Minutes and directives
AI drafts the minutes from your agenda and recorded results, a council member approves them, and the actions arising become tracked directives.
Minutes are your corporation's memory and its evidence. Two years from now, "why did we approve that?" has an answer only if someone wrote it down — and owners are entitled to them in every Canadian jurisdiction.
They are also the job nobody volunteers for. ManageStrata drafts them.
How drafting works
When the meeting is over and the results are finalized, choose draft the minutes. The AI writes from what's already recorded: the agenda, attendance and quorum, each resolution's exact wording, and its recorded result.
A draft reads roughly like:
Resolution 3 — Approve the depreciation-report engagement. Moved and seconded. Carried on a majority vote, 27 for, 3 against, 1 abstention.
Nothing is final until a human approves it
The draft sits in a pending state. A council member reads it, edits it, and approves it. Until then it is not minutes — it's a suggestion. It's the same rule everywhere the AI helps: it prepares, you decide.
Reviewing the draft
The AI has the agenda and the numbers. It was not in the room. Read for:
Discussion the record doesn't hold. The substance of the debate, the concerns raised, an owner's objection they asked to be noted. Add it.
Attendance and proxies. Verify against what actually happened, including latecomers and anyone who left before a vote.
Corrections to the previous minutes. If the previous set was amended before approval, that belongs here.
Tone. Minutes record decisions, not personalities. Trim anything that reads as commentary — everything you write is disclosable to owners and, in a dispute, to a tribunal.
Minute decisions, not transcripts
Good minutes are short. What was decided, on what authority, by what margin, and what happens next. A verbatim record helps nobody and creates the risk that a loose sentence gets read back to you.
Approving and distributing
Approve, then distribute. Owners receive them by email and can read them any time under Documents — which means they're searchable, and quotable with a page citation by Ask the documents forever after.
That last point is worth more than it sounds. "What did we decide about the parkade membrane?" becomes a ten-second question instead of an afternoon in an inbox.
Approval of minutes at the next meeting is separate
Approving a draft in ManageStrata makes it the official record for distribution. Many bylaws also require the ownership to approve the minutes at the following general meeting. That's an agenda item at the next meeting, not something this step replaces.
Directives — the follow-ups
Most meeting actions die quietly. Somebody agrees to get three quotes and nobody mentions it again until the next AGM.
A directive is a tracked follow-up arising from a meeting. Create one for each action, with what's to be done and who owns it. They stay visible after the meeting closes and can be reviewed at the next one.
Good candidates:
- Council to obtain three quotes for the parkade membrane by 30 September.
- Treasurer to arrange a separate reserve-fund account.
- Secretary to file the bylaw amendment with the land title office.
- Council to write to lot 312 regarding the balcony enclosure.
Standing item: review directives
Put "review outstanding directives" on every council meeting agenda. It takes two minutes and it's the difference between a council that decides things and a council that does them.
Directives with a financial consequence should also land in the right place elsewhere — a quote turning into a work order, an authorised levy turning into a special levy, a filing turning into a tracked duty.
Minutes as a compliance duty
Producing council minutes is a tracked duty you can put on the compliance calendar, so a meeting whose minutes never got distributed shows up as an outstanding item rather than being forgotten.
Keeping them findable
Minutes only pay off if they can be found:
- Distribute them promptly — within a week or two of the meeting.
- Name them consistently — 2026 AGM Minutes, Council Minutes 2026-03-14.
- Upload historical minutes too. The three years before you started using ManageStrata are exactly the ones a new council member and a prospective buyer will want.
Still stuck? Open Support in the top bar of the app, ask the Assistant, or contact us.