AIDSbuzz

The Minutes of a Meeting                                                                        

What are minutes and why must they be kept?

Minutes summarise what has taken place in a meeting. Organisations need to keep minutes so that there is an official record of the meeting and all the decisions that are made. It is important to be able to refer back to the minutes if there is ever any dispute regarding a particular meeting or decision. In this way meeting minutes can help to prevent conflict.

Usually minutes are there to remind committee members and stakeholders what has been decided and what actions need to be taken for progress to be made.

All minutes should be stored together in a separate file.

What must be recorded in the minutes of a meeting?

•  The name of organisation or committee, type of meeting (daily, weekly, monthly, annual, or special), and the reason for the meeting.
•  The date, venue and time of meeting (including the time it began and ended).
•   The names of the people who are present at the meeting (including apologies from those who could not attend). It is a good idea to pass around an attendance sheet.
•   Confirmation of the minutes of the previous meeting (and if they are accepted as correct).
•   Matters arising from the previous minutes. Record any developments or decisions relating to these matters.
•   The decisions reached on each item of the agenda. The agenda is a list of all the topics that need to be discussed at the meeting. It is put together before the meeting and sent to all the people who will be attending.
•   The names of the people assigned to deal with various tasks and the time period in which they are expected to do them.
•  The main points of anything else that is discussed.
•   The date, venue and time agreed upon for the following meeting.
•   The signature of the chairperson, the signature of the person taking the minutes and the date.

Who must write the minutes?

The secretary of the organisation usually records the minutes. However, anyone who is at the meeting might be asked to take on this duty.

How do I write the minutes?

• Take note of what you must record in the minutes of a meeting (above).
• The chairperson should follow a meeting agenda and this can be used as a basic outline for the minutes. Make a note under each agenda heading of what decisions were made, listing the main points including who must to do what, and by when.
• Ask the chairperson to summarise the decisions taken under each agenda item if anything is unclear.
• Try to write the minutes up properly as soon as you can after the meeting so that you can remember everything clearly and no important information is lost.
• These minutes should then be distributed to everyone who was at the meeting, the people who could not make it, and anyone else who is affected by the discussion.

An Evaluation Report

What is project evaluation?

When you evaluate your project or organisation, you are looking at the aims and goals, and assessing whether they have been achieved. An evaluation also enables the work of individuals in the organisation to be recorded so that they can each see how they are working toward fulfilling the organisation’s goals.

An evaluation report should reveal the successes and strengths of a project as well as its mistakes and weaknesses. This is important so that you can acknowledge and resolve any problems your organisation might be having. Without continuous evaluation you can easily lose sight of your original vision and goals.

Why do you evaluate a project?

• To establish what your organisation has achieved
• To assess the organisation’s progress
• To improve management and monitoring
• To identify strengths and weaknesses
• To determine if the effort was effective
• To determine if the cost was reasonable for what was achieved
• To share experiences and avoid repeating mistakes
• To improve efficiency
• To allow for better planning
• To satisfy the people who are funding your organisation

The two main parts of an evaluation

• Monitoring
• Formal Evaluations

What is monitoring?

Monitoring looks at the day-to-day work of your organisation and judges from this if your organisation is making progress towards its specific goals. This must be done before you can do a formal evaluation.

How do I do this?

You need to collect and analyse information about daily activities. This is known as the record-keeping process. Ask all the staff and volunteers to fill in report forms every week recording their activities.

The report form needs to include the following information:

• Person’s name
• Activity (such as home visit)
• Date
• Contact name
• Telephone number
• Describe the activity: (Where, how, who etc.)
• What did you discuss?
• What plans did you make?
• Any comments you have
• When will you next do this activity?
• Signed
• Date

What did you spend?

• Cost
• Food
• Travel
• Telephone
• Anything else?
• Total

For office use only

• Checked by:
• Date:
• Comments:

You will use this information to show four important things about your project or organisation:

• What work has been done
• How the work has been done
• What impact this work has had
• Has the work helped the organisation to reach its goals

Formal Evaluations (these can either be external or internal)

External evaluations are done by an outside organisation that specialises in doing such evaluations. They are more likely to be unbiased and objective than an internal evaluation. Some of the umbrella HIV and AIDS organisations provide an evaluation service. See Umbrella Organisations.

Internal evaluations are done by people who are involved in the project. There is usually a representative from each of the groups involved. These could include, for example, staff, clients, volunteers, or local government representatives.

Planning an evaluation report

Information needs to be collected from a variety of different sources such as report forms, interviews with staff, volunteers and the target beneficiaries, surveys, case studies, group discussions etc. Collecting and analysing the data can take time and may cost extra money. It is important to therefore set a time frame and a budget when planning an evaluation.

Writing an evaluation report

Introduction

This requires a brief summary of the organisation or project being evaluated and should include information on the following:

• Mission and goals 
• When the organisation/project started
• Number of staff and volunteers
• Target population
• Source of funding

Background

Explain whether you are evaluating the organisation for your own needs or whether it is a requirement from the funders.

Goals of the Evaluation

List the main goals of this particular evaluation, stating exactly what you want the evaluation to achieve. Do not get confused between these goals and the goals of your project or organisation.

Methodology

Explain the methods you have used to collect information.

Reporting requirements

Always specify exactly what you want in the final report. This is particularly important when you are using external evaluators or you may not get the information you need.

The main section of your report

It’s a good idea to organise this information under the following three headings:

‘Where were we?’

This is the situation you started with. For example, very few people living with HIV in your community can afford to buy fresh vegetables to help them stay well.

‘Where do we want to be?’

This is the situation you are trying to achieve. For example to get everybody in the community, including people who are HIV-negative, to start a vegetable garden so that everyone has access to fresh vegetables.

‘How will we get there?’

This will cover what needs to be done to achieve this. For example:

• People need to be persuaded that vegetable gardening is a good idea
• Training in food-gardening skills needs to be provided
• Suitable land needs to found
• Seeds and equipment need to be provided

Describe all the activities (in very good detail, using all your reports and interviews) your organisation has been involved in to get to where it wants to be, under the appropriate headings.

Finally, present the report and make recommendations to the people who are directly involved in the organisation or project. The information needs to be shared and discussed with everyone. Agreement then needs to be reached as to what changes (if any) need to be made based on the findings of the evaluation report.