Minute Taking Training Course
NEXT OPEN COURSE
'Having taken minutes for a number of years, this course has given me so much more confidence to cover the essential elements required at meetings. It would be hard to improve.'
Eileen Stringer, Assurant Solutions UK.
'The trainer was great fun and has a wonderful presence about her. She was very informative and the course fully met and indeed exceeded all my expectations.'
Gina Jones, Close Brothers Military Services.
'The facilitator used a wide array of examples which engaged the attendees and proved very useful. Good sense of humour too.'
Daniel Grusin, PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Duration
1 day
What is this course about?
When attending meetings, participants have different roles to play. One of these roles is to record the meeting accurately and produce minutes. This one-day course is designed to help the minute-taker / secretary to achieve this with accuracy, speed and confidence.
Who would benefit?
Anyone who needs to take records of meetings.
Objectives
At the end of the course participants will have:-
- Considered what preparation is needed before the meeting
- Understood their role and that of the person chairing and other participants
- Considered the purpose of minutes in their group or department
- Sharpened their listening skills
- Reviewed different methods of note-taking
- Drafted minutes of a meeting
- Decided best practice for themselves
Key topics covered
1. Preparation and understanding responsibilities
- What to do when
- Clarifying the Minute-Taker's role
- Working in co-operation with the person chairing the meeting
- The agenda and its link with producing the minutes (A.O.B options)
2. The use of minutes
- What the minutes are used for
- Level of importance
- Who needs them - distribution list
- Important factors in their writing
3. Concentration
- Hearing, listening and paying attention
- Overcoming barriers to listening
- Developing active listening skills
- Interrupting - the right to do so and how to do it
- What to do when you are also the contributor
4. Methods of note-taking
- Range of minute formats
- Deciding on a suitable format
- Choosing the most suitable way to take notes
- Keys to accuracy and identifying main points
- Recording dissent
- Converting notes to the first draft
5. Writing the minutes
- Cover sheet - details of the w's
- Grammar - sense
- Reported speech - tenses, third person
- Variety in verbs
- Active and passive voice
- Spelling and punctuation checks (homophone reminders)
- Techniques for paraphrasing / summarising
- Bullet points
- Positive language
6. Making a positive contribution
- Getting commitment from others - persuasion
- Efecting action - prompts
- Making it easy to extract information
7. Practical minute taking
