Tasks of a note taker during meetings

The note taker is one of the most important participants in a board meeting. The note taker has the task to report all details of the meeting with the goal of summarizing the content in a way that everyone is able to comprehend what is being discussed and decided during the meeting.

In this article we will provide a general view of the meeting goals and activities of the note taker per agenda item.

Introduction

To start with the introduction of the meeting. The introduction of the meeting has the goal of spreading information. During the meeting’s introduction the note taker has the task to be alert of business that is communicated at the beginning. Hereby you need to think about adopting and amending the agenda and to announce the household announcements.

The note taker also needs to step in whenever a substantive discussion threatens to take place on agenda items that still need to be addressed.

Approval

Approval has the goal of decision making. Hereby the note taker needs to be aware to create distinction between ‘editorial changes’, ‘remarks following’ as well as the ‘discussion of the list of points of action’.

The note taker needs to pay attention to concrete approval or determination that are being communicated during the board meetings.

Announcements

The announcement agenda item has the goal of spreading information. The note taker types down all announcements and possible reactions of the board during the board meeting. These announcements and comments could be important for future meetings.

Documents

The documents that have been added to the agenda have the goal of information sharing. The note taker has to document included pieces. Hereby you can think of the sender, date and subject.

Changing agenda items

The changing agenda items have the goal of information sharing, opinions and decision making. When the changing agenda items come to the table, the note taker will make a brief recap of what is being said. The participants of the meeting must be able to comprehend all the information from the meeting afterwards. The note taker will end the recap with the end piece which mention the tasks, agreements and decisions.

What comes to the table

The agenda item ‘what comes to the table’ is meant to be an agenda item for topics that haven’t been discussed yet.

Final question and closing

The final question and closing both serve as information sharing. During the final question reactions, input and sequel will be noted. This information is useful for the next board meeting.

During the closing item all the last announcements will be noted. Hereby you should think of a new meeting date, place and time. Or possible topics for the next meeting.

Efficient note taking

When looking at all these tasks we are able to conclude that a note taker has an important role in board or management meetings. Without the annotations the board has barely nothing to fall back on after the meeting. Besides, it also takes a lot of time and effort to process all of the information within documents and saving them on several spaces in the cloud or local storage. With the Indeqa board meeting software it is possible to share and export files and annotations from tablets and smartphones with other participants during and after the meeting.