As your organisation develops you will need to run your meetings more formally and make sure you record the important things like meeting attendance and decisions. This page looks at: 

• Meeting requirements 

• Types of meeting – Trustee/Committee; AGM; EGM 

• Meeting documents – Notice, Agenda, Minutes 

Meeting Requirements 

The governing documents of your community group, charity or other VCSE organisation will tell you what number and type of meetings you should hold. They will also set out the way these meetings should be called and run. 

You can choose to hold some meetings by video or telephone conferencing or hybrid methods if this is in your governing documents. If it is not, then either you must find a way to run the meeting that ensures participants can both see and hear each other, or you need to amend your governing documents. 

The governing documents will often also set out voting arrangements – when a vote is necessary, who can vote etc. 

The Charity Commission has guidance on Decision-making for Trustees .

Types of Meetings 

Trustee, Committee or Board meetings are where you make your key decisions. The Charity Commission recommends a minimum of two full trustee or committee meetings in 12 months and that the ‘quorum’ (or minimum number of trustees/committee members meeting) is one-third of the total number plus one. This number of meetings is an absolute minimum – you need to meet often enough to be able to receive information and make decisions in a timely way. 

Only trustees/committee members/directors can vote at these meetings, but they may invite staff members, professional advisers, partners or funders to attend for relevant agenda items. 

An AGM (Annual General Meeting) is a meeting held yearly at which all members of an organisation can attend and vote. You only need to hold an AGM if it is in your governing documents and, at any AGM, you only have to decide on those matters specified in these documents. They may also state when in the year your AGM should be held. 

The Charity Commission states an AGM ‘s aims are to provide the opportunity for the organisation to explain its management to members and its members to ask questions before voting on business items. 

The functions of an AGM can include: 

• Approving minutes from the previous AGM as an accurate record 

• Approving the yearly accounts 

• Receiving an annual report on the organisation’s activities 

• Making changes to the governing document 

• Electing Trustees / committee members 

• Appointing independent examiners/auditors (for gross annual incomes of more than £25,000) 

• Discussing any members’ resolutions received 

Reasonable notice of your AGM should be sent with relevant documents to all members (at least 20 working days is advised unless your governing document states otherwise). Your annual report and accounts should also be sent to every member or made available at the venue before your AGM. 

An accurate and up to date list of members is important and publicity can also help ensure members are aware of the meeting and may encourage public interest. You should hold your AGM in a place easily accessible for all members and with facilities which allow everyone to take part. 

Your governing document will usually set out who can attend and vote at an AGM and you may have different voting rights for different types of members. It also may specify the quorum of members who must be present to make valid decisions, and this should be appropriate to your membership size. Staff or any partners or professional advisers invited cannot vote unless they are also members. 

If you have a small-membership structure (where you don’t have any voting members who aren’t also trustees or directors) you still need to hold an AGM but don’t need to invite anyone outside the committee. 

Once you have fulfilled the formal part of the AGM, many organisations use the meeting as an opportunity to celebrate their achievements, network and promote new activities. 

An EGM is an Extraordinary General Meeting (or Special General Meeting – SGM) and is any general meeting of members other than an AGM. EGMs can be requested by trustees or members and are usually held for one-off business that needs members’ approval between AGMs such as changes to the government document, merger proposals, or winding up the charity/organisation. 

Members may request an EGM if they feel the organisation is not being run well or is not fulfilling its purpose or if they want more discussion of an important issue or decision. Your governing document may state the number of members needed to request an EGM and how they should go about doing it; a properly made request cannot be refused by trustees. 

An EGM also requires reasonable notice and relevant documents to be sent to all members and similar good practice applies to meeting procedure, voting and record keeping as to an AGM above. 

Meeting Documents 

An AGM or EGM notice should include details of the meeting and business to be considered, an invitation to propose resolutions / agenda items and, if appropriate, requests for nominations for trustees / officers and full names and brief descriptions of those standing for (re)election. The Charity Commission provides a useful example of an AGM notice which also includes an agenda template. 

An agenda is the order of a meeting proceedings and lists items of business. It has standing items for every meeting, such as apologies and minutes of the last meeting at the start and any other business and date of next meeting at the end. It also includes specific items and resolutions to be discussed or decided upon at that particular meeting. You may want to allocate timings for each item on the agenda and to also state the expected finish time of the meeting. 

Minutes are the legal record of the business of a meeting, once approved as an accurate record. Your governing documents or company law may require the taking and keeping of minutes for some meeting types, but the Charity Commission anyway recommends that accurate minutes are kept of all meetings. 

Minutes do not need to be a word-for-word account of the meeting but do need to record important information such as date, time and type of meeting, apologies and attendance (names, role and items attended) and agreed decisions and actions. They also need to record approval of and any changes to the minutes of the previous meeting as well as any matters arising from them not under an agenda item. 

According to the Charity Commission, minutes usually record: 

• the precise wording of any resolution with the name of the proposer and (optional) seconder 

• a summary of the discussion on each business item 

• information upon which the decision was based 

• details of the decision i.e. who voted and how and if the Chair used a casting vote 

• the action required 

• the names of the people responsible for implementing the decision/action 

• the date, time and venue of the next meeting 

It can be difficult to both take accurate notes and participate fully in the meeting and therefore it is recommended minutes should be taken by someone not directly involved wherever possible. 

Minutes should be drafted and circulated to participants as soon as possible after a meeting for their agreement and for actions to be implemented. Any trustee/member who thinks the minutes are inaccurate should discuss the matter with the chair before approval at the next meeting. 

All meeting minutes should be kept during a charity/organisation’s life as a record of its decisions. Minutes of trustee meetings should be made available to all trustees and minutes of general meetings to all members, but they do not have to be publicly available unless in your governing document. 

Disclaimer

We make every effort to ensure that our information is correct at the time of publication. 

This is only intended as a brief summary of relevant issues and information. Legal advice should be sought where appropriate. The inclusion of other organisations in this information does not imply any endorsement of independent bodies, they are just for signposting purposes.

Voscur is unable to accept liability for any loss or damage or inconvenience arising as a consequence of the use of this information.