Mastering Meeting Minutes: A Personal Case Study on Advanced Minute Taking

When Adam, a Governance and Democracy Specialist from Westmorland & Furness Council, needed to learn how to advance his minute taking skills, he reached out to us at Understanding ModernGov for training.

Background

Westmorland and Furness Council is the local authority for Westmorland and Furness in Cumbria. It is one of the two new unitary authorities in Cumbria formed in April 2023. It covers: Barrow Borough Council, Cumbria County Council, Eden District Council and South Lakeland District Council.

Westmorland and Furness Council deliver a wide range of services to these communities, including council tax and benefits, collecting bins and recycling, planning, maintaining roads, pavements and footpaths and schools and social care.

Learn more about Westmorland and Furness Council

The Challenge

Adam, who works as a Governance and Democracy Specialist (Democratic Services), wanted to learn how to maximise his listening and writing capabilities in order to produce concise and efficient minutes. Being able to confidently cascade the relevant action points to the right people during important meetings at Westmorland and Furness Council was a particular focus point for Adam.

Adam said:

"Despite writing minutes for a number of years now, I had never received any training on this. My main goal was to refine and learn some tips on picking up on key information and minute writing to improve my standard of writing."

The Solution

Adam booked onto one of our most popular training courses, Advanced Minute Taking, to become more confident and efficient in his minute taking abilities. The full-day course ran from 09:25 to 16:00 and was delivered virtually via Zoom, ensuring accessibility and convenience for all participants.

Discover: Why Advanced Minute Taking Training Remains Popular in 2024.

This course was specifically designed to advance the skillset of employees responsible for taking meeting minutes in the workplace. This training attracts a diverse range of professionals from various industries and job roles, including personal assistants, senior policy advisors, managerial roles and more.

This course was a perfect match for Adam whose goal was to be able to keep up in busy meetings and most importantly transform notes into concise, insightful and actionable points.

The day was full of interactive workshops and practical exercises, providing numerous opportunities for Adam to put the skills he learnt into practice and receive instant feedback from our expert trainer, Communication Specialist Sue Calthorpe.

Adam said: “Susan was really engaging and involved everyone which helped me to keep my focus.”

Learn more about our Top Writing Expert: Susan Calthorpe

The Result

Having completed our Advanced Minute Taking course, Adam has reestablished his responsibilities as a minute taker. Adam has confirmed he feels much more confident in his minute taking skills and can see how learning this will help him collaborate better and contribute more in future projects at Westmorland and Furness Council.

Adam said:

"From the discussions we had, I learned that I have a good standard of writing minutes which gave me confidence, but the course helped me to understand that I could definitely improve in a number of ways.

All of the exercises we did on the course were perfect for what I wanted out of the training and helped to put the content into the context of actually writing minutes."

Key Statistics

Next Steps

Following this course, Adam has already put his advanced minute taking skills into practice at Westmorland and Furness Council. With his newfound confidence for producing more efficient and accurate notes during meetings, Adam can now confidently cascade the relevant action points to the correct people to measure progress, enhance collaboration and make good decisions within his team. 

Adam said:

"The focus on picking up on actions and key information was great and the summarising exercises were a real help that I have already put into practice in the three sets of minutes I have written since the course."

Want to Improve Your Own Minute Taking Skills?

Read the full agenda for our Advanced Minute Taking course to learn more and book your place.

Want to acquire a training course for your team only? Contact our In-House Team today who will be able to tailor this course to your team's training needs.