Regional Society Committees

Chair

The Chair’s role is to:

• provide leadership to the RS: leading the development and fulfilment of a vision and strategy
• ensure committee members are aware of their obligations and that the committee complies with its responsibilities
• manage committee meetings:
  • make sure they are called and held in accordance with the Regional Society constitution;
  • establish an agenda for each committee meeting (in consultation with committee members);
  •  chair committee meetings;
    • make sure there is sufficient time during the committee meeting to fully discuss agenda items
    • ensure that discussion on agenda items is on topic, productive and professional and all members have a chance to contribute
    • ensure minutes are complete and accurate, retained, included and reviewed at the next committee meeting.

The Chair will normally also chair RS meetings/events, or appoint an alternative if they are not able to be there. The RS meeting chair should:

• ensure that any presentation equipment is properly set up, and help the speaker load their presentation as necessary
• welcome the audience, and introduce the speaker(s)
• chair any Q&A session unless the speaker prefers to do this themselves
• keep everyone to time
• and work with committee members to facilitate networking among attendees.

Following a Regional Society meeting, the Chair shall write (email) to the speaker(s) to formally thank them for their time and contribution.

Secretary

The Secretary’s role is to:

• schedule dates, times and location for committee meetings (in consultation with the committee members)
• give all members of the committee at least 14 days’ notice in writing (by email) of every committee meeting and ensure the agenda and relevant documents are circulated to the members of the committee three to five days in advance of the committee meeting
• prepare minutes of all committee meetings and the General Meeting, and share them with committee members within five working days. They should normally be posted in the RS’s Basecamp folder, but should be kept and made available on request, for inspection by the auditors or the Board of The OR Society.
• send minutes of the General Meeting to [email protected]
• for General Meetings, give all members at least twenty-one days’ notice, and circulate the agenda and relevant documents (including minutes of previous GM and RS report) to all members three to five days in advance of the meeting.
• ensure that a record of attendance is taken during meetings and events.
• add all planned RS meetings to the Upcoming Events page of the RS’s area on the society’s website. Guidance on how to add upcoming events can be found in the Useful Information folder of your RS’s Basecamp folder.

After each meeting the Secretary must:

• ensure that the speaker(s) expenses payed and recorded
• provide a list of attendees where possible including email addresses together with attendee’s permission to keep in contact, and particularly noting any non-members attending, to [email protected]
• make speakers’ notes or presentation material from a RS meeting, if appropriate and not subject to copyright, and the full write-up of the RS meeting, available in The OR Society’s document repository.

Treasurer

The Treasurer’s role is to:

• keep accurate financial accounts for the Regional Society and present at each committee meeting a statement of the current financial position.
• deposit the RS’s funds at a bank, building society or post office account.
• any withdrawal from the Regional Society’s account shall require the signature of the Treasurer.
• provide to The OR Society, in such form as the auditors of The OR Society may require, accounts for the most recent financial year, together with copies of all bank statements relating to that year. This must be done not more than six weeks after the end of each financial year (the financial year shall correspond to the calendar year).

Committee Members

Committee members’ role is to provide support for organising RS activities:

• by suggesting suitable topics, identifying speakers, sourcing suitable venues and helping to promote the event
• taking on the role of meeting organiser for specific meetings, where appropriate:
  • book the venue and refreshments
  • invite and brief the speaker(s),
  • organise publicity,
  • manage attendance registration
  • provide a brief for the Chair to officiate the meeting
  • find a volunteer, or volunteer themselves, to provide a summary of the RS meeting for posting on the Regional Society’s page on The OR Society website no later than one week following the RS meeting, and a full write up of the RS meeting for publication in Inside OR
• Attending as many activities of the RS as possible, helping participants feel welcome at meetings, facilitating networking etc.