V.6 Andrews University GUIDELINES FOR PRODUCING, FILING, AND
TRANSFERRING COMMITTEE MINUTES

Producing Minutes:
1. Always be consistent in using the official name for your committee.
Do write: Education Textbook Planning Committee
Do not write: Textbook Planning Committee
Off-Campus Textbook Planning Committee
Instructional Materials Planning Committee
Committee on Educational Textbooks.

Although you may be aware that these are all the same committee, someone else may not be sure. In the Archives, committee minutes are arranged alphabetically. In the above example, the same committee might incorrectly appear under T, O, I, or C.

2. Ad hoc committee minutes should show to what standing committee, department, or administrative group they report.

3. Always follow the same format.
When you are away for vacation, etc., leave a sample copy if your replacement will have to type minutes for you.

4. Use some type of consecutive numbering.
Purpose: To help verify the completeness of a set of minutes. This can be done in any or all of the following ways:

Consecutive page numbers, starting over with page one each year or continuing indefinitely.
Consecutive actions, including the year (88-01, 88-02, etc.) and perhaps the committee initials (AHC 88-01).
Consecutively numbered meetings (Fifty-first Meeting of the Adventist Heritage Center Committee), although this will not indicate any missing pages.

Filing Minutes:
1. File all minutes in a separate drawer or section of drawer. Minutes should not be filed with correspondence or topical files.

2. Do not file minutes of related committees in the same folder. For example, if a committee has several subcommittees, the minutes for each subcommittee should be in a separate, appropriately labeled, manila folder, but they could all be in the same hanging folder with the main committee.

3. Minutes of different boards and committees should not all be filed together in a single folder. Institutions usually have a number of different committees, the minutes of which should be kept separate. Andrews University, for example, produces the following separate series of minutes:
Andrews University Board of Trustees
Academic Affairs Subcommittee of Andrews University Board of Trustees
Audit Committee of Andrews University Board of Trustees
Andrews University Executive Committee
Andrews University President's Committee
Andrews University Constituency Meeting

4. File minutes and corresponding support documents for each meeting chronologically, from the front, with the most recent minutes at the back. Sometimes important support documentation comes attached to the agenda. The agenda can be discarded, but attached support documentation should be filed following the corresponding minutes.

5. Related correspondence and other miscellaneous materials may be filed with minutes but should be kept in separate folders. Routine notices of committee meetings, agendas, or insignificant letters accompanying minutes when they are sent can be discarded.

Transferring Minutes:
1. If you produce minutes for a committee, please file an extra set and send it to the Archives and Records Center at the end of each year, when you send other annual records, such as correspondence.

2. Your official set of minutes, containing corrections and backup materials, should be transferred to the Archives and Records Center when you no longer need them for frequent reference, usually after five or six years.

3. Minutes not produced by you should all be transferred to the Archives and Records Center when no longer needed for frequent reference, usually after two or three years.