Don't put any opinion or reflection into the minutes.  Yours is a record of the events of a meeting not sales document.  Keep the language fairly formal, even if the meeting was not. 

You may find it useful to see some previous minutes to get an idea of the level of detail expected.  More and more these days I find that minutes are often only a brief précis or summary of what has been said, rather than a word for word transcription.  You may only need to put a summary and any action points on the right hand side (often in bold so they stand out).  Previous minutes will give you an idea of how to lay it out and what numbering format to use.

Now for transcription.  I will talk about transcribing dictation another time, but today I'm talking about transcribing your own notes.  I personally find I need to transcribe very shortly after the meeting, certainly within a day or two.  It is astonishing what one can recall if you do it quickly, and equally amazing how quickly you can forget it all a week later.  Don't be shy about approaching someone else who attended if you are unclear about what has been said.  Best to get it right first off.  Most meetings begin with a review of the previous minutes so errors may be picked up at the next meeting, but I wouldn't rely on it.  

Minutes are usually sent out with the agenda of the next meeting, often ahead of time, but not always.  You will get any corrections back after the next meeting and then the minutes are called 'confirmed' and published where appropriate.  Before they are confirmed they would usually be considered draft and possibly confidential.

Usually you start an agenda with apologies (those who could not attend) and previous minutes, followed by the agenda items, and ending with AOB (any other business), and the date of the next meeting if known.

Here is link to a great summary of how to take minutes with some sample minutes at the back of the document:  Taking minutes

I hope that covers all you need to know.  Post a comment if you can think of something I have missed.