Here's a full UK charity trustee meeting minutes template, free, with no form to fill in first — copy the headings below straight into a blank document. It's built around the Charity Commission's CC48 guidance (its published advice on running charity meetings). What makes it different from a bare list of headings: every section has a bracketed prompt and a worked example line, so you can start typing during tonight's meeting rather than staring at a blank page.
Does the law require a specific minutes format?
No — for most charities, minutes are governed by good practice and your own governing document (the charity's constitution, articles, or trust deed), not by statute.
CC48 describes minutes as the written record of what happened at a meeting and says they "do not need to be a word-for-word record." It lists what they should cover — that list is what the template below is built around — but the layout, the software, and the exact wording are all yours to choose.
Two types of charity structure carry an actual legal duty on top of that guidance. If you're a charitable company, section 248 of the Companies Act 2006 requires you to keep minutes of directors' meetings for at least 10 years, and not doing so is a criminal offence for the company's officers. If you're a CIO (Charitable Incorporated Organisation), the CIO General Regulations 2012 require minutes to be kept for at least 6 years and available as a hard copy. Everyone else — unincorporated associations and trusts — should keep minutes at least 6 years as good practice, per CC48, even without a specific law forcing it. More on what each section should contain and why: see what charity minutes should include.
The template — copy this into a blank document now
Paste the headings below into Word, Google Docs, or wherever you're typing tonight. Fill in the bracketed prompts as the meeting happens — not from memory afterwards.
[Charity name] — Minutes of [Trustee Board Meeting / AGM / Sub-committee]
Date: [date] Time: [start–end] Venue: [location or "held by video call"] Example: Date: 14 October 2026. Time: 7:00pm–8:35pm. Venue: St Mary's Community Hall, Bristol.
One line covering the meeting's basic details — CC48's first requirement.
Present: [names and roles] Apologies: [names who gave notice] Absent: [names with no apology] Quorum: [X of Y trustees present; quorum of Z per governing document — met/not met] Example: Present: Sarah Cole (Chair), David Ntim (Treasurer), Priya Shah, Tom Wexford. Apologies: Ade Okafor. Quorum: 4 of 5 trustees present; quorum of 3 met.
Confirms who was there and that the board was entitled to make decisions — a meeting without quorum can't validly decide anything.
Declarations of interest: [name — nature of interest — left the room? — voted?] or "No conflicts of interest were declared." Example: David Ntim declared a personal interest in Agenda Item 4 (contract with his brother's firm); he left the room during discussion and did not vote.
Record every declaration, or explicitly record that there were none — a blank section reads as an oversight later. Under CC29 (the Commission's guidance on conflicts of interest), a decision taken with an unmanaged conflict "could be challenged and may not be valid."
Approval of previous minutes: Minutes of the meeting held on [date] were [approved as an accurate record / approved with the following corrections: ...]. Example: Minutes of the meeting held on 9 September 2026 were approved as an accurate record, proposed by Priya Shah, seconded by Tom Wexford.
Matters arising / actions carried over:
| Action | Owner | Due | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| [action] | [name] | [date] | [done / in progress / new date: ...] |
| Example: Get three quotes for hall insurance — David Ntim — due 30 Sept — slipped, new date 15 Nov. |
Carries actions forward with an owner and a live date, so nothing quietly drops between meetings.
Agenda items:
For each item — [Item number and title] Discussion: [one or two sentences] Decision: [the exact wording agreed] Reasons: [why the board decided this] Action: [who does what, by when] Example: Item 4 — Hall insurance renewal. Discussion: three quotes reviewed, ranging £410–£640. Decision: "The board approved the renewal with Compass Insurance at £410 for the year to 30 September 2027." Reasons: lowest quote, same cover level as the outgoing policy, and Compass confirmed cover for the youth club sessions. Action: David Ntim to confirm payment by 30 September.
This is the section a future reader — a new trustee, an auditor, the Charity Commission — relies on most. Record the decision's exact wording, not a summary of it.
Next meeting: [date, time, venue, or "to be confirmed"] Example: Next meeting: 11 November 2026, 7:00pm, St Mary's Community Hall.
Signed (Chair): _________________________ Date: _________________________
How to fill it in during the meeting, not after
Agree who's holding the pen before you start. CC48 is explicit that a charity doesn't need an official secretary — "someone else such as a trustee or an employee can carry out the role at your meeting." If your board has no secretary, say so out loud at the start and name who's doing it tonight.
Type as you go, even roughly. Get the decision's wording down the moment it's agreed, while everyone in the room still remembers exactly what they voted for — reconstructing it from memory the next morning is where errors creep in. Tidy the language afterwards; don't invent the substance afterwards.
Write down decisions, not the debate. You don't need "Tom said... then Priya replied..." — you need what was decided, why, and who's doing what next. A board that tries to capture every remark ends up with minutes nobody reads back, which defeats the point of keeping them at all.
If someone disputes the record, note it rather than argue it live. CC48 says that if a trustee disagrees with the accuracy of the minutes, they should raise it with the chair; if it isn't resolved, "note any objections in the minutes before the chair signs them." Recording the objection is itself the correct outcome — it doesn't need settling on the night.
What happens to it once the meeting ends
Send the draft to every trustee as soon as possible after the meeting — CC48 recommends this explicitly, while the discussion is still fresh enough for people to spot an error. Don't sit on it for a fortnight.
At the next meeting, the board reviews the draft, agrees any corrections, and approves it as an accurate record — that's the "approval of previous minutes" section at the top of the template, now filled in for real. The chair then signs and dates the approved copy, and CC48 describes this as the point where the record is finalised and stored safely. Signing isn't a statutory requirement for most charities, but check your own governing document — some make it a formal step.
Retention depends on your structure: charitable companies must keep minutes at least 10 years (Companies Act 2006, s.248 — a legal duty, and an offence for officers if ignored); CIOs must keep them at least 6 years under the CIO regulations; everyone else should keep them at least 6 years as good CC48 practice. The full breakdown of what to keep and why lives on the minutes checklist guide — this page is about getting tonight's document written, not the full retention picture.
Mistakes people make with this template
Leaving the conflicts field blank instead of writing "none." An empty box looks like nobody thought to ask. Write "No conflicts of interest were declared" every single time, even when it's true every single time.
Copying last month's file and forgetting to update the quorum count. If a trustee resigned or joined since the last meeting, the quorum figure in your governing document might still read the same, but the "X of Y present" line needs the current numbers — not last month's, carried over by habit.
Writing a transcript instead of a decision record. We see this often with a board's first few sets of minutes: pages of who-said-what, and the actual resolution buried in the middle of a paragraph. Pull the decision out into its own sentence, in the words the board agreed, every time.
Recording the topic but not the decision. "The board discussed the fundraising event" tells a future reader nothing was decided, or hides that something was. If nothing was decided yet, write that too — "the board deferred a decision to the next meeting, pending updated costings."
Do this once, then let it run itself. Trustee Meetings is a simple board-meetings tool built for small UK charities. It keeps a running template for every meeting — the agenda, attendees and carried-over actions are already filled in when you arrive. Free until your first board meeting is done — no card, no clock running. Then £180 a year (or £15 a month), every trustee included. Try it with your board
Frequently asked questions
Should the template be a Word document or a PDF? Either — there's no rule. A Word or Google Docs copy is easier to fill in live during the meeting. Once the board has approved the minutes, saving the signed version as a PDF suits a stored final copy better.
Can we adapt this template to add our own sections? Yes, freely. CC48 doesn't fix a format — it only sets out what minutes should cover. Add whatever extra fields your own governing document asks for.
Do we need an official secretary to fill this in? No. CC48 says that if a charity doesn't have an official secretary, a trustee or an employee can carry out the role at the meeting. Agree who's holding the pen before the meeting starts, not partway through.
Should we type the minutes up during the meeting or afterwards? Either works, but typing live — or finishing the same evening — is far more reliable than waiting. CC48 recommends circulating the draft to trustees as soon as possible after the meeting, while it's still fresh.
Does the chair have to sign the minutes for them to be valid? For most charities, no — it isn't a statutory requirement. But it's the near-universal convention CC48 points to, and some governing documents make it a formal step, so check yours.
This guide covers England and Wales. Scottish charities should use OSCR's own guidance and resources, though OSCR takes the same governing-document-first approach and points to CC48 for detail. Charities in Northern Ireland are regulated separately by the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland (CCNI) — check its guidance rather than assuming these rules apply in full.
Want the agenda that feeds into these minutes? See the trustee meeting agenda template, or if this is your board's first meeting, start with running your first trustee board meeting. Browse the full guides library or try it with your board.