AGENDA AND MINUTES

335

specially confidential nature, the authority of the chairman
should be obtained before the agenda is circulated.

In the case of municipal authorities and other public
bodies the minutes are usually circulated among the members
prior to the meeting, and are not therefore read at the following
meeting. In the case of board meetings, the secretary should,
on reading the minutes of the preceding meeting, hand the
chairman the agenda of the preceding meeting, so that the
latter may check the minutes as they are read by the secretary
with his own notes on the agenda, and immediately the chair-
man has signed the minutes as a correct record, the agenda
paper should be torn up. The objection to keeping it is that
there then exist two records of the same transaction, one, the
rough notes often made hurriedly and not always with exact-
ness by the chairman on the agenda paper; and secondly, the
more careful minutes written out in detail by the secretary and
signed by the chairman with the approval of his colleagues. It
is advisable only to have one record, and that record should, of
course, be the minute signed by the chairman in the minute
book.

Assuming the minutes are correctly recorded by the secre-
tary, the minute should read: ‘ The minutes of the board meet-
ing held on the day of last were
read and signed by the chairman.” The use of the word
‘confirmed’ should be avoided, as that may imply that the
resolutions are not complete without ‘confirmation,’ whereas
the resolution is binding directly it is passed, and the secretary
or other official is justified in acting upon any resolution
directly it is agreed to. The only reason for reading the
minutes of the preceding meeting is to give all the directors
an opportunity of seeing that the secretary has correctly
recorded their proceedings.

If it be found on reading the minutes that any alteration
is required, such alteration should be made, not by erasure,
but by striking out in ink the incorrect words, and writing
in the correct ones, and the alteration should be initialled by
the chairman.

No alteration in a decision arrived at can be allowed on the
reading of the minutes, the only permissible revisions being
those which affect the correctness of the record of those
decisions.

Where the decision of a board meeting is not unanimous
it is not usual to record the fact that the decision is only that of
a majority; but if on the point being put to him by the
secretary, the dissentient director or directors desire such
dissent to be recorded, there is no objection to stating, after

Minutes
Read and
signed.

Minuting
Dissent.