What are minutes you ask?  Minutes are the notes that you, the CVP, take at each board meeting.  When you take minutes during a board meeting the goal is to get down who said what, and what they actually said.  Going in order of the agenda makes the job much easier so urge your president to run the meeting in this order.  Try to abbreviate and summarize without losing content in order to have clear and concise minutes. 

Your minutes should include:

• A title: include time, place, and date
• Always begin with the time that the meeting is called to order
• Mark down all board members who are present, as well as those who are absent
• Try to follow the agenda going from old business to new business to the advisors report
• Try to get as much written down as possible, it’s really funny when you write down everything that was said or happened at the meeting
• Don’t forget to write down and plan for the next meeting, get the date, time, and place
• End the minutes with the time the meeting is adjourned

After the meeting is finished make the minutes available to all board members and advisors; a simple way to do this is to type up the minutes and email them out.  Always keep a copy of the minutes for yourself for reference.  Then make enough copies of the minutes to be handed out and reviewed at your next board meeting.