Effective Minutes Writing

Minutes are not just for the record; very often, it is also the basis for action and decisions. Any person who attends a meeting may be asked to take up this important task. As minutes provide an official record of what has taken place during the meeting, you must be very accurate and clear.

Familiarise yourself with the common challenges that most people will encounter when taking down minutes, know how much you should take down during a meeting and how to write correctly.

After the workshop, you will be able to:

• have an overall understanding of how meetings are conducted
• know the techniques for taking and summarising notes of meetings
• practise writing notes of discussions and minutes of meetings clearly and concisely

• Common Meeting Terms
• Order of business in meetings
• Language for minutes
• Types of minutes recordings
• Style in Minutes
  – paragraph size
  – sentence length
  – note form or sentences
  – attributability
  – tense
  – reported speech
  – active and passive voice
  – numbering
  – punctuation
  – notes
• Summarising techniques for reporting and discussion items
• Note-taking Techniques
• Summarising Discussions
• Styles in minutes
• Difference between minutes and notes of discussions

Ms Florence Au has been training adult learners in business communication for about 27 years. Her initial training stint in the private sector saw her teaching secretaries and administrative staff in the writing of letters, memos, reports, press releases and minutes of meetings for examination courses.

With this experience and that accumulated from her job as an administrator and later a training manager, she went on to train public officers. She has since been training at the Civil Service College (CSC) for more than 12 years. At CSC, Florence conducts public-run written communication courses in the Write programme, which includes grammar, emails, letters, reports and minutes of meetings. She has also re-written three courses for IPAM – Writing Reports and Proposals, Writing Minutes of Meetings and Writing Effectively – The Quality Service Approach.

Florence holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and Literature, a Diploma in Translation and Interpretation and professional qualifications from the UK in writing minutes of meetings and shorthand.