# All Committee members Being on the Committee brings some responsibilities. All members have legal obligations (or ‘duties’) that we must comply with and understand. These aren't something that we can ignore or decide don't apply to us -- they are legislated as part of us being a registered not-for-profit organisation ("Incorporated body" in Tasmanian legalese). ## Legal responsibilities Formally, these are: - the duty to act in good faith in the best interests of the organisation and for proper purposes; - the duty to act with reasonable case, skill and diligence; - the duty not to misuse position or information, and - the duty to disclose and manage conflicts of interest. You probably assume all those, but they're listed here so they aren't forgotten. ## Specific to our constitution The next level down of responsibilities are those given in our constitution - our "Articles of Association". [These are publicly available on our website](https://hobarthackerspace.org.au/assets/documents/Constitution-2023-as-approved.pdf). Note that all Committee members are deemed to have read and understood them. In particular, these responsibilities are "to control and manage the business and affairs of the Association": raising and spending money and managing our members. ## Less formal Then there's the less formal, more down-to-earth stuff: The Committee is the policy-making group within the organisation - akin to the Board of Directors of a company. # President ## General - Provide leadership and strategic direction for the organisation - Act as the primary spokesperson and representative of HHS to external parties - Chair all General meetings including the AGM - Ensure the Committee fulfils its legal and constitutional obligations - Oversee the implementation of Committee decisions - Liaise with the Public Officer on compliance matters - Facilitate conflict resolution within the membership or Committee ## Monthly - Chair all Committee meetings - Contribute to Committee decision-making ## Annually - Present a President's Report at the AGM summarising the year's activities and direction - Lead the Committee in reviewing and updating organisational policies as needed - Coordinate Committee handover at end of term # Vice-President ## General - Support the President in their duties and act as President when they are unavailable or have a conflict of interest - Assist in representing HHS externally as required - Take on specific portfolios or projects as delegated by the Committee (e.g. membership, events, facilities) ## Monthly - Attend all Committee meetings and contribute to decision-making - Deputise for the President at meetings when needed, including chairing ## Annually - Assist the President in preparing the AGM President's Report - Support the handover process for incoming Committee members # Secretary ## General - Maintain the *Meetings* directory in our document store - Keep a folder for each month’s meeting - Add PDFs of significant incoming correspondence to the next month’s meeting folder - Save emails as PDF - Scan/photograph paper snail mail ## Monthly ### Immediately after each meeting: - Distribute draft minutes (PDF’ed) as soon as practicable after each meeting - (So that members can review while their memory is fresh) - Name them as *draft* — they aren’t final until approved at next meeting - Set and distribute a Teams meeting invitation at the date and time decided on at the meeting ### At least a week before each meeting - Migrate the previous meeting’s minutes document into the Agenda for the upcoming meeting - Adjust: - Date & time of meeting - Link to minutes of prev meeting - include both PDF & revisable form links - Add reference & links to any incoming correspondence already received - Clean out items that have been resolved and need no further action - Update the *Action items* list to remove completed actions - Store this document in the relevant folder - add a link to the meeting invitation - redistribute the invitation - invite members by email to update it with their own items ### Just before the meeting (as close as possible to start time) - Add to the agenda any known apologies - Notify members “no more changes” to agenda - Save as a PDF and also as fresh revisable form to be the Minutes ### At start of meeting - Negotiate with those attending who will take minutes - Adjust starting time to match reality ### During meeting - Annotate minutes with decisions and action items (only add relevant detail) ### After meeting - Note finish time and next meeting date/time in minutes - Rinse & repeat… # Treasurer ## General - Maintain financial records and chart of accounts - Maintain bank accounts and liaise with bank - Pay bills as received, within committee guidelines - Pre-approved commitments and regular payments - Expenditure below threshold of committee pre-approval - Re-imburse members’ approved expenses made on behalf of HHS - Manage petty cash - Banking - Reporting ## Monthly - Reports to committee - End-of-month balances - Income & expenditure during month - Summary of income & expenditure for financial year - Tracking with budget (when set) - Expenditures requiring ratification - Send invoices to debtors for external work done - Includes tracking hours reported as worked when relevant ## Annually - Produce Annual financial reports for AGM - Report to AGM - Roll over accounting files to new financial year - Produce draft budget for upcoming year - Liaise with accountant to submit ATO return # Public Officer ## Summary ### General - The responsible person for contact between the Justice Dept & the Association - Required to report promptly to Justice Dept on changes in committee or committee members’ contact details ### Annual activities - Provide annual report to Justice Dept with details as required from time to time - Committee members and their contact details - Minutes of AGM ## Legislatively-prescribed responsibilities - Notify and/or request the Commissioner for Corporate Affairs of - any Special Resolutions - changes to the rules of the association; - changes to the objects or purposes of the association; - a bunch of less-likely stuff like name change, cancellation etc. See the [Act](https://www.legislation.tas.gov.au/view/html/inforce/current/act-1964-064) - Submit annual returns within 6 months of end of financial year - Formally - receive any “notice, demand, summons, writ, or other document or process” - “give a notice or make a demand by writing” to another party (including notices to members) - (this includes the serving of notice & receipt of appeal in the case of expulsions) - May not serve as Auditor. ## Responsibilities prescribed by constitution - Deal with membership formalities - Receive applications/nominations for membership - Pass them on to committee for approval - Notify applicant of approval (or otherwise) - Receive resignations - Maintain membership register, including members’: - Name - Date of joining - Postal or residential address - Email address (if given) - Date of leaving - Notify unfinancial members of arrears and remove from the register if not paid - Financial matters - The rules in our constitution are a straight copy of the current Model Rules. Notwithstanding that, they don’t make sense to me [*BWM*]. It’s important that we amend the constitution to recognise reality & current practice as opposed to the fiction that we’ve inherited from the model rules. - Currently, they require that the Public Officer: - Countersign any “cheque, draft, bill of exchange, promissory note or other negotiable instrument” - we have no chequebook and don’t use any of the other mentioned “instruments”” - Approve any person who can in turn authorise electronic payments. - Should be a Committee responsibilty - Deliver the financial books to the Auditor - We’re no longer required to have an auditor - Our policy of “two to sign or authorise” on the large accounts and “anyone with a card or registered with the bank” to authorise small payments from debit card are actually stronger in practice. - Meetings - Keep minutes of AGMs (in a “minute book”!) - Give notice to members of GMs and AGMs - Receive nominations for positions at AGM - Preside over “out-of-session” deliberations in absence of President or V-P - Convene meetings of sub-committees if no-one else is nominated to do so - Administrative - Receive instructions from the Executive Committee - Maintain custody of and authorise the use of the *Seal of the Association* - I have to say [*BWM*] that I have no idea were this is. Last time we needed one we had one made, and it’s since been lost again. # Committee Members *Still to come…*