--- id: CON-CMT-MTG-002 name: Minutes feature: FEAT-CMT-MTG-02 product_area: committees module: meetings revision: 1 status: draft product_intent: proposed implementation_evidence: inconsistent source_sha: services-committees: 36129c24daeaadcdb339218c38cdeaff9861359d react-console: baf6dae382d6f41dce976c7f848667ccc37e076f definition: 'The narrative record of a held meeting: drafted from the secretary’s notes, circulated to the participants, approved by the committee and then fixed, with later corrections as new revisions.' owned_by: MOD-CMT-MTG synonyms: - Meeting minutes not_to_be_confused_with: - The secretary’s item notes - A decision of the committee facets: - name: Item note meaning: A note the secretary records against an agenda item during or just after the meeting, never rewritten. used_for: Drafting the minutes in agenda order without retyping. - name: Draft meaning: The secretary’s working text, assembled from the notes or written by hand, saved as a file and fingerprinted on every save. used_for: Preparing the text before anyone else reads it. - name: Circulation meaning: Sending the draft to the meeting’s participants for reading, with the date it was circulated; it can be taken back to a draft. used_for: Letting the committee read before it approves. - name: Approval meaning: The committee’s acceptance of circulated minutes, by a decision of kind approval or by the chair where the rules need no vote. used_for: Making the minutes the permanent record. - name: Fingerprint meaning: The SHA-256 digest of the text’s bytes, recomputed on every save and fixed at approval. used_for: Proving the approved text is the text that was circulated. - name: Correction revision meaning: A new revision of approved minutes that supersedes them and, once approved, leaves the original marked amended. used_for: Fixing a mistake without rewriting the record. - name: Minutes visibility meaning: 'Who in the portal may read circulated minutes: the meeting’s people, members, or the public, by default participants.' used_for: Publishing minutes to the right audience. - name: Action item meaning: A follow-up the meeting agreed, proposed by hand or from the minutes and then accepted or dismissed. used_for: Recording what has to happen after the meeting; a CRM task once CRM supports it. relationships: - to: CON-CMT-MTG-001 statement: minutes belong to one held meeting, which points at its current revision provenance: observed source: services-committees:modules/meetings/db/minutes.table.ts - to: CON-CMT-MTG-003 statement: minutes are approved by a carried decision of kind approval naming them, unless the rules need no vote provenance: test source: services-committees:modules/decisions/tests/integration/services/consequences.integration.spec.ts#names the approving decision on the minutes lifecycle: - state: Draft meaning: The secretary’s working text. how_it_changes: The secretary circulates it. - state: Circulated meaning: Sent to the participants for reading. how_it_changes: Taken back to draft, or approved. - state: Approved meaning: The permanent record, fixed with its fingerprint. how_it_changes: Becomes amended when a correction is approved. - state: Amended meaning: Superseded by an approved correction; still kept as it was. how_it_changes: Nothing moves it again. acted_on_by: - CAP-CMT-MTG-007 - CAP-CMT-MTG-008 - CAP-CMT-MTG-009 - CAP-CMT-MTG-020 visible_to: - ACT-CMT-002 - ACT-CMT-008 - ACT-CMT-005 - ACT-CMT-009 evidence: - 'services-committees at 36129c24: minutes, item notes and action items tables and services, minutes approval, minutes rules; CMTE-M3 record and plan' - 'react-console at baf6dae3: acceptance journeys CMT-ACC-0237 to 0243' supersedes: [] --- # Minutes ## What It Is Minutes are the written record of what happened at a held meeting. For a board they are a legal record: what was discussed under each agenda item, who attended and what was decided. In this product they come into being when a meeting closes, as an empty draft. The secretary fills the draft either by writing it or by assembling it from the notes taken against each agenda item, which produces a heading, the attendance, one section per item in agenda order and a place for the decisions. The text is stored as a file and fingerprinted every time it is saved. When it is ready, the secretary circulates it to the meeting’s participants; the committee then approves it, and from that moment it never changes. Each set of minutes is identified by its meeting and its revision number: the first minutes of a meeting are revision one, and a correction is the next revision. ## What It Is Not Minutes are not the secretary’s item notes, which are raw jottings kept per agenda item and never edited; the notes feed the draft but are not the record. They are not the decisions taken at the meeting, each of which is its own numbered record with its votes; minutes mention decisions but do not hold them. They are not the meeting itself. And they are not an action list: follow-ups are action items, recorded on the meeting beside the minutes. ## How It Is Used The secretary takes notes during the meeting, closes it, assembles the draft, edits it and circulates it. If someone spots a wrong name, the secretary takes the minutes back to a draft, corrects them and circulates them again. At the next meeting the committee approves them, usually by a voice decision; a committee whose rules need no approval vote has its chair approve them directly. Members read circulated minutes in the portal as the committee’s minutes visibility allows. A mistake found after approval is corrected by a new revision that is circulated and approved in its turn. Good use ends every held meeting with approved minutes within the association’s allowed time. What goes wrong today: a formatted text that looks like a web page is refused when saved, and Product decided that minutes stop at circulated until the decisions milestone, although approval is already built. ## Its Facets Item notes are the raw material. The draft is the working text, fingerprinted on every save. Circulation sends it to the participants and can be undone by reverting to a draft. Approval makes it the permanent record, by decision or by the chair as the rules say. The fingerprint proves the approved text is the circulated text. A correction revision supersedes approved minutes and, once approved, marks them amended. The minutes visibility decides who reads them in the portal. Action items are the follow-ups the meeting agreed, accepted or dismissed one by one. ## How It Relates Minutes belong to one held meeting and follow its agenda. They are approved through a decision of the committee, or by its chair, according to the decision rules held on the committee’s type. Their text is stored by Platform’s file pipeline. Accepted action items are meant to become tasks in CRM once CRM can assign a task to a contact and link it to a committee. Minutes left unapproved too long become an attention line for governance staff, kept off Home until the portal phase. ## What It Could Become Product has not decided how minutes are approved: the approval by decision or by the chair is the architecture’s position, never put to Product. Likely extensions are AI-drafted minutes from the notes, minutes stored in a Documents library, action items as real CRM tasks with reminders, and a visible history of every revision for members.