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This page is meant to facilitate the transition of duties to the next secretary. I served as secretary (May 2017-May 2019, May 2020-May 2021) and vice chair (partial term: May 2019 - May 2020). In this summary, I outline not only requirements of the role, but also some established practices that the next secretary is free to modify or discard.

Background

In May 2017, I was elected to the first Leadership Board of Democrats Abroad China (DACN) as secretary, along with Aaron Kruse as chair and Samantha Wong as vice chair. We did not know each other much at all, and only Sam had been previously involved in DA. After operating informally for years, We were ushered in as the first leadership board by Ada Shen and Rich Welch worked , two volunteers who were active in DA while living in China before 2017. They led the effort to establish an our official Country Committee (CC) in China , recognized by the Democratic Party Committee Abroad (DPCA). They were responsible for carefully drafting the bylaws and ushering in organizing the election of the first leadership board for DACN.

Farewell party for Ada and Rich, July 2017.
From left: Aaron Kruse (DACN Chair), Ada Shen,
Sam Wong (DACN Vice Chair), and Rich Welch

One Ada and Rich explained to me that one of their intentions in writing the bylaws was to separate the roles of secretary and communications, allowing . They wanted to allow the work to be shared and avoiding avoid placing too much of a burden on the secretarya single person. Even so, the secretary has substantial responsibilities including maintaining the membership list, meeting minutes, and administrative records for DACN. Though the responsibility for these processes is solely the secretary’s, they

Meeting Minutes

The leadership board has held monthly meetings taking Our only regular meeting is the monthly leadership board meeting and the annual general meeting (AGM). Monthly meetings take place on Sunday evenings at 8:00 or 8:30 pm via Zoom. I was often the notetaker and at the top of the meeting we 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 bylaws require the minutes to be shared at least one week prior to the next meeting. At the top of every meeting we vote to approve or amend the minutes as shared.

In the spirit of openness (, our bylaws as well as the DPCA bylaws require all meetings are to be open to all members), . We also work to give our members notice of meetings via email, WeChat, and online. I set up a dedicated section for Democrats Abroad China on the wiki. This is where I post meeting announcements, 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 includes an updated leadership list and notes the next scheduled leadership meeting announcements.

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

• For access to edit the wiki, contact the Wiki Admin, Merrill Oates DA Wiki Admin/Own .

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

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