NuviMeeting minutes are the official record of what a body decided, approved by that body and kept on file. Meeting notes are an informal summary written for the people doing the work. Action items are the tasks that come out of either one: a named owner, a specific task and a due date. Most team meetings need notes and action items, not minutes.
People use these three words as if they were one thing, and then argue about what the document should look like. They do different jobs. Minutes answer “what did this body officially do?”. Notes answer “what do we need to remember?”. Action items answer “who does what by when?”. Once you know which question you are answering, the format follows.
What are meeting minutes?
Minutes are the official written record of a meeting of a body that makes decisions: a board, a committee, a council, a members’ meeting. They are taken by a designated person, usually the secretary, approved by the body at its next meeting, and kept.
They are narrower than most people expect. The official Robert’s Rules of Order site puts it this way in its frequently asked questions: “Minutes are a record of what was done at a meeting, not a record of what was said.” Under those rules it is improper to summarize the discussion at all.
Not every organization follows Robert’s Rules. The Charity Commission for England and Wales, in its guidance on charity meetings, calls minutes “the written legal record of what happened at your meeting” and says they do not need to be word for word. Its list of what to include is longer: the names and roles of the people present, declared conflicts of interest, a summary of the discussion of agenda items, the decisions and the exact wording of resolutions, the reasons for decisions, and the actions needed to carry them out.
So the first rule of minutes is to check your own governing document. It tells you how much to write down.
What are meeting notes?
Meeting notes are an informal summary written for the people who will do the work. Nobody approves them. They can include things minutes leave out: why an option was rejected, what someone was worried about, a question nobody could answer yet.
Good notes are short. A reader who missed the meeting should be able to learn in a minute what was discussed, what was decided and what happens next.
What are action items?
An action item is one task that came out of the meeting, assigned to one person, with a date. Action items are not a separate kind of document. They are a section, and they appear in both minutes and notes. They are also the part people read first.
How do they compare?
| Meeting minutes | Meeting notes | Action items | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Official record of what the body did | Shared memory for the team | Make sure the work happens |
| Who writes | The secretary or a designated minute-taker | Anyone in the meeting | The note-taker; each owner confirms |
| Formality | Formal, fixed structure, neutral tone | Informal, any structure that works | A plain list |
| What is recorded | Attendance, motions, decisions, votes, and whatever your rules require | Key points, decisions, context, open questions | Owner, task, due date |
| Who reads | Members, auditors, regulators, future boards | Attendees and people who missed it | The owners and whoever follows up |
| Approval | Approved at the next meeting, often signed by the chair | None | None |
| How long it is kept | Years, sometimes by law | As long as it is useful | Until done |
When are formal minutes required?
Formal minutes are required when a law, a regulator or your own constitution says so. Some examples, with their sources:
- Companies in the UK. The Companies Act 2006, section 248, says every company must cause minutes of all proceedings at meetings of its directors to be recorded, and that the records must be kept for at least ten years.
- Charities in England and Wales. The Charity Commission’s guidance says trustees of charitable companies must take minutes at trustee meetings and store them for at least ten years. Charitable incorporated organizations must take minutes at trustee and general meetings and keep them for at least six years.
- Bodies that adopted parliamentary rules. Clubs, associations and boards that run under Robert’s Rules of Order keep minutes because their bylaws tell them to.
Rules differ by country, state and type of organization. This is general information, not legal advice. If you sit on a board, ask the secretary or a lawyer what applies to yours.
A weekly team sync, a one-to-one, a client call or a project kickoff does not need minutes. It needs notes and action items.
What does a good action item contain?
Three parts, and all three matter.
- One owner. A name, not a team. “Marketing” will not do it. “Dana” might.
- A task with a finished state. Start with a verb and say what done looks like. “Look into pricing” is a topic. “Send the three pricing options to Sam” is a task.
- A due date. A real date. “Soon” and “next week sometime” are not dates.
Read the action items aloud before the meeting ends. That is when a missing owner or an impossible date gets caught, while everyone who can fix it is still in the room.
Templates you can copy
Formal minutes
# Minutes: Board of Directors, Example Association
Date, time, place: 14 May, 18:00, main office
Present: A. Rivera (chair), J. Chen (secretary), M. Okafor, L. Haddad
Absent: P. Novak
Quorum: yes
1. Minutes of the 9 April meeting were approved as read.
2. Treasurer's report was received.
3. Motion (Okafor): to approve the 2027 budget as circulated.
Adopted, 3 in favor, 1 against.
4. Motion (Haddad): to move the annual meeting to 12 September.
Adopted without objection.
Actions
- J. Chen to send the approved budget to members by 21 May.
Adjourned 19:10. Next meeting: 11 June, 18:00.
Submitted by J. Chen, secretary.
Meeting notes
# Website relaunch sync, 14 May
Attendees: Dana, Sam, Priya
Summary
The new pricing page is ready except for the comparison table.
Launch stays on 2 June.
Key points
- Legal has not reviewed the refund wording yet.
- Sam prefers three plans to four; nobody objected.
Decisions
- Ship with three plans.
Open questions
- Do we need a German version at launch?
Action items
- Dana: send refund wording to legal by 16 May.
- Priya: finish the comparison table by 20 May.
Action items only
| Owner | Task | Due |
|---|---|---|
| Dana | Send refund wording to legal | 16 May |
| Priya | Finish the comparison table | 20 May |
| Sam | Confirm the launch date with support | 22 May |
How does an AI summary map to these?
Most AI note takers produce the shape of meeting notes. Nuvi, the AI note taker for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, records an in-person conversation and returns a transcript split by speaker plus a summary with four parts:
| Part of the summary | Closest traditional piece |
|---|---|
| Overview | The summary paragraph at the top of meeting notes |
| Key points | The discussion section of meeting notes |
| Decisions | The decisions in notes; a starting list for the motions in minutes |
| Action items | The action list, with an owner and a due date when they were said aloud |
That last condition matters. A summary can only write down an owner and a date that someone actually said. If the meeting ends with “let’s sort that out”, no tool can invent who and when. In Nuvi the action items also land in a to-do list, grouped as Overdue, Today, This week and Later. There is more on the workflow in how to take meeting notes with AI and on the meetings use case page.
Why an AI summary is not an official record
A transcript and a summary are AI output. They can be wrong or incomplete, and words can be attributed to the wrong speaker. Formal minutes carry weight because a responsible person wrote them and the body approved them. A summary has neither.
There is also a difference of content. A summary describes what was said. Under Robert’s Rules, minutes record what was done. A motion that was moved, amended and adopted has exact wording, and that wording has to be right.
The practical use is as a draft. The secretary takes the summary and the transcript, checks the motions and votes against their own notes, rewrites it in the organization’s format and submits it for approval. That saves typing. It does not remove the checking.
One more point if you record a meeting to help with minutes: recording other people may require their consent depending on where you are. Tell people before you record, and see is it legal to record a meeting for the general picture.
Get Nuvi. It works for meetings in a room; it does not join Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams calls, and transcription needs an internet connection. What is included for free is on the pricing page.
