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February 21, 2007
Appointing A "Minutes" Committee - Who Is Right For The Job?
A reader of my materials wrote this email to me about appointing a "Minutes Approval Committee":
"I'm very interested in your article about approving annual meeting minutes. It makes sense to me that the Board can approve them now. (We don't really need an Minute Approval Committee.) "
This is an example of how Boards can sometimes accept adaptations of what is said without thinking through all of the issues that might arise. In my business, believe me, the result of years of experience is that the questions sometimes start popping in your head as soon as a premise or conclusion is offered . The makeup of the "Minutes Approval Committee", if it is the Board and no other members of the Association, could be called into question. This is why:
The basis for the "Minutes Approval Committee" comes from Roberts Rules, and not a specific law on the subject of approving minutes. There is no guidance I can find that defines who should serve. While it might be OK to designate the Board as the committee, from a practical standpoint, if there was any question about objectivity, not having any non-board members on the committee might cause it to be seen as self-serving and the actions taken might be suspect - if any owner ever makes a challenge to the process.
In many associations, finding members to serve on the board is hard enough, let alone trying to find additional members to serve on committees. And of course the "Minutes Approval Committee" must consist of members that will be present at the annual membership meetings, since it would be charged with writing and finalizing the minutes. So, it seems it would make sense to have at least one non-board-member on the "Minutes Approval Committee".
Posted by Beth Grimm at February 21, 2007 9:07 PM