6 Meeting Minutes Examples + Free Templates

Taking meeting minutes is an essential practice for organizations to record discussions, decisions, tasks assigned, and next steps to create an official record. But knowing exactly what to include in that written record can be tricky without a clear example.

In this article, we’ll walk you through helpful examples and templates of meeting minutes to help you confidently create effective meeting minutes of your own.

Meeting Minutes Examples In This Article:

1. Meeting Minutes with No Formatting
2. Simple Meeting Template
3. Board Meeting Template
4. Executive Monthly Meeting
5. Sprint Planning
6. One-On-One Meetings

Quick Tips on Writing Meeting Minutes

Before we jump into the examples of meeting minutes, here are some of the best practices to look out for:

• Use an AI note taker like Fellow to automatically record, transcribe, and summarize meeting minutes — whether virtually, hybrid, or from a conference room. That saves you from having to designate a person to take minutes, such as a board secretary.
• ‍Keep the meeting minutes short and sweet. A full hour of discussion should result in around half a page or even less, depending on how much information and key discussions you need to include.
• Get the basics down: That means the meeting date and time, as well as other key details like the next meeting date.
• Include the names of present members at the meeting as well as the role of each of the meeting participants or board members (if relevant).
• ‍Note decisions that were made. If something is decided upon, always state what decision was made so that future actions can be assigned and held accountable.‍
• Keep track of votes. If there was a disagreement or debate, make sure to note how the final decision came about (i.e., which board members voted for which option).‍
• Record any action items that need to get done at the end of the meeting so people know what they're responsible for before the next meeting.

As you can see, meeting minutes are pretty straightforward to write. As long as you get all of the necessary information down in a clear and concise way it should be fine.

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Here are some examples of how to write meeting minutes for your own meetings. At the bottom of each meeting minutes sample is a link to download the meeting minutes template for free or to use it in Fellow.

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1. Meeting Minutes Example: No Agenda or Formatting

For example, unstructured meeting minutes with no formatting might end up something like this:

The meeting started at 11:00 am and was attended by John Smith, Jane Doe, and Robert Brown. The meeting minutes were kept by James Taylor.

After an overview of how the project is going so far and what we hope to accomplish in the next week, we discussed how best to divide up our tasks for this upcoming week. For the first day, we decided to work on task A and B.

We also reached a consensus that we would finish up our discussion about how best to handle issue C at next week's meeting instead of trying to solve it now.

Advantages of no-agenda style of meeting minutes

Taking meeting minutes without any agenda or formatting is not ideal, but it does have advantages over not taking meeting minutes at all. So if that’s the way you’ve done it until now, it’s a good start. They can still act as an official record and, if nothing else, help to jog your memory when read.

Advantages include: 

• At least you’re taking meeting minutes!
• You can do it instantly, without any prep
• You have some kind of record, even if it’s not ideal
• You can easily copy, paste, and share the information
• It can work for very small teams, which don’t have a lot of meetings (say, a tiny local sailing club’s quarterly meetings.) 

The good news is it’s easy to take this style of meeting minutes to the next level.

Disadvantages of no-agenda style of meeting minutes

Before we look at an easy way to better organize meeting minutes, let’s take a clear look at the disadvantages of taking meeting minutes without any agenda or formatting.

Disadvantages include:

• They look unprofessional. ‍A plain text form of meeting minutes is very informal — and not necessarily in a good way. A basic meeting agenda with simple formatting is so easy to put together with ample free apps and templates.
• They’re hard to read. When meeting minutes are left unformatted, they’re harder to read. Everything is one big mass of text, even if it’s broken up into short paragraphs and sentences.  
• They might be hard to access. Unformatted meeting minutes without an agenda are usually lacking in other best practices for meeting minutes. For example, easy cloud access. Can the right people access meeting minutes at any time, securely, from any device? 
• They might be too easy to access for the wrong people. Again, unformatted meeting minutes often aren't created securely. Are they in simple Google Docs set to “Anyone with the Link Can Access”?
• The notes are unfocused. Meetings without agendas are unfocused. That means the person trying to take notes doesn’t know what to focus on, and the conversation veers into multiple directions. The meeting notes will reflect the ongoing lack of focus in meetings.

Formatted meeting minutes, using a professional agenda template and more formal language, can introduce a higher degree of order into a business meeting. You can bring a significant amount of focus into regular meetings just by regularly creating a formatted agenda. 

How to upgrade your meeting minutes

To take your meeting minutes from chaotic to polished, start with a professionally formatted agenda template.

Scroll down to see some examples of professionally formatted, free meeting agendas, which you can download and use right now.

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2. Meeting Minutes Example: Simple Meeting Template

If you’re in a hurry or want to keep things basic, this Simple Meeting Minutes template is for you. It starts with the goal of the meeting, segues into the agenda ttems, and closes with a next steps section. 

In the case of a simple meeting, meeting participants are there to quickly discuss a specific issue, solve a specific problem, answer a specific question, and reach a specific business goal. No one is concerned with Roberts’ Rules of Order, a quorum, or recording votes according to accepted parliamentary procedure.

That means this Simple Meeting Template is great for what it’s good for, but could be limited when it comes to other kinds of meetings. 

If your needs are better served by a more detailed template, keep scrolling to see other popular examples of meeting minutes, each with a free template. Or, use the search or filter functions in our directory of Free Meeting Agenda Templates.

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3. Meeting Minutes Example: Board Meeting Template

This board meeting minutes template includes all the basic components of a board meeting, so that the person or persons taking notes can have a clear focus. 

It starts with a call to order, includes attendance of voting board members and others, approval of the previous meeting minutes, reports, motions, announcements, and adjournment until the next board meeting. 

How to prepare to take minutes for a board meeting

Board meetings are among the highest level of meetings at which you could be responsible for taking notes. It’s important to do your homework in order to prepare. 

• Talk with someone who has done it well before at your company, or with your board chair. Ensure you understand what the expectations are of the meeting minutes taker, and how it’s been done before. 
• Review Robert’s Rules of Order, where you’ll learn about having a quorum, making motions, conducting and recording voting, and more under the most respected methodology for running  meetings on parliamentary procedure.
• Make sure you’re aware of your company’s specific policies regarding the board meeting agenda and minutes.

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4. Meeting Minutes Example: Executive Monthly Meeting

Because weekly (or even monthly) Executive Team Meetings relentlessly come around on the calendar, taking meeting minutes for them can quickly overwhelm a person who doesn’t yet have a good system in place.. 

A good system for executive meeting minutes includes built-in ways of: 

• Collaborating on the agenda items
• Sharing the agenda easily
• Taking notes 
• Handing off responsibility for taking notes on the fly
• Secure, easy ways of sharing the meeting minutes afterward
• Secure, easy ways of storing and searching the entire series of meeting minutes
• Designating a person for the next meeting's agenda

Any such system starts with an agenda template professionally designed for an Executive Weekly Meeting. Check out the free, instantly available template below.

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5. Meeting Minutes Example: Sprint Planning

Sprints that reach their desired goals require effective sprint planning, which requires effective sprint meetings. Done well, a sprint planning meeting not only kicks off a new sprint, but also provides: 

• Motivation
• Structure
• Clear next steps
• Clear criteria by which success is judged 

A Sprint Planning Meeting Agenda will help to avoid unanticipated obstacles and make sure everyone knows who’s accountable for what and who is authorized to make decisions on any given issue that may arise. 

Sprint Goal

The agenda plus meeting minutes example below starts with the goal, so that everyone knows what the purpose of the meeting is. Collaborate with other stakeholders to determine the goal. 

Sprint Backlog

Then refine your backlog as you create the agenda. The backlog is a complete list of tasks to be completed along with their priority Presenting the backlog is part of mapping the progress in the project so far. 

Epics to be Delivered

This template has you moving naturally then from where the project is to what epic deliverables are next. 

Scope of Work

From there the meeting will move to refining the scope of the work, to make sure everyone is on the same page about what “done” means in this sprint. 

Key Risks and Concerns 

The key risks and concerns section anticipates possible roadblocks that may arise, and how to deal with them, and who might help deal with them. 

Notes and Takeaways and Actions

The notes and takeaways section, and the actions section, confirm what has been decided, and who is responsible for owning any given part of the process.

Followup

Followup specifies exactly how task owners will be held accountable, and how stakeholders can help and be kept up to speed.

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6. Meeting Minutes Example: One-On-One Meetings

One-on-one meetings can take many forms, from general one-on-ones, to a monthly coaching call, to mentoring meetings, one-on-one manager weekly meetings, and many more. 

The one thing that one-on-one meetings require, and that is often overlooked, is an agenda. The need for a one-on-one meeting agenda can be overlooked because a one-on-one meeting may seem simple, because it’s just between two people. 

The reality is that a meeting between two people, just like one among 2,000 people in an all-hands-on-deck meeting, requires direction. A one-on-one meeting requires an agenda and meeting minutes so that each participant can know the focus of the meeting, what was decided, and directions going forward. 

Give this template a try for your next one-on-one meeting.

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Get 80+ Meeting Minutes Templates (Free to Download)

These examples of meeting minutes all come from our free agenda template library — only they've been filled in with more information.

The best way to use these templates is with Fellow, an all-in-one AI meeting assistant that can join your meetings to record, transcribe, and summarize all of your key points. Every meeting with Fellow generates a collaborative agenda where you can use these templates that will later be filled in as meeting minutes.

When the meeting is over, you can format your Fellow meeting summary to serve as detailed meeting minutes — all with a verbatim transcript to refer to. With Fellow, you no longer need a designated note taker, such as an administrative assistant. Rather, everyone can freely participate without worrying about writing everything down.

Stop taking manual meeting minutes and let AI take care of it. Try Fellow today.

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