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Background
In May 2017, I was the first secretary elected to the Leadership Board of Democrats Abroad China (DACN). After operating informally for years, Ada Shen and Rich Welch worked to establish an official Country Committee (CC) in China, carefully drafting the bylaws and ushering in the first leadership board. Part of their intention was to separate the roles of secretary and communications, allowing the work to be shared and not placing too heavy a burden on the secretary. Even so, the secretary has substantial responsibilities.
ARTICLE VIII: SECRETARY
The Secretary shall maintain a current list of verified members of the organization; individual members may review and revise their own member record, otherwise the secretary shall be responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of membership list names and contact details. The secretary shall also maintain minutes of all meetings and all files and administrative records of the organization, making them reasonably available for membership review.
DACN Bylaws, DA-China-Bylaws-Rev-2019.pdf
As secretary, I followed the established rules for maintaining the membership list, meeting minutes, and administrative records for DACN. I also requested access to a dedicated section for DACN on the DPCA wiki, in order to help make . This is where I post meeting minutes, our bylaws, and other administrative documents available to our members. Not every CC uses the wiki this way, and it is not a requirement, but it does fulfil our obligation to make the records available to our members.
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Wiki. The DACN secretary makes uploads meeting minutes, bylaws and other records available to our members on the DPCA wiki. wiki.
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Membership List
One major ongoing duty of the secretary is to verify new members. New members join Democrats Abroad through the signup form on the website and then their information is automatically fed into the membership database. As the database administrator for China, the secretary receives an email notification each time a new member joins. Most of the time the number of new members is no more than 12 per week, while closer to an election the number may be more than 20 per day.
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NationBuilder Database. The DACN secretary must log-in to the database and verify each new member.
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ARTICLE III: MEMBERS
3.4 Maintenance of Membership List. The current list of members as maintained by the Secretary per Article VIII shall be delivered annually to the appropriate officers of the DPCA pursuant to procedures adopted by the DPCA..
To keep DACN in compliance, the secretary is responsible for an annual cleanup of the membership list. In odd numbered years, the number of verified members determines our vote share in DPCA.R
Keeping
The secretary should keep the list of leadership board members updated, as well as major roles of other volunteers. In addition,
Checklist for New Secretary:
- Review the Advice for New Leaders.
- Email the International Secretary <secretary@democratsabroad.org>and copy the Asia Pacific Regional Vice Chair <rvc-ap@democratsabroad.org> with the meeting minutes from the AGM where you were elected and a list of the newly elected leadership board members (name, role, and email). This must be done within 15 days of the meeting.
- Complete and submit the Confidentiality Agreement.
- Complete the NationBuilder Trainings for website content, email, and database.
- Ask the new DACN Chair to complete the New Admin Access Request Form for you.
Tools
Mobilize - internal comms for DPCA leaders
Wiki - internal comms for DACN members
Nationbuilder - member list, indicate leaders, send emails to members, manage RSVPs for events (use shared DACN login)
Website - publish events and news (also part of Nationbuilder but use personal login)
MikeCRM - China-friendly signup forms
Record Keeping:
Leadership roles, committees
Meeting minutes and materials, bylaws
Tasks:
Update wiki with current leaders, next meeting, meeting minutes, and current bylaws.
Notify DPCA International Secretary on issues of country committee compliance.
Create lists and design email blasts
Create WeChat forms for signups and fundraising
Publish events and news to website