This page outlines guidelines and best practices that are useful for all MSA meetings. To name a few, board meetings, leadership meetings and committee meetings should follow these bylaws.
¶ Facilitator
Every meeting should have a designated meeting facilitator. For board meetings this is the President. The Internal Vice President and Committee Heads are the facilitators for leadership meetings and committee meetings respectively.
¶ Responsibilities
Below is a list of responsibilities that the meeting facilitator should uphold in general. Depending on the meeting, these responsibilities may be modified.
- Identify an appropriate time and location that works with a majority of participants
- Send out a meeting minutes agenda at least 24 hours in advance to all participants
- Allow everyone an equal opportunity to contribute to meeting discussions
- Help all participant opinions be understood by all attendees by summarizing key takeaways
- Take clear and detailed notes under each discussion item on the agenda
- Respect the allocated time for each agenda item by ensuring that discussions don't go over time
- List all action items that result from the meeting
- Follow up after the meeting to hold participants accountable for their assigned tasks
¶ Meeting Minutes
All meetings should have meeting minutes outlining the topics that are to be discussed and any resulting action items. Meetings without minutes are not time efficient and are rarely productive. It is the responsibility of the meeting facilitator to draft and send out meeting minutes at least 24 hours in advance.
¶ Template
All MSA meeting minutes use this template. Meeting facilitators must use this template to maintain continuity between all meetings from various branches of the association and across many years.
MSA Meeting Minutes Template Click to make a copy¶ Naming
All meeting minutes should be saved in the appropriate folder in the UCBMSA Google Drive. This is in the board folder for board meetings and in the committees folder for leadership and committee meetings. Meeting minutes documents should be named with the following format: YYYY MM/DD Meeting Minutes
It is generally good practice to include the date of a meeting in the meeting minutes title when it is saved. Always begin by including the year first followed by the month and day. Sorting by name will allow you to order meeting minutes documents chronologically.
¶ Attendance
Some meetings require attendance and penalize participants for being absent or tardy a specific number of times. Other meetings have voluntary meeting attendance. In either case, it is important to be able to look back at a meeting and know who was present. At the top of the meeting minutes template you will notice a Members Present: field. The meeting facilitator should list out all participants' names here during each meeting.
¶ Agenda Discussion Order
The first entry in a meeting minutes document should be an Agenda Discussion Order heading where an overview of the main agenda topics is listed. Be sure to include a discussion wrap-up time by each item. The facilitator will reference this time during the meeting to keep discussion on track.
¶ Agenda Items
Next, the Agenda Items heading is where more elaborate notes are taken before and during the meeting. The main discussion items should match those listed in the Agenda Discussion Order heading.
¶ Requested Additions to the Agenda
The next heading is a space where meeting participants may add discussion points they would like to discuss during the meeting. The facilitator should check this section before the beginning of every meeting and alter the agenda order to accomodate for topics that participants want to address.
¶ Action Items
A meeting without action items is usually unproductive. During meeting discussions, the facilitator may assign tasks to various individuals. S/he should quickly make note of the task and the name of the person that was assigned the task under this heading. After the meeting, the facilitator will follow up with participants regarding the progress of their action items.
¶ Islamic Reminders
In the midst of heavy planning and logistics, our Islamic purpose and intentions can easily be forgotten. It is encouraged that all MSA meetings begin and end with a form of reconnection to our Islamic teachings. This can be achieved in a number of ways.
- Begin each meeting with 30 seconds of silence, asking all participants to renew their intentions and remember the correct meeting etiquette
- Before each meeting, assign a different participant to share a short 2 minute Islamic khaterah (or reminder) by reciting some Quranic verses or hadith of his or her choosing and explaining their significance
- End ever meeting with a short duaa or by reciting Surat al Asr
¶ Breaking the Silence
In order to have fruitful discussions where everyone feels included, a comfortable meeting environment should be established. It is often helpful to begin every meeting with a 30 second personal check-in from everyone in the room. This exercise has a number of advantages:
- gets participants warmed up and talking so that they are less reluctant to speak up during serious discussion
- allows meeting participants to gather some context around the attendee's current workload such that action items may be adjust to accomodate
- provides new members an opportunity to introduce themselves and get to know everyone else
Facilitators who choose to incorporate personal checkins at the beginning of their meetings should be careful to watch the clock during this exercise. People like to ask questions which stem into tangent conversations, leaving less time for more important topics.
¶ Etiquette
The productivity of a meeting relies on the cooperation and professional conduct of all participants. All meeting attendees will be expected to abide by the following expectations.
- One mic, one voice: There will be only one person speaking at a time. Those who wish to speak should indicate with their body language and wait until the facilitator calls on them. Side conversations are disrespectful and will not be tolerated.
- Zero device policy: Meeting participants will be attentive to all discussions and not be distracted or distract others by using their laptops and cell phones to view material that is not related to the meeting. Participants may only have devices out if they are being used to view the meeting agenda.
¶ Comprehension Quiz
If you were instructed to read this page as part of an online training curriculum, you must submit this quiz and answer all questions correctly. In the case that you do not answer a question correctly, you may view which questions were incorrect and take the quiz again.
