|
For current officer bios, click
here.
For current officer contact information, click
here.
Membership
Projects
Secretary
Webmaster
Listserv
Admin
Newsletter
Coordinator
Financial
Officer
Advocacy
Renewals
Peace
Corps Guinea Liaison
Membership
Director
This is a fun little role for someone
who is detail-minded. The position involves
keeping the members database, processing new memberships,
sending out renewal reminders to current members and
processing those renewals, processing NPCA rebates,
writing a brief quarterly report and occasionally
a piece for the newsletter, and fielding general questions
from the membership. This is not a difficult,
nor a very time-consuming position.
On average, the job requires 15-30
minutes/week to perform small tasks (processing members,
emailing, etc.). Then, once a month when the
financial info comes in, 2 hours might be spent working
with the database. Consider becoming an FOG
officer and taking on this fun and satisfying position!
Please direct any inquiries to
membership @ friendsofguinea.org.
Monthly time commitment: 5-7 hours
Projects
Director
The Project Director (PD) is the liaison
for matters concerning funding current or ongoing
projects (mostly PCV-initiated) that are of interest
to the FOG community. For example, the annual Gender
Conferences are an important project and a source
of pride for FOG. Each year, in close collaboration
with PC/Guinea, we help raise significant amounts
of money to ensure that these conferences can take
place.
The primary duty of the Projects Director
is to correspond with volunteers, donors, Peace Corps,
and FOG officers/members about project-related matters.
The PD reviews and makes recommendations to the FOG
board about new project proposals that s/he has received.
Recommendations are based on the perceived quality,
impact, and sustainability of the project. If necessary,
the PD will coordinate votes among FOG officers about
whether or not/how much to funding to provide.
The PD also advertises projects via
the newsletter, website and listserv to reach members
and potential donors.
Monthly commitment: 3-5 hours
Secretary
The secretary's job is to keep
track of FOG's records and just make sure that things
happen as they should. This includes scheduling and
running quarterly teleconference meetings among the
officers, and writing the minutes for those meetings.
The secretary also asks other officers for quarterly
reports every 3 months, and keeps a file of those.
Moreover, the secretary maintains FOG's
records, via spreadsheet, of important data such as
monies donated to projects or key board decisions.
When it's time to reaffiliate with the NPCA each year,
the secretary pulls together those records. Basically,
the secretary is the one who knows what's happening
when, and reminds folks about it! They also answer
general inquiries to FOG.
The position takes about 1 hour/week,
mostly spent answering emails, and perhaps another
couple hours once a quarter for the quarterly meetings.
Monthly comitment: 5-7 hours
Financial
Officer
The financial officer keeps track
of the financial resources of FOG. He/she deposits
monies from donations in an account under the name
of FOG, and dispurses monies as requested and approved
by the FOG board. He/she also keeps financial records,
via spreadsheet, of both expenditures and income,
summarizing it for the board quarterly.
On a monthly basis, the financial officer
sends financial information to the membership director,
to be used to verify new member payments.
Monthly time commitment: 3-6 hours
Advocacy
The advocacy director is responsible
for coordinating broad goals which the group will
be involved in. This may include assessing policy
needs in Guinea through regular communication with
FOG members, Peace Corps-Guinea, and NGO's in Guinea.
Based on such an assessment, the advocacy director
may develop and implement a yearly action plan for
advocacy. From time to time an issue may arise which
Friends of Guinea may want to support. The advocacy
director can present such an issue to the FOG board
and offer a recommendation for action, which the board
may vote on. An example would be the decision of FOG
to voice protest (via a public statement or editorial)
on a USAID decision in Guinea. This position has currently
been inactive, but is important to create a link to
engage members who are interested in advocacy issues.
Monthly time commitment: 3-5 hours
Web
Admin
The webmaster is in charge of updating
the webpage as necessary. Generally this is about
once a month, with periodic overhauls. This generally
includes updating content, or creating donation pages
for new projects. An independent company (http://www.klatha.com)
provides support for our online membership signups,
and the webmaster works with them to solve any problems.
Monthly time commitment: 5-10 hours
Listserv
Admin
The listserv admin ensures the
smooth daily operation of the Guinea List listserv
(http://www.friendsofguinea.org/membership/listserv.shtml).
This includes tending to administrative tasks (such
as subscription requests or error messages), and responding
to email from users. The listserv administration uses
an web interface that is very easy to learn.
Monthly time commitment: 1-3 hours
Newsletter
Coordinator
The Newsletter Coordinator will be
responsible for editing, designing,
producing and mailing a quarterly newsletter of 4
- 6 pages which will be distributed to members
of the organization and such outside parties as the
Communications Director may indicate. Funds for duplication
and distribution of the newsletter will be allocated
from the general budget of the group.
The primary objective of the newsletter
will be to inform members about the activities of
the organization. Secondary objectives will be to
inform members about conditions and events in Guinea,
to spur discussion of development issues as they relate
to Guinea, and to inform members about the personal
and professional activities of other members.
Because the newsletter is a primary
communication tool of the organization, the coordinator
will work closely with the Communication Director
and tailor the newsletter as closely as possible to
the Communication Director's priorities. All material
appearing in the newsletter will be submitted by the
coordinator to the Communication Director for approval.
The coordinator will solicit newsletter articles from
other officers of the organization; every issue will
have at least a short message from the president or
vice president regarding overarching issues, and updates
from the group secretary and the communications, advocacy,
financial, projects and membership directors covering
their respective areas of activity.
The coordinator will also solicit material
from members in three areas:
contemporary development issues (e.g. sustainable
development, women in development, AIDS awareness,
etc.), memoirs of life as a volunteer in Guinea, and
what they are up to now (new jobs, families, travels,
accomplishments). The coordinator will make use of
such outside news sources as are available on Guinea,
reprinting articles with permission and attribution.
Contributions will be encouraged from NGO's working
in Guinea and also from Guineans inside and
outside the country. Letters to the coordinator
will also be encouraged.
The coordinator will also maintain
communication with in-country Peace Corps staff and
the American Embassy in Conakry, soliciting their
input on the changing conditions in Guinea and
Peace Corps' evolving role there. The primary distribution
of the newsletter will be by 1st-class mail according
to mailing labels supplied to the coordinator by the membership
director. E-mail distribution of text only will be
an option for those who wish it. Each issue of the
newsletter, with both text and graphics, will also
be posted on the group's web site.
Monthly time commitment: 4-7 hours
Renewals
Once a month, the Membership Director will send an
updated membership spreadsheet to the renewals person.
Sort the file by expiration date and send a first
renewal notice by email to all those members whose
memberships will expire in two months. Enter into
each member's record the date the first notice was
sent, in the column labeled "First Notice."
Send a second notice by email to all those members
whose memberships will expire in one month. (These
members should already have been sent a first notice,
and you can verify this by looking for a date in the
column labeled "First Notice.") Enter into
each member's record the date the second notice was
sent, in the column labeled "Second Notice."
All those members whose memberships will expire within
the current month should be moved to the "Expiring
for Newsletter" page of the spreadsheet. When
the next newsletter is mailed out, these members will
receive a "Your membership has expired, etc."
sticker on their newsletter, plus a paper membership
renewal form with a self-addressed, stamped envelope,
folded into their newsletter. After they have received
this final notice, the membership director will move
their records to the "Lapsed Members" page.
Members who cannot be contacted by email due to a
bad address, full mailbox, or other reasons should
receive a special postcard asking them to update their
email contact information as well as informing them
that their membership is expiring soon.
Monthly time commitment: 1-2 hours
Peace
Corps Guinea Liaison
The Peace Corps Guinea Liaison
fields inquiries and communications between Peace
Corps Guinea and Friends of Guinea. The idea here
is to achieve consistency and clarity in any communication
that takes place between the two parties, and to avoid
situations such as contradictory messages being given
by two different members of one group, or repeated
inquiries by different persons on a subject that has
already been addressed. The Peace Corps Guinea Liaison
should establish and maintain a positive relationship
with the staff and volunteers at Peace Corps Guinea
to encourage their responsiveness to inquiries, and
respond to requests from Conakry or from other Friends
of Guinea officers as quickly as possible. When transmitting
messages back and forth, he or she should communicate
with absolutely as much clarity as possible.
Monthly time commitment: 30 minutes
| 
