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.