BS 0:2006 meeting minutes — statements, declarations, and actual times

BS 0:2006 is the British Standard formally titled A standard for standards. It is the meta-standard that governs how BSI technical committees operate — and §7.6 specifies the structure of committee meeting minutes.

Two concepts from §7.6 are universal across standards bodies but rarely modelled natively: statements (who said what, and in what capacity) and declarations (conflicts of interest and IPR positions). Edoxen 1.0 promotes both to first-class core entities, because ISO, IEC, BIPM, IETF, and every other body needs the same tracking.

Why BS 0:2006?

Every standards body has a notion of “what was said at the meeting” and “who declared a conflict.” Until now, Edoxen modelled the outcomes (decisions, resolutions) and the procedure (motions, votings), but not the discourse — the individual statements members make during debate, or the formal declarations of interest that precede participation.

BS 0:2006 §7.6 is the most precise published treatment of these concepts. It distinguishes:

• Statements — general remarks, comments, and standpoints (a member’s position on the topic).
• Declarations — conflicts of interest and IPR positions (patents, copyright claims) that members must disclose before participating.

The same distinction exists in ISO, IEC, IETF, and every parliamentary body. By deriving the model from BS 0, we get a published standard as the provenance — not an invented taxonomy.

What’s new in the model

Three new core entities

Statement — one remark by one or more members on a topic or minutes section. The kind discriminator separates three types:

• statement — a general remark.
• comment — a sub-type (typically shorter, often procedural).
• standpoint — a member’s position on the topic.

Declaration — a formal declaration by one or more members. Two kinds:

• conflict_of_interest — a member declares a conflict on a target (typically a Topic or TopicDocument).
• ipr — a member declares an IPR position on a target (a published standard or work in progress). Carries typed EntityRef slots for ipr_subject_ref (the IPR item, e.g. a specific patent) and ipr_target_ref (the standard it applies to).

DateTimeRange — a start + end pair with sub-day precision. Parallel to DateRange (day granularity); the two are intentionally separate types so the precision is visible at the type level.

Extended models

• Meeting — dateRange renamed scheduledDateRange; new occurredDateRange: DateTimeRange; new declarations: Declaration[].
• Topic — new statements[] (standing position that travels with the topic) + declarations[] (standing declarations).
• MinutesSection — new statements[] (per-meeting: what was said this time) + topic_ref (URN back-link to the Topic).

Every translatable field is per-field LocalizedString[] per ISO 24229. IPR subject/target use typed EntityRef — cross-references that the schema validates.

When to use these concepts

The scheduled-vs-occurred distinction matters more than it sounds. A meeting scheduled for a full day but actually ran 09:00–11:30 has different reporting implications — attendance thresholds, quorum calculations, venue costs — and the model now captures both.

A bilingual example

This is the bs0-sample.yaml fixture — a BSI TC/1 sitting with bilingual statements, both declaration kinds, and scheduled-vs-occurred times:

identifier:
  - prefix: BSI
    number: "TC/1/2026/03"
urn: urn:edoxen:meeting:bsi:tc1-2026-03
type: committee
status: completed
scheduled_date_range:
  start: 2026-03-12
  end: 2026-03-12
occurred_date_range:
  start: 2026-03-12T09:00:00+00:00
  end: 2026-03-12T11:45:00+00:00
declarations:
  - kind: conflict_of_interest
    description:
      - spelling: eng
        value: Mr Smith declares a conflict of interest on agenda item 5.2.
      - spelling: fra
        value: M. Smith déclare un conflit d'intérêts sur le point 5.2.
    party:
      - name:
          - spelling: eng
            value:
              formatted: Mr John Smith
  - kind: ipr
    description:
      - spelling: eng
        value: Ms Doe declares a patent on the technology described in clause 7.
    party:
      - name:
          - spelling: eng
            value:
              formatted: Ms Jane Doe
    ipr_subject_ref:
      urn: urn:edoxen:ipr-subject:iso-patent-policy:2024
    ipr_target_ref:
      identifier:
        prefix: ISO
        number: "8601-1:2019"
minutes:
  - identifier:
      - prefix: BSI
        number: "TC/1/2026/03/min"
    spelling: eng
    sections:
      - number: "5.2"
        title:
          - spelling: eng
            value: Patent clause discussion
        narrative:
          - spelling: eng
            value: |
              The committee discussed the patent clause in detail.
        statements:
          - kind: standpoint
            description:
              - spelling: eng
                value: Ms Doe supports the clause as drafted.
            party:
              - name:
                  - spelling: eng
                    value:
                      formatted: Ms Jane Doe
          - kind: comment
            description:
              - spelling: eng
                value: Mr Smith requested his dissent be recorded.
            party:
              - name:
                  - spelling: eng
                    value:
                      formatted: Mr John Smith
        topic_ref: urn:edoxen:topic:bsi:tc1-patent-clause

How to use the API

Ruby (gem)

require 'edoxen'

collection = Edoxen::MeetingCollection.from_yaml(File.read('meeting.yaml'))
meeting = collection.meetings.first

# Scheduled vs occurred times
scheduled = meeting.scheduled_date_range  # DateRange (day precision)
occurred  = meeting.occurred_date_range   # DateTimeRange (sub-day)

# Declarations on the meeting
meeting.declarations.each do |decl|
  kind = decl.kind  # "conflict_of_interest" or "ipr"
  desc = decl.description.find { |l| l.spelling == "eng" }&.value
  puts "[#{kind}] #{desc}"

  if decl.kind == "ipr"
    puts "  subject: #{decl.ipr_subject_ref.urn}"
    puts "  target:  #{decl.ipr_target_ref.identifier.first.number}"
  end
end

# Statements in a minutes section
meeting.minutes.first.sections.each do |section|
  section.statements.each do |stmt|
    kind = stmt.kind  # "statement", "comment", or "standpoint"
    text = stmt.description.find { |l| l.spelling == "eng" }&.value
    who  = stmt.party.map { |p| p.name.first.value.formatted }.join(", ")
    puts "  [#{kind}] #{who}: #{text}"
  end
end

TypeScript / JavaScript (@edoxen/edoxen)

import { validateMeetings } from '@edoxen/edoxen'
import yaml from 'js-yaml'
import fs from 'node:fs'

const doc = yaml.load(fs.readFileSync('meeting.yaml', 'utf-8'))
const result = await validateMeetings(doc)

if (result.valid) {
  const meeting = doc.meetings[0]

  console.log('scheduled:', meeting.scheduled_date_range)
  console.log('occurred:', meeting.occurred_date_range)

  for (const decl of meeting.declarations ?? []) {
    console.log(`[${decl.kind}]`, decl.description[0]?.value)
    if (decl.kind === 'ipr') {
      console.log('  subject:', decl.ipr_subject_ref?.urn)
      console.log('  target:', decl.ipr_target_ref?.identifier?.[0]?.number)
    }
  }

  for (const section of meeting.minutes?.[0]?.sections ?? []) {
    for (const stmt of section.statements ?? []) {
      const who = stmt.party?.map(p => p.name?.[0]?.value?.formatted).join(', ')
      console.log(`  [${stmt.kind}] ${who}: ${stmt.description?.[0]?.value}`)
    }
  }
}

OCP: extending the kinds

The StatementKind and DeclarationKind enums are designed for extension. If your domain has a statement or declaration type not in the standard set, you extend the enum (or use other + an extension profile) — the Statement / Declaration models themselves never need to change. This is the Open/Closed Principle at work: the flat class + kind discriminator pattern means new domain concepts are a config change, not a model rewrite.

Try it

gem install edoxen
edoxen validate-meetings meetings/*.yaml

Or read the BS 0:2006 Minutes docs page, walk the architecture, or browse the samples (bs0-sample.yaml is the bilingual fixture shown above).