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Meeting Start

The body of the minutes should start with the first thing that happened in the meeting, to wit, the call to order.

The call to order is when the presiding officer announces the start of the meeeting.1 The meeting minutes must contain the start time of the meeting2 and who is presiding.3

For example:

[7:01 pm] Meeting called to order, Chidi Anagonye presiding.

  1. RONR (12th ed.) 3:15 ↩

  2. “Minutes shall contain at a minimum the following information: 1. The start time of the meeting….” Los Angeles, CA, Board of Neighborhood Commissioners, Policy No. 2016-01 (1) ↩

  3. “The first paragraph of the minutes should contain the following information: … 4) the fact that the regular chairman and secretary were present or, in their absence, the names of the persons who substituted for them.” RONR (12th ed.) 48:4 ↩