[Lnc-business] proposed amendments to 07/03/18 minutes

Alicia Mattson alicia.mattson at lp.org
Fri Sep 28 20:48:39 EDT 2018


At the beginning of the term, our Secretary indicated that her draft
minutes had more content than has been included in the past, and she
acknowledged that it's up to the LNC to decide whether it wants our minutes
to include those things.

My comments on the 07/03 minutes advocated for returning closer to the RONR
p. 468 rule of thumb that "In an ordinary society, the minutes should
contain mainly a record of what was done at the meeting, not what was said
by the members."

This meeting gives the LNC an opportunity to weigh in on the question.
Rather than me simply stating a generic concept and you guessing about what
would be different, attached are two documents to propose those changes.
The first shows what content I would suggest be removed, and the second
shows what the text of the minutes would be in the style I'm advocating.  I
didn't re-create the formatting or include the text of all footnotes, only
the footnotes that would be impacted by the changes.

The content in question accounts for almost 30% of the minutes, though most
of it is in the "prelude" section or Appendix A.

The prelude contains mostly just informal chatter prior to the meeting's
call to order.  This was not part of the meeting, and it results in this
document redundantly containing three copies of the agenda.  That
repetition serves no value.

The material removed from Appendix A is the summary of public comments,
which is nothing but the opinions of individuals.  Our minutes should be a
record of the official business conducted by the LNC, not a listing of
people's opinions and debate commentary.  This can be problematic in
various ways that I previously noted.

-Alicia
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   At the beginning of the term, our Secretary indicated that her draft
   minutes had more content than has been included in the past, and she
   acknowledged that it's up to the LNC to decide whether it wants our
   minutes to include those things.
   My comments on the 07/03 minutes advocated for returning closer to the
   RONR p. 468 rule of thumb that "In an ordinary society, the minutes
   should contain mainly a record of what was done at the meeting, not
   what was said by the members."
   This meeting gives the LNC an opportunity to weigh in on the question.
   Rather than me simply stating a generic concept and you guessing about
   what would be different, attached are two documents to propose those
   changes.  The first shows what content I would suggest be removed, and
   the second shows what the text of the minutes would be in the style I'm
   advocating.  I didn't re-create the formatting or include the text of
   all footnotes, only the footnotes that would be impacted by the
   changes.
   The content in question accounts for almost 30% of the minutes, though
   most of it is in the "prelude" section or Appendix A.
   The prelude contains mostly just informal chatter prior to the
   meeting's call to order.  This was not part of the meeting, and it
   results in this document redundantly containing three copies of the
   agenda.  That repetition serves no value.
   The material removed from Appendix A is the summary of public comments,
   which is nothing but the opinions of individuals.  Our minutes should
   be a record of the official business conducted by the LNC, not a
   listing of people's opinions and debate commentary.  This can be
   problematic in various ways that I previously noted.
   -Alicia
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