Minutes and 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, the notes taken during the meeting, 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.

Attendance is stated from the register — "22 of 30 lots present, of those 14 in person, 5 by electronic means and 3 by proxy". Where the chair certified a count of their own on the night, the minutes state that figure without the breakdown, because a document that gives a total and a breakdown that disagree with it is worse than one that gives only the total. Where no count was taken at all, the minutes say so rather than implying an inquorate meeting.

Owners are identified by lot, not by name

Minutes are open to every owner, so a name in them travels further than in any other record you keep. Where an item concerns a particular owner's or resident's arrears, fine, bylaw contravention, complaint, dispute, hardship or health, the draft identifies them by strata lot — the owner of SL12 — and never by name. If the lot isn't known, it says an owner or a resident. That follows the BC privacy commissioner's guidance for strata corporations.

People acting in a role are still named: council members, the chair, the mover and seconder, and attendance.

The draft does this; your edits don't. If you add discussion by hand, apply the same rule.

Reviewing the draft

The AI has the agenda, your notes 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. Departures marked on the register are already reflected; someone who slipped out unrecorded isn't.

Corrections to the previous minutes. If the previous set was amended before approval, that belongs here.

Names against personal matters. The draft is told to use the strata lot for an owner's arrears, fines, complaints and the like. It is still a draft — check that no owner is named against one.

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.

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.

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.

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.