Friday, October 4, 2013

Notes #20 Officer Duties

“What are my duties?” “What should I be doing?”

These are frequent questions asked by people who take on a new responsibility in their organizations, either as an appointed chair or as an elected officer.

Ideally, your group should take the time to ensure these people are trained in their position as soon as possible.  And if not, these people should seek out help and learn what they should be doing.

Too often, they won't, doing a poor job and upsetting others (and frustrating themselves). You’re not learning anything by stumbling along blindly. At best you’ll do a poor job, at worse you can hurt your organization, either by reputation, financially, or cause it to lose members.

They made the mistake of not ASKING FOR HELP. Not asking for help is not a sign of strength, but of stupidity. Who can you ask? Your predecessor. Other officers. Your parent organization or leaders at other levels of the organization (if they exist). Even looking on-line for manuals and assistance.

What should (or could) have happened to avoid this issue?

Officer Transition Training/Office Training


Ideally, new officers should be shown what their job entails by their predecessors. This can be done informally, one on one, or more formally by group in what is usually known as "officer transition training". Too often, elections are held too late for this, as the previous officers leave at the end of the term, and no one has the time at the end of the term to properly do this.  This is one of the reason why many organizations will have elections done weeks if not months before the end of a term, to allow for this training and transitional period.

Also, attending training for your position is vital, if it exists.  Different organizations handle training differently.  Some focus on general leadership training, others focus on specific position training, some do a mix.  All have their good and bad points.

Organizational Documents


Your organization's bylaws (if they exist) will contain some basic description of your office position. This can be a good starting point.  These descriptions should have been used when elections came up, to ensure that everyone knows what is required of the positions before people ran for the positions, and those that did should understand they have committed to the job.  (this is also why some organizations make use of nominating committees and commitment agreements as part of their election process, as covered in a previous Note).

Officer Notebooks


Many organizations create officer notebooks. These binders contain all of the information gathered for a particular officer. Ideally, each officer will add to it during their term, and pass it to their successor. Sadly, sometimes these are lost, which means the information they had is gone. Each officer notebook should be unique, but typically it will contain the following:
  • Bylaws and other operating documents (Standing rules, etc.)
  • Relevant mailings and information from the parent organization and other levels
  • Committee reports from last year (or more)
  • Calendar & goals, roster & contact info.
Some information will be unique for certain officers. The Treasurer’s Notebook should have all the financial information, etc. The Secretary’s Notebook will contain the last year’s meeting minutes and committee reports (older minutes and reports should have been moved to the group’s permanent records).

Of course, these notebooks are useless unless they are USED. The officers should bring them with them to meetings, so they can be referred to as needed, new material added to them, and the like. More importantly, the officers should review what is in the notebooks. (you know, READ it).

Advisors (if applicable)


If your organization is a youth group, you should have adult advisors.  Your advisors are a resource of information. Many of them have been officers (and/or officers in other clubs/organizations), so they can help explain what your job entails. Approach them and ask for help. If they’ve offered to help new officers in learning their job, take them up on this offer!  Some youth groups that have adult advisors will assign specific advisors to specific officers.  This ensures the officer has a dedicated advisor who understands their role.  Does your group do this?  Should your group do this?

Parent Organizational Resources


If your group is a local chapter of a larger organization, there may be resources within that larger organization.  There may be national level people who have been officers and understand how things work in that organization.  Some organizations have levels in between the national and local level who can also help. 

On-line resources


There are usually several on-line resources for most organizations, both official and non-official.  This can include email discussion lists, on-line forums, Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups, and the like that you can use to speak with others, many of who are officers themselves.
As noted, there are a lot of help for the new officers.  Make use of them.

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