Help centre / Meetings & minutes / Record attendance and check quorum
Record attendance and check quorum
Open the meeting and expand the Attendance section. Mark each person present, apologies or absent. Anyone who joins a live meeting is marked present automatically. The quorum card shows how many voting members are present against the number your rules need.
Record who's there
- Open the meeting and find the Attendance section. Select Expand to see everyone.
- Mark each person present, apologies or absent.
- Anyone who opens the meeting while it's live is marked present automatically, with the time they joined.
- To record someone who isn't a member, such as your independent examiner, select Guest and add their name. Guests don't vote and don't count toward quorum.
How quorum is checked
Quorum is the smallest number of voting members who must be present for the meeting to make binding decisions. The quorum card shows the number present against the number required, with a clear met or not met badge. It updates as people arrive, so you always know where you stand before a vote.
Where the required number comes from
Each meeting type carries its own rule. Board meetings use the number nearest to a third of your current trustees, and never fewer than two. AGMs and EGMs use three members or a tenth of the membership, whichever is greater. A custom meeting type can set its own fixed number. If a structured type has no rule, we use 3 and label it as the default.
Open-format meetings, such as council and committee meetings, run without a quorum check.
The badge is there to inform you, and you stay in charge. If quorum isn't met, the usual course is to note it in the minutes and hold any formal decisions over to the next meeting.
The governance behind this: our free guide on charitycontrol.org explains the why in plain English.