Cohousing-L Mailing List: approval of plenary minutes

[Muriel Kranowski (murielk]

I have a question about your practices regarding the minutes of your
plenary (full-group) business meetings.

In the 22 years that I've been part of my cohousing group, we've never done
"can we approve the minutes of the last meeting" at the next meeting. The
minutes-taker sends out the minutes,  and may (rarely) send out an updated
version of it after being contacted by someone who had a problem with the
minutes, and that's that.

Now someone is saying this is not good practice and we should treat the
minutes as a draft that is subject to revision and approval at the next
plenary meeting. This is indeed standard practice on Boards of Directors
I've been involved with, but it's always been a pro forma motion in the
context of an organization that is much more Robert's-Rules-ish than we
are.

How do you handle this aspect of your governance? Do you approve (after
possibly revising) the previous minutes at the next meeting before
considering them final? If so, does that usually go pretty quickly or can
it bog down the meeting or lead to disagreements about what to include? I
can imagine some members wanting to wordsmith or add their preferred
content if given the opportunity.

Thanks -- I will appreciate your input!
    Muriel @ Shadowlake Village