|
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://friendsofguinea.org/listserv).
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
|
