The politics of meetings

I sat in on a really enjoyable and fascinating course on minute-taking at the University of Dundee which was lead by Clare Marchbank. Did you know that minute-taking came about in the 17th century through two distinct pathways? - the parliamentary system and company law practices. In the former the Chair (the Speaker) and the secretary are both independent and expected to be impartial, in the latter the Chair is often the one with the most shares and the Secretary (with a capital S) is his right hand man. In one the Chair is active and steers the direction of the meeting and in the other the Chair is passive and oversees the discussions.
Clare stressed the political aspect of minute-taking, of recording what was said and agreed. - With the Data Protection act, this equally means what has not been added to minutes, with the secretary's scribbled notes often being destroyed once the written up minutes have been approved. I'm looking forward to investigating the politics of meetings (and not just office politics) further.

A visit to the Nine Trades archives allowed me to read through some very detailed minutes, sederunts and lockit books from the past. When the Nine Trades initially began they held their meetings in the Howff, a graveyard in Dundee where past masters of each Trade were buried. Each Trade would hold their meetings at a specific gravestone. The reasoning for this was that outdoors they had most privacy and could not be overheard - something which seems counter to my logic as I can't help visualising people hidden behind tombstones snooping in. If there were meetings going on in my local graveyard I'd certainly be curious though perhaps I would be wary of venturing out there!