What's the Difference Between Board Members and Participants?
The Short Version
Board members are the people who sit on a specific board and vote — your elected or appointed officials. Participants are the people who regularly attend meetings but don't vote — your municipality staff, town counsel, department heads, and similar roles.
MuniMins treats them differently because they play different roles in your minutes.
Board Members
Board members belong to a specific board. When you set up your Planning Board in MuniMins, you add the five (or seven, or nine) people who sit on that board. Each member has a name, a role (Chair, Vice Chair, Clerk, Member), and optionally a voice profile that helps MuniMins identify them in recordings.
Board members are the people whose names appear in roll call, who make and second motions, and whose votes get counted. When MuniMins produces minutes, it uses your board member list to generate accurate attendance records and vote counts.
A board member belongs to one board. If someone serves on both the Select Board and the Finance Committee, they'd be listed as a member on each.
Participants
Participants are different. They're people who show up regularly to board meetings but aren't voting members of any board — your Municipality Administrator who attends Select Board meetings, your Municipality Counsel who's at Planning Board hearings, your DPW Director who presents at multiple boards.
Participants are set up once at the organization level, not per board. You add them in the Participants section under Boards, and you can tag which boards they typically attend. That way MuniMins knows to expect them when processing a recording.
Participants show up in minutes when they speak — their comments are attributed to them — but they don't appear in roll call and they don't vote.
Importantly, Particpants are universal across all municipal boards, so you only have to set them once.
Why This Matters for Your Minutes
The distinction matters because MuniMins uses it to produce accurate minutes:
Roll call and attendance — Board members are listed in roll call. Participants are noted as present but aren't part of the formal attendance count.
Motions and votes — Only board members make motions, second motions, and vote. When MuniMins writes "Vote: 4-0-0 — PASSED," those numbers come from the board member roster. Participants are never counted in votes.
Speaker identification — Both board members and participants can have voice profiles. MuniMins uses these to identify who's speaking throughout the meeting, regardless of whether they're a member or participant.
How to Set Them Up
Board members: Go to Boards → select your board → Members. Add each person with their name and role on the board.
Participants: Go to Boards → Participants. Add the person once, then tag which boards they regularly attend.
Common Questions
What about members of the public who speak during a meeting? You don't need to add them. MuniMins will identify them as speakers in the transcript, and you can assign names during the speaker identification step after processing. They aren't board members or participants — they're one-time speakers.
Someone is a member of one board and regularly attends another as staff. How do I handle that? Add them as a board member on the board they sit on, and as a participant for the board they attend in a staff capacity. MuniMins will treat them correctly in each context.
Do participants need voice profiles? They don't need them, but voice profiles help. If your Municipality Administrator speaks at every Select Board meeting, a voice profile means MuniMins will recognize and attribute their comments automatically. Without one, you'd identify them manually after processing.
Can a participant vote? No. In MuniMins, only board members vote. This mirrors how municipal boards actually work — staff and counsel attend and advise, but the vote belongs to the appointed or elected members.