Many people find minute taking difficult. The aim of this one-day course is to give you the skills to take minutes confidently and accurately.
Your tutor will provide you with clear guidelines for every aspect of minute taking: preparing for the meeting, working with the chair, writing the agenda, developing listening skills, summarising and distilling key points, and writing up the minutes.
This is a very practical course, with plenty of opportunities for questions, discussion and exercises. Examples of good and bad minutes will help you to follow best practice and avoid common mistakes.
After the course you will be entitled to a year of free support from your tutor, to help you as you put the techniques into practice.
Learning objectives
By the end of this course you will be able to:
take minutes confidently and accurately
prepare agendas
listen effectively and identify key points
record information rapidly and precisely
judge how much detail is required
write up minutes in a clear and professional style
use active and passive sentences appropriately
ensure that decisions and actions are clear.
Morning session
Introduction
Why we take minutes
The key skills of the minute taker
Before the meeting
The value of careful preparation
Understanding the purpose of the meeting
Thinking about how the purpose will affect the minutes
Learning from previous minutes
Looking up acronyms and technical terms
Thinking about depth of detail
Working with the chair
The role of the chair
What the chair expects of the minute taker
Things to ask before the meeting
Preparing the agenda
Understanding the purpose of the agenda
Formatting the agenda
Ordering and numbering the items
Adding timings
Distributing the agenda
Best practice in taking minutes
Developing listening skills
Being selective and identifying key points
Recording information effectively
Using abbreviations
Asking for clarification
Helpful technology
Using a laptop - the pros and cons
Using a tablet - the latest apps
Using a Smartpen - what it is and how it can help
Afternoon session
Writing up the minutes
Thinking about the needs of readers
Formatting and following conventions
Summarising and paraphrasing
Using bullet lists
Making the actions clear
Including an actions list
Using professional language
Writing for your readers
Getting the tone right
Favouring plain English
Overcoming the passive voice
The difference between active and passive
Why the active is usually best in minutes
When to use the passive
Avoiding common mistakes
Easily confused and misused words
Getting the grammar right
Punctuating minutes accurately
Closing discussion
Pulling together key techniques and top tips
Further development
Reference sources
Post-course support
More information
The Minute Taking course is available as an in-house course, which can be run face-to-face at your premises or virtually over Zoom. For more information,
click here.
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“Soon after the course, I was asked to take the minutes of our team's business meeting. I forwarded them to my boss prior to distribution and she responded: ‘Thank you so much; these minutes are so well written.’ I was very pleased as it was the first opportunity I had had to use the skills I learnt on the course.”
Julie Reed Administrator Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust
“I have recommended this course to many colleagues. Minute taking can be a bore, but this wasn’t dull at all. A very good course - I gained a lot of valuable skills and techniques.”
Julia Edwards Personal Assistant Business Improvement & Systems
“I found the course so helpful and informative. I came away with lots of great techniques and now feel much more confident at taking minutes.”
“The course was relevant, understandable and well paced. It was extremely helpful and enjoyable.”
Mandy Love Departmental Secretary Exeter Business School
Running the Minute Taking course in-house
The Minute Taking course can be run as in-house training anywhere in the world, either at your premises or virtually over Zoom. If you have a group of staff who need the same skills, this option is convenient and cost-effective. It is powerful too, because we can provide a course that is specifically designed to achieve your objectives.
Tailored to your needs
The standard programme is available as in-house training, but you may prefer us to tailor it to match the needs of your staff and your organisation. Tailoring can include:
adjusting the length of the programme
adding or removing topics
using your minutes as examples and exercises
incorporating your templates
Flexibility
An in-house course is fully flexible. Tell us what you want to achieve and we will work with you to design a course to match. Tell us when you would like to run the course and we will find a date that suits you.
Free support
Every course we run comes with a year of free support for each participant. We recognise that people do not think of every question on the day of the training. Our support service gives them the opportunity to ask their tutor an unlimited number of questions in the year following the course. In this way they continue to build their skills and confidence.
Ask us for a quotation
The cost of an in-house course depends on a number of things, including its length, its location and how much preparation we need to do. We can readily give you a quotation, so please contact us to discuss your needs.
Many people find minute taking difficult. The aim of this one-day course is to give you the skills to take minutes confidently and accurately.
Learning objectives
Introduction