RCB Library Notes
Making and Minding the Minutes
RCB Library Publishes new guidelines for those in secretarial positions responsible for the minutes
Making and Minding the Minutes
RCB Library Publishes new guidelines for those in secretarial positions responsible for the minutes
Record keeping is important to ensure that the business of the Church can be properly managed and the history of the Church reliably told. In recent years there has been a tendency in many institutions to believe that record keeping is more efficient if done electronically which offers the possibility of ease of recovery, no physical storage and universal access. But this view is not shared by the RCB which has recently issued new guidelines on record keeping.
The RCB Library has produced a new leaflet entitled’ Making and Minding the Minutes’ as a response to concerns about the digital storage and circulation of minutes online. It is aimed at those in secretarial positions on parish and cathedral vestries, the boards of church institutions, as well as diocesan synods and councils, and advises that they need to print out, sign and date their minutes from meeting to meeting, and ultimately bind them 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.
Library staff are pleased to advise on all aspects of this policy and recommend reputable book binders. For further information please email [email protected]
All three library pamphlets are now available to view online here