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
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. Part of their intention was to separate the roles of secretary and communications, allowing the work to be shared and not falling on the shoulders of a single person.
After the 2017 leadership board election, we were finally recognized by Democratic Party Committee Abroad (DPCA) and granted the right to participate in DPCA as a member within the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Interestingly, Ada and Rich created a structure for the leadership board that included separate roles for secretary and communications. Other CC’s have struggled when all of those responsibilities fall on a single person.
As secretary, I followed the established rules for maintaining the membership list, meeting minutes, and administrative records for DACN. I also requested access to the DPCA wiki, in order to help make meeting minutes, 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.
Wiki. The DACN secretary makes meeting minutes, bylaws and other records available to our members on the DPCA wiki. 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 -HU, Wiki.
Membership List
An ongoing duty of the secretary is maintain the membership list. New members join Democrats Abroad through the signup form on the website and then their information is sent to the membership database. As the database administrator for China, the secretary receives an email notification each time a new member joins.
Nationbuilder. The DACN secretary must log-in to the database and verify each new member. New members will not receive any communications (email, calls, etc.) until they are verified in Nationbuilder. While not required, I used the option to send a welcome email when verifying the member. I invited them to join us on WeChat in this message.
signups and is prompted to confirm their membership and send them a welcome email. is made available to the Nationbuilder administrator according to which country they live in. The DACN secretary is the Nationbuilder administrator for all DACN members and can access the database.
Record Keeping:
Membership list - newly joined and updates
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
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