Pre-synod
Making and Minding the Minutes
RCB Library Issues New Information Leaflet at General Synod 2026
RCB Library staff will be present throughout Synod 2026 to talk to members and visitors about the Library’s resources and services. This person–to–person engagement proved very successful last year, when two new information leaflets on Keeping the Records Safe and Minding the Church Plate were distributed. You will find Library staff members on the RCB stand in the Ballroom area.
Updated reprints of the leaflets will be available this year. Additionally a third one entitled Making and Minding the Minutes has been added as a particular response to an outcome of the digital storage and circulation of minutes online. It is aimed at those in secretarial positions for parish and cathedral vestries, the boards of church institutions, as well as diocesan synods and councils, advising that they need to print out, sign/date their minutes from meeting to meeting, and ultimately to bind these in chronological order into a book.
Minutes are an important historical record of administrative business, and can help to date key events, presence of personnel and decision making. Storing master minutes digitally rather than in a hard–copy is not acceptable. It is a risk and has become a matter of concern in the RCB Library where gaps have been observed in minutes, where there should be runs of records. Instead, meeting secretaries must ensure that the master set of minutes is printed for the next meeting and signed and dated by whoever is chairing the meeting.
The new leaflet provides options of how to ensure minutes are printed, signed and ultimately bound, and Library staff will be on hand throughout the General Synod to advise and further encourage all aspects of this policy and recommend reputable book binders.
For further information please contact For further information please visit the RCB Library staff at stand 11 in the ballroom at Synod, or Email [email protected]