DMS Minutes Standards
Contents
About Meeting Minutes
Meeting minutes are the work product of an organizational meeting. Minutes are neither transcripts, nor summaries of the discussion, but rather a terse distillation of the business conducted at the meeting. Only actionable agenda items are to be included in meeting minutes and their disposition. Meeting summaries including discussion items can be produced but must be distinct from actionable items.
Requirements for Minutes
All Minutes produced for Dallas Makerspace business meetings shall adhere to the following standards.
Board Meetings
Standards
Board Meetings shall adhere to the following format:
- All Board Meeting minutes shall be appended to meeting agendas in the wiki, tagged with the following tags:
- [[Category:Board_of_Directors_Meetings]]
- [[Category:Meetings]]
- [[Category:{year} Meetings]]
- Board meeting minutes shall be structured as follows:
- Call to order
- Attendance
- Approval of prior meeting minutes (if not approved previously)
- Financial Statement
- Member Recognition
- Consent Agenda
- Old Business
- New Business
- Contested Consent Agenda items
- Items placed on agenda as New Business
- Emergency Business
- Schedule next board meeting
- Adjournment
- Minutes shall utilize preformatting tags:
<pre style="white-space: pre-wrap;">
{content}
</pre>
Example minutes
==== CALL TO ORDER 15:00 ==== ATTENDANCE - Dempsey Eight - Allison Hibbit - Lebron Game - Jose Montaña - Michelle Bland [via teleconference] ==== PRIOR MINUTES - MOTION: APPROVE PRIOR MINUTES - Proposed by: Allison - Seconded by: Dempsey - VOTE - In Favor: Unanimous - Opposed: - Abstained: - MOTION PASSED ==== FINANCIAL STATEMENT Treasurer Walter Scroggins III presented the financial statement (attached to meeting agenda) ==== MEMBER RECOGNITION - MOTION: The Board would like to recognize Bob the Builder for their ongoing efforts to improve the space - Proposed by: Allison - Seconded by: Dempsey - VOTE - In Favor: Dempsey, Allison, Lebron, Jose - Opposed: - Abstained: Michelle - MOTION PASSED ==== CONSENT AGENDA ---- 6.1 Zig then Zag - AS WRITTEN: " Update Rules to add rule #7 'Zig THEN Zag ' " ---- MOTION: Pass Consent Agenda items 6.1 as written - Proposed: Michelle - Seconded: Dempsey - VOTE - In Favor: UNANIMOUS - Opposed: - Abstained: - MOTION PASSED ==== OLD BUSINESS ==== NEW BUSINESS ---- 6.2 Skookum Turboencabulator - AS WRITTEN: Allocate $700 to Turboencabulating committee purchase a skookum turboencabulator - MOTION: Allocate $750 to Turboencabulating Committee purchase a skookum turboencabulator - Proposed: Dempsey - Seconded: Allison - VOTE - In Favor: Dempsey, Allison, Lebron, Jose - Opposed: Michelle - Abstained: - MOTION PASSED ---- 7.1 Hire a grape-peeling firm - AS WRITTEN: Allocate $150 per month to the Social Committee to hire Grape Peelers LLC for the monthly banquet - MOTION: DISMISS - Proposed: Michelle - Seconded: Jose - VOTE - In Favor: Unanimous - Opposed: - Abstained: - MOTION DISMISSED ==== EMERGENCY BUSINESS ---- 8.1 The workshop is on fire - MOTION: Allocate $500 for the purchase of fire extinguishers - Proposed: Jose - Seconded: Lebron - VOTE - In Favor: Unanimous - Opposed: - Abstained: - MOTION PASSED ==== NEXT BOARD MEETING 11/31 23:00 - Proposed: Michelle - Seconded: Dempsey - VOTE - In Favor: UNANIMOUS - Opposed: - Abstained: - MOTION PASSED ==== MEETING ADJOURNED 22:00
Committee Meetings
A more broad discussion on Committee meetings can be found on TALK.
Minutes TL;DR
It is absolutely critical the casual reader can readily discern the following from committee meeting minutes:
- The committee holding the meeting
- Date and time of the meeting
- Attendees
- For each agenda item
- Sufficiently detailed text describing what the item is (i.e. spending, rule change, etc)
- A firm dollar amount if spending is being authorized
- Vote count breakdown - noting abstentions by name if abstainers request it
- Item pass/fail
- Discussion items may be present but shall be kept distinct from the above
Additionally, the following are required:
- Committee meeting minutes must be DMS wiki pages
- Committee meeting minutes must be tagged as shown below
Minutes must be posted in a timely fashion:
- Timeliness
- Minutes are ideally posted immediately upon conclusion of the meeting
- Minutes must be posted no later than before the start of the next scheduled meeting
- The Secretary may invalidate minutes that are not timely
- Nothing from a meeting is to be acted upon until minutes are posted
Standards
Committee Meeting Minutes shall ideally provide the following:
- All committee meeting minutes shall either be
- Appended to committee meeting agendas in the wiki or
- Created as standalone wiki pages
- Committee meeting minutes are not to be attachments (i.e. Word document, PDF, link to a Google Doc, etc)
- Committee meeting minutes shall be in wiki format, tagged as follows:
- [[Category:{Committee}]]
- [[Category:Meetings]]
- [[Category:{year} Meetings]]
- Minutes shall be structured as follows
- Timestamp, Committee name
- Time meeting is called to order
- Attendance (list all members in attendance by name, including proxies)
- Agenda item (for each item):
- Literal Text
- For/against counts
- Abstentions: members who abstain for reason shall be named and their reason noted if they request it, otherwise count abstentions
- Item disposition (pass/fail on the basis of for/against votes)
- Time meeting adjourned
Example Minutes
The following are a recommended format but not explicitly required. Optionally, a template has been provided.
TURBOENCABULATING COMMITTEE MEETING 2019-11-31 DALLAS MAKERSPACE, TURBOENCABULATING ANTECHAMBER ---- 03:07 MEETING CALLED TO ORDER ---- ATTENDANCE - Dempsey Eight - Allison Hibbit - Antoine Scruggs - Lebron Game - Jose Montana - Toney Rombo - Berlindi Kaydren ---- Agenda Item 1: Allocate $700 to purchase a skookum turboencabulator - For: 4 - Against: 2 - Abstained: 1 (Antoine Scruggs, an admitted "turboencabulator magnate") - Agenda item passed ---- Agenda Item 2: Change committee rule #7 to read "Zig THEN Zag" - For: 3 - Against: 4 - Abstained: 0 - Agenda item failed ---- Agenda Item 4: Allocate $50/month to purchase spare spurving bearings for the turboencabulators - For: 4 - Against: 2 - Abstained: 1 (Antoine Scruggs, an admitted "turboencabulator magnate") - Agenda item passed ---- 05:19 MEETING ADJOURNED