For MuniMins to fully understand your meeting, enter the full roster of board members. When MuniMins generates minutes, it uses your roster to attribute motions, record votes, and fill in attendance with both the members who attended and those who were absent.
Add the members
- Click Boards in the sidebar, then click Members next to the board you just created.
- For each member of the board, use the Add new member box:
- Enter the member's full name (first and last, spelled the way you want it to appear in minutes).
- Choose their Role: Chair, Vice Chair, Clerk, Member, Representative Member, Ex-Officio Member or Alternate Member.
- Set their Voting status: Voting for members who vote, Non-voting for alternates and ex-officio members. Choosing Alternate Member or Ex-Officio Member sets this to Non-voting for you.
- Click Add new member.
The number of Voting members should match the number of seats on the board. If a board has five seats, add five Voting members. MuniMins counts only Voting members in vote tallies.
If the person is already in MuniMins — for example, they serve on another board — use the Add existing member box instead. Search for their name, set their role and voting status on this board, and click Add to this board. Their voice profile carries over.
How do alternates work?
Different towns have different policies, but generally alternate, or associate, members vote only when a full member is absent. Mark them as Non-voting. MuniMins lists a present alternate in attendance, but counts their vote only when the meeting shows they were seated as a voting member — named in a roll call vote, or seated by the chair in place of a named member.
If an alternate votes at every meeting, set their voting status to Voting and MuniMins will always count them. For tips on how the chair can help MuniMins record votes accurately, see Getting Better Results from MuniMins.
What about non-voting attendees?
Ex-officio and other non-voting members who sit on the board belong on the roster as Non-voting members. People like the Town Administrator, legal counsel, or department heads are participants, not board members. Participants are organization-wide and can attend any board's meetings. Adding them is optional for your first test run — you can come back after your first set of minutes is generated. See Members, Participants, and Guests for more detail.
Speaker training for members
Board members are eligible for speaker training so that MuniMins can learn to recognize their voice in future meetings.