I wanted to say a very big, massive THANK YOU to Paul Pennant. I joined your Minute Taking course last week Friday as I needed to improve my skills in taking notes and minutes drastically, especially as I had a meeting the following Monday. As I may have told you taking minutes left me feeling completely anxious every time I had a board meeting to attend and every time my manager would completely change them thereafter.
Well, on Monday I still felt anxious before the meeting and was trying to prepare by going over the handouts you had given us. In the meeting I felt I was listening more attentively and not trying to take down everything that was said but just a summary of what the topic was about and the actions; I spoke up in the meeting asking my Chair if what was mentioned was an action; I was writing my notes small and close together, and I had formatted the page so my notes were on one side and actions on the other! So when it came to submitting my minutes which I got back from my manager last night… they were minimal and mean minimal changes made! I mean I had read what I had originally written and not seen something overhauled.
And you said it with such confidence that we will be taking much better minutes after the course and it bloody well worked!!! I will still practice and go over the handouts you gave us, it’s early days for me yet to see if I can still keep this up, but I hope to never lose what I’ve learnt. I cannot thank you enough and I’m so glad it was money well spent.
I also want to add that being in your course that day gave me a bit more confidence afterwards, especially being around other PAs and seeing that although they’ve been doing their jobs for a long time they themselves have areas of work that require improvement. I cannot thank you enough.
