FREE 17+ Printable Minutes of Meeting Samples in MS Word | Pages | Google Docs | PDF

Meetings are not your favorite part of the day, especially if you’re the day’s secretary to record the session’s details and submit a report. Writing the minutes of a meeting can indeed be challenging, but you can make this task easier by having minutes of meeting template. This provides you with a clear outline of what information should go on your record. And because it comes in a form structure where you can fill out the items directly, you can be sure you’ll miss nothing. Check more of this below.

FREE 17+ Printable Minutes of Meeting Samples

1. Work From Home Staff Meeting Minutes Template

2. Sample Business Meeting Minutes

3. Sample Board Meeting Minutes Example

4. Project Meeting Minutes Sample Template

5. Construction Project Management Meeting Minutes

6. Board of Directors Meeting Minutes Sample Template

7. Sample Staff Meeting Minutes Template

8. Annual Corporate Meeting Minutes Template

9. Advisory Board Meeting Minutes Template

10. Commercial Construction Meeting Minutes Template

11. Free Basic Freelance Meeting Minutes Template

12. Free Simple Corporate Meeting Minutes Template

13. Free Weekly Sales Meeting Minutes Template

14. Board of Directors Meeting Minutes Template

15. Printable Construction Meeting Minutes

16. Sample Annual General Meeting Minutes

17. Executive Committee Meeting Minutes

18. Printable Quality Management Meeting Minutes

What Is a Minutes of Meeting?

The minutes of meeting can be simply defined as a record of accounts that took place during a meeting session. It’s a written note on what the meeting’s purpose was about, what the major topics were, and how they correlate with the resolutions and task assignments, among all others. This is an important summary document that everyone concerned with the meeting agendas can use as a reference. This also provides accurate information for the next session.

Why Effective Meetings are Essential

If you can send a message in a heartbeat and receive their response in a fraction of a second, why do companies and organizations love meetings? The reputation of meetings has been tainted for the last couple of years. According to a study featured in Inc, low-quality meetings threatens to cause a whopping $399 billion of loss to US businesses. On the other hand, a statistic in The Muse showed that individuals dedicate four hours of their lives to meetings every week. What’s worse? They’re unproductive 67% of the time.

This is why merely having a “meeting” isn’t enough anymore. You need to organize effective meetings if you want to achieve your objectives per session. According to HuffPost, the benefits of an effective meeting include solidifying your purpose and making them a reality. It also provides an excellent opportunity for teamwork and to build a better organizational culture. Because effective meetings are focused, this makes sessions quick and result in lesser costs.

Tips on How to Record a Minutes of Meeting

To help you with your meeting minutes note-taking, here are some guidelines for you:

1. Record Real-Time

Even if the topic and the corresponding details are easy-to-remember and familiar, always write them down as soon as you heard them. As the minute-taker, it’s your responsibility to catch all the necessary details of the session. If you rely on your great memory and opt to write the list later, there’s a great chance you might miss it. You won’t want to have any gaps in your minutes of the meeting because those who failed to make it to the attendance will rely on what you give them.

2. Ask Questions When You Need To

As the scribe of the room, more often than not, the meeting won’t concern you. However, because you’re tasked to note the meeting agenda’s information, you need to clarify all ambiguous details that you can spot. Don’t hesitate to raise your hand and ask for clarification. Point out discussion areas that need further elaboration. If you need to spell check names or to confirm task assignments for a business project proposal, you can do that on a meeting break or approach the speaker after dismissal.

3. Utilize Recording Techniques

When you’re recording the meeting minutes, don’t feel pressured to capture full sentences or consistently write the same names and titles. Use recording techniques. These techniques involve how you can make your note-taking easier by using acronyms, abbreviations, illustrations, graphs, and other shortcuts. This way, you can easily follow along with the presentation and the meeting agenda on the board.

4. Make Use of Any Recording Device

Taking minutes at a meeting requires you to be quick and follow what the session’s chair is talking about. For brief company meeting schedules, this is fine. Whoever, long sessions, and lengthy presentations are a major challenge. To help you with this, don’t hesitate to take a recording device if it makes your job easier and more comfortable. A recorder allows you to take meeting notes without the fear of missing any details because you can always review them later on.

5. Have a Template

If you can use a blank paper or an empty document file to take your notes, why have a meeting minutes template? Well, if you have a template when recording your minutes, your draft is as good as organized. A template provides you with placeholders tables and divisions where you can easily divide your notes. You’ll have a separate space for your objectives, summary, and the action plans. This allows for an easier review when making the final copy.

Having a well-organized meeting minutes sums up an entire session in a brief document. This allows people to review what the have missed, understand the highlights, and get the gist on how the plan should work. Meeting minutes also makes a valuable archive file for future use. Get yours from our collection of meeting minutes template for your use. Download now!