As sometimes happens, one of your colleagues raised some questions about my review of their minutes. Perhaps they didn’t understand or agree with my list of exceptions or comments. That’s fine; I’m always open to re-thinking these things.

But then they asked about a “Minute Manual,” something I’d never heard of or considered before.

This new Manual will lay out what I understand these review questions to mean, so that we will be on the same page as we prepare our minutes and our review forms. There is still room for interpretation, but if you are wondering how I’m thinking about something, this is the place to look.

• As promised at the Clerk’s Workshop, there is not a lot that is new, and you’ll be given time to get up to speed. As we are all to have a Manual of Operations (MOO), there will be places where you can simply put “MOO” in as your answer and that will be sufficient.
• You will have the opportunity to indicate where your insurance information is located, by page number or in MOO, but if you didn’t include it in 2023 you aren’t on the hook for it until 2024.
• Finally, there are several new policies and practices required as of July 9, 2023, but because we haven’t been able to help you with those yet, they will not be expected until your 2024 minutes.

The biggest change is not the form, but the schedule. In the next few months we’ll asking for your input on how we can best facilitate the review process. The process will largely look the same but the schedule will differ.

With Easter on March 31, we’ll be looking to schedule in-person peer reviews around the end of April. We’ll continue to arrange for the swapping of minutes between you and a peer partner to review. But in 2024, all Minutes and Review Forms must be in the office by June 30.

Why the change? Reviewing minutes is an important function of our churches and Presbytery, but it is not meant to be a year-long project, whether you are preparing minutes or reviewing them. But too often folks have waited until the last minute. This means scrambling to have minutes ready by October and requiring Office Manager Sonja Gaertner to track progress and send out reminders late into the year.

As the Manual suggests, by organizing your minutes in January and having December’s approved at your first meeting of 2024, you can

• submit them as soon as you are finished for the PDF review, partnering with another clerk through Sonja;
• spend three months to get ready for the in-person regional review;
• or take five months until the final deadline, where again, you can be partnered for peer review.

Do not forget to complete and send your review form! There are approximately 50 questions, nine of which require two page numbers, and then the final wrap-up work at the end. If you take all the time you’re given, you still have nearly six months to complete it. The IRS only gives you 4.5 months, and asks for a lot more information! It’s basically the same schedule that I work under to have the Presbytery minutes reviewed.

One last word of advice: Get your minutes and review form in early enough for peer review, rather than having me do the review. I’m a hard grader, especially if I have too many reviews to do at the last minute.