Board meetings, agendas and minutes

On Meetings, give the date of the next meeting and its agenda drafts itself: apologies and declarations of interest, last meeting's minutes if they still need approving, the actions still open, the every-meeting duties, anything else falling due before the meeting after, and the risks to discuss. Then it's yours: add, remove or reorder items.

Email the agenda to the trustees sends it to everybody on the board with an email address, with a note at the top if you like. Replies come to you. You can also print it, or save it as a PDF.

At the meeting, record who was there and write the minutes against each item. Some items can settle something as they go: a duty can be recorded as done, the risks marked as reviewed. Agree actions with somebody and a date; each one stays on every agenda until it's done. Once the meeting has been held, its minutes are approved at the next one, and from then on they're locked, so the record can't be changed afterwards.