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a beginner's guide to taking minutes
Salvete, omnes! To local JCL secretaries or co-consuls just starting, taking minutes during meetings is one of the most important roles you serve. Meeting minutes play a key role in informing members of what they might have missed and can serve as notes to refer back to in the future. Aside from being VJCL Secretary, I also serve as Massaponax JCL Secretary. When brainstorming fun meeting activities, we rely on previous meeting minutes for ideas and input from club members that we may have forgotten. Keeping members updated and informed of the minutes, whether at a local or state level, guarantee a polished, professional JCL chapter.
For beginners, taking minutes can be a bit tricky. Keeping track of what members are saying in real-time can be a difficult task. Unfortunately, one cannot press pause on the meeting to finish writing a sentence (though a pause button would be helpful every once in a while). Luckily there are a few tricks to get around the obstacles of fast talkers and quiet speakers.
I recommend bringing a laptop to every meeting because typing minutes makes a huge difference in terms of speed and accessibility. Before every meeting, take fifteen minutes to type out the draft template or outline of the minutes. This template should include the location, meeting agenda, announcements, and any other information you already know ahead of time. Make sure to leave at least one page for member attendance and if you know it is going to be a smaller meeting, save time by passing around an attendance sheet for everyone to sign in on. During the meeting, you can fill in any blanks in the template (member input, presentations, etc.). Keeping a list of the motions next to you would not hurt either: this can serve as a reference sheet when you go back and edit the minutes. Editing the minutes 1-2 days after the meeting is best because the memory of the meeting is still fresh in your mind, as opposed to a week after the meeting.
After consistently typing for twenty minutes, it is common and okay to get tired. I find myself zoning out after the first hour and a half of each meeting. However, it is still important to record everything in the meeting. To avoid typing fatigue, do not try to write everything someone says word for word. Listen to keywords and phrases a speaker uses to write in the draft meeting minutes. After the meeting, use these phrases as notes to summarize the speaker’s voice into full, legible sentences.
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