Special Interest Group Committees

Chair

The Chair’s role is to:

• provide leadership to the SIG or Network: 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 SIG or Network 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 SIG or Network meetings/events, or appoint an alternative if they are not able to be there. The SIG or Network 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 SIG or Network 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 SIG or Network’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 Annual General Meeting (AGM) 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 SIG or Network 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 SIG or Network meetings to the Upcoming Events page of the SIG or Network’s area on the society’s website. Guidance on how to add upcoming events can be found here or in the Useful Information folder of your SIG or Network’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 SIG or Network meeting, if appropriate and not subject to copyright, and the full write-up of the SIG or Network meeting, available in The OR Society’s document repository.