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Dear Dinosaur:  A member of our board relentlessly wants the minutes for the January 2024 meeting to include the content of a conversation he had at that meeting. At every meeting, he makes a motion to do this. Our minutes provide the actions of the board but not direct quotes from people. How can we address this?

Answer: Your board is following Robert’s Rules of Order in not including quotes from people.

According to Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised, 12^th edition (RONR) and best practices, meeting minutes are a record of the actions of the body. They should contain what is done, not what is said. See RONR Section 48:2. You can read more about this in our article here.

Once the minutes have been approved, if a member persists in bringing this up and requesting that the minutes be amended to include a conversation, he is engaging in dilatory behavior, wasting the organization’s time.  The chair has the duty of refusing to recognize such motions. See RONR Section 47:7 (5) and our article on the duties of the chair here.

If this member brings this up again, the chair should state:

Those minutes have already been approved in accord with our policy, so this is a dilatory motion, wasting our time, and will not be considered.

If the chair fails to do this, a member can raise a Point of Order that the motion is dilatory. The chair should then say,

The Point of Order is well taken. This motion will not be considered. Our next item of business is….

Good luck in dealing with this obstinate member!

Dear Dinosaur provides simple, practical answers to questions about Robert’s Rules and parliamentary procedure. Send your questions to Dear Dinosaur here. Our answers are based on Robert’s Rules of Order, Newly Revised, 12th edition. As always, nothing in this post constitutes legal or business advice. For specific issues, seek a qualified authority.