Over the years I have served as secretary of several organizations at local and area/district levels. It has always been my practice to record in the minutes only what happened, not what was said. I do not record the content of reports. I am always confronted by an insistence that I include the content of treasurer’s reports, in particular the ending balances. I have checked RONR, Parliamentary Law, Leadership in the Spotlight, Q&A, and Q&A III, (I don’t have Q&A II), but I find no justification for including this information. Only one organization has adopted a special rule of order requiring inclusion of the information. What does your body have to say on the matter?

Answer: RONR is very clear in its statement on p. 451, lines 25-28, that minutes should contain mainly what was done, not what was said. However, every organization is perfectly free to have the minutes recorded exactly as it wishes. Perhaps certain committees have charge of large amounts of money, and both the committee and the members desire to have the details recorded in the organization’s minutes. There may be other reasons as well for including more than the parliamentary authority requires. As long as it has been pointed out to the group what its parliamentary authority requires with regard to the contents of minutes, if long standing practice and preference include “more” rather than “less,” so be it! Strictly speaking, a special rule of order should be adopted to continue the current practice of including more than the parliamentary authority requires.

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