The minutes of a meeting document the decisions made during the meeting. This provides a permanent public record of positions and actions taken by a board. The secretary of the board is responsible for maintaining all official records, including the minute book of all board meetings. All states require that the associations keep minutes of their meetings and these minutes be available for inspection by the membership.
Parliamentary Procedure & Association Meetings
“The object of Robert’s Rules of Order is to assist an assembly to accomplish the work for which it was designed, in the best possible manner” according to Henry M. Robert, Robert’s Rules of Order preface, 1876.
Robert’s Rules of Order is a series of procedures written by Mr. Robert, who was a U.S. Army engineering officer. When asked to preside over a meeting, Robert realized that there was no international standard of conduct with which to rule. As a result he studied parliamentary law and wrote Robert’s Rules of Order.
What is Parliamentary Procedure? It is a set of rules for conduct at meetings that allows everyone to be heard and to make decisions without confusion. Robert’s Rules of Order is the most well-known and documented book addressing meeting conduct.