Download these Free Meeting Minutes Templates to assist you in preparing and printing your Meeting Minutes Forms or Sheets. The meeting is an essential part of business life, effective meetings are a way to bring performance improvement and decide new plans, tasks, and achievement of goals. Meeting minutes or protocols are supported for creating effective meetings as they are a record of the meeting.  The whole event is recorded in meeting minutes and usually initiated with a list of participants; afterward, it includes the list of issues discussed and decisions taken over them.

Importance of Meeting Minutes Templates

Meeting minutes are important for different reasons some of which are as follows.

• These are written records of the meeting, its agenda, and decisions so become a significant resource for those who did not attend the meeting and for further communication between members
• There is a chance of error in remembering all the details of the meeting as memories fly by night so it is valuable to have a written record of the meeting for better assistance in the implementation of decisions and further meetings.
• Meeting minutes are proven a good communication instrument for conveying the essence of the meeting to the absent workers.
• Meeting minutes confirm the resolutions and conclusions of the meeting
• These are a way to record decided actions to be taken for any issue
• Meeting minutes keep a record of responsible persons and tasks assigned to them
• These present a record of the course of action of the meeting and its conclusion
• Meeting minutes contain a summary of the discussion on every agenda item
• Decisions taken on different issues are recorded in meeting minutes
• In meetings of the board of directors taking minutes is an official requirement to keep everything clear in the future and can be used as legal documents for tax and audit purposes
• Meeting minutes have a record of action decided for different items that help to observe progress on them in regular group meetings

By keeping in view, the importance of meeting minutes organizations make arrangements for taking minutes to make their meetings effective. For this purpose, usually, a person is assigned the responsibility to take minutes before the meeting.  It is a skilled job for the minute taker to observe all the discussion of the meeting whether it is a perplexing or incoherent debate, he has to summarize correctly what is said. Minutes are usually verified with the chairperson for conforming accuracy and move through the attendees or any other person affected by any decision taken in the meeting.

Free Meeting Minutes Templates

Here are several free Meeting Minutes Templates in MS Word format so that anyone can easily take notes during a meeting session.

Professional Meeting Minutes Template

If you prefer a relatively simple yet professional layout then here is a Meeting Minutes Template for you. You can input enough details regarding your meeting and also fill in Agenda Topics before the start of the actual meeting.

Workshops Meeting Minutes Template

Following Meeting Minutes Template is really good for large meetings such as workshops or official seminars.

 

Basic Minutes of Meeting Template

Simple yet Professional Minutes of Meeting Template that anyone can easily use without learning too much about taking minutes in a business meeting.

Meeting Minutes Guidelines

Considering the importance of meeting minutes following points must be focused on to make them more effective.

• The date and time of the meeting along with the names of the participants should be included
• A perfect summary of the discussion, key ideas, proposals, and substitutes for complex matters must be mentioned
• Meeting minutes must represent the decisions taken during the meeting and any issue which is discussed during the meeting
• It must include any follow-up coursework and in charge person with the deadline for action
• Meeting minutes’ copy must be delivered to all relevant persons for better follow-up, these copies can also be passed to higher authorities

Minutes of School Meeting Template

Check out this wonderful Minutes of School Meeting Template that can help you take notes while conducting a Parent-Teacher meeting in your school.

Contractor Safety Meeting Minutes Template

Here is a particular Meeting Minutes for Contractor Safety Meeting Minutes.

Taking Meeting Minutes Effectively

Meeting minutes are very important and crucial for the success of all kinds of meetings. Meeting minutes are the official record of the meeting that tells you what was discussed in the meeting. Minutes are used to document the words that lead up to the decisions being made concerning any business issue.

Meeting minutes are a record of important decisions that ensure that the meeting committee has taken important decisions regarding business issues to let them resolve as soon as possible.

Effectively taking meeting minutes might be a somewhat tricky task for you if you don’t have an idea what format should be of this document and what should be the role of the minute taker.

Knowing about these facts can work well for you to take meeting minutes in a structured form that will further help you finalize your meeting results. The meeting minutes’ format is usually followed by the company’s policy and these minutes are recorded in a pre-determined way. If you are new to your company and don’t know what format you have to follow, you can ask for meeting minutes of the previous meeting so that you can establish a normal meeting minutes format for your upcoming meeting.

The second very important thing that can help you take meeting minutes effectively is the role of the minute taker. Being a minute taker you must have good interaction during meetings, your lost interaction with meeting participants can give you fruitless results. It is commonly seen that secretaries normally sit quietly during meetings and just take notes, but actively participating in meetings and giving valuable suggestions during discussions will be a good practice.

For taking meeting minutes it is always very important that your minutes’ document is written in a well-structured form. Its format will help you understand what you have noted and points will be easy to understand for you. You must have to follow a standard meeting minutes template that should contain the time, date, and venue.

Attendees and apologies from absentees must be added to your meeting minutes page. What decision has been made concerning which issue and agreed actions with key outcomes from the meeting must be written in your minutes’ document? Moreover, adding these points will make your meeting minutes document complete and more effective for making further decisions to improve the productivity of your organization.

After noting down meeting minutes, the next step is to keep a check on spelling if you think that you make mistakes while writing. Before finalizing your document and submitting it to final authorities, having spell check would be good practice and will help you avoid any shame in front of your boss. If your minutes are written in a well-structured and organized form, they will always be welcomed and will have a good impression of you.

If you practice these points for taking meeting minutes, it will not only increase the quality of further meetings but will also help you increase your team’s effectiveness. You will surely become able to make your meetings more effective and productive if you take meeting minutes effectively.