Page Comparison

This summarizes my understanding of the secretarial duties. In particular, I have tried to note where the practices are requirements of the role and where I have established some best practices that can be modified or discarded by the new secretary.

Background

In May 2017, I was elected to the first Leadership Board of Democrats Abroad China (DACN) as secretary. 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.

As secretary, I followed the established rules for maintaining the membership list, meeting minutes, and administrative records for DACN. Though the responsibility for these processes is solely the secretary’s, they may delegate tasks. For example, it is not necessary for the secretary to take notes at every meeting, but they are responsible for having someone take notes and then making the minutes available.

Table of Contents

Meeting Minutes

The leadership board established monthly meetings taking place on Sunday evenings at 8:00 or 8:30 pm. I was often the notetaker and at the top of the meeting we would vote to approve or amend the minutes as shared. I would try to email the minutes immediately following the meeting, also posting them to the wiki.

The secretary shall […] maintain minutes of all meetings and all files and administrative records of the organization, making them reasonably available for membership review.

Democrats Abroad China Bylaws, Article VIII (Revised 2019)

I set up a dedicated section for Democrats Abroad China on the wiki. This is where I post meeting minutes, our bylaws, and other administrative documents. 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.

• The wiki also has an updated leadership list and notes the next scheduled leadership meeting.

• In accordance with the Confidentiality Agreement (CA), member data cannot be shared here.

• For access to edit the wiki, contact the Wiki Admin, .

New Members

The Secretary shall maintain a current list of verified members of the organization […].

Article VIII of DACN Bylaws, DA-China-Bylaws-Rev-2019.pdf

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.

• New members will not receive any communications (email, calls, etc.) until they are verified.

• While not required, use the option to send a welcome email when verifying the member. Include an invitation to join us on WeChat in this message.

• Remember to use the shared country login (username: info-china@democratsabroad.org).

Some members in China, have trouble accessing the website, and a signup form can be created on MikeCRM. While this signup form can be shared and completed on WeChat, the information must be transferred to NationBuilder. Once recorded and verified in NationBuilder, the data should be deleted from MikeCRM.

• We have a free account at http://mikecrm.com/ (both Chinese and English interface).

• They have a mini app for WeChat so you can set up forms to send you notifications of new signups (only in Chinese).

Annual Membership Count

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.

Section 3.4, DACN Bylaws, DA-China-Bylaws-Rev-2019.pdf

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.

Keeping Tabs

The secretary should be able to produce a list of all leaders, including keep the list of leadership board members updated, as well as major roles of other volunteers. In addition,

Record Keeping:

1. Leadership roles, committees

2. 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