New York District of Circle K International Secretary Handbook 2015 2016
Table of Contents Introduction... 3 Duties of a Club Secretary... 4 Keeping Records... 6 Monthly Report Forms... 8 Know Your Projects... 13 Minutes... 14 Closing Remarks... 15 2
Introduction Congratulations on your election for New York District Circle K club secretary! Serving as club secretary is an extremely rewarding experience. Secretaries are one of the most vital components of any club s leadership team. They are responsible for keeping records for service hours, attendance, funds raised, and more. Secretaries also help to bridge the gap between clubs, the New York District, and Circle K International. But don t fret the specific duties of a club secretary will be discussed in detail later in this handbook. As club secretary you will not only work closely with your clubs officers to organize records, but you are a member of your clubs leadership team, meaning you have been elected to represent your CKI club within your school, community, and even Circle K International, the worlds largest collegiate service organization. Be proud to be a secretary! But who am I? My name is Jerry Cimo and I am honored to serve as the New York District Secretary for the 2015-2016 Service Year. I am a student at Binghamton University studying Computer Science, planning to graduate in May 2017. As New York District Secretary, it is one of my duties to oversee and provide guidance and support for each of the club secretaries within the New York District. I am excited and thrilled to have the opportunity to work closely with each and every club throughout the district this service year. As club secretary is one of the most vital components of a club s executive board, it is very important that each secretary understands his/her duties fully, and is able to fulfill them. I have designed this handbook to serve as an in-depth guide for all club secretaries to reference throughout the year. I cannot wait to see what is in store for this service year, and please never hesitate to ever contact me with any questions, comments, or concerns you have. I wish you luck in all of your endeavors, and I am confident in our success for this service year. Sincerely, Jerry Cimo New York District Secretary Circle K International 3
Duties of a Club Secretary We keep saying that the secretary is one of the most important parts of a club s Executive Board, but what does a secretary do? The duties of a Club Secretary are as follows: Daily Duties Communicate with your club s board of officers. Represent your club and the ideals of Circle K International throughout your campus, the New York District, and your community. Help to foster fellowship between current and prospective members. Maintain all records including club membership, club service hours, club events, funds raised, dues payment, meeting minutes, attendance at all meetings, committee activity, and contact information. Document and track member involvement through individual service hours and event and meeting attendance. Follow the rules and guidelines set forth by your school and its Club Organization / Student Association, the New York District, and Circle K International. Weekly Duties Attend all general body and board of officers meetings. Document all general and club officer meetings with meeting minutes. Record attendance at all meetings. Respond to all correspondence within several days and inform officers and advisors of the communication. Recommend items to the president for the board of officers meeting agenda. Monthly Duties Complete and submit the Monthly Report Form. Communicate with your Lieutenant Governor and District Secretary. Collect committee reports. Yearly Duties Be trained by your predecessor, and train your successor. Obtain all files, information, and relevant credentials from the immediate past secretary and club board of officers. Inventory all club property. Create and maintain a filing system for club reports, bulletins, and literature. 4
Produce a club membership directory. Work with your board of officers to create a list of goals for the service year, and document goal progress throughout the year. Evaluate your goal progress at the end of the service year. Promote and attend New York District Events: District Large Scale Service Project, New York Speaking, and District Convention. Complete all delegate registration forms for district and international conventions. Develop new leadership and look for potential successors. Help keep the club active and maintain dues-paid status. Apply for awards for New York District and International awards. Reporting to the Board At each board meeting the secretary should be prepared to present a report of activities since the last board of officers meeting that includes the following: Information about any correspondences received and/or sent Report of meeting attendance Report of member involvement, service hours, events, and attendance Report club goal progress Report of new members or prospective new members 5
Keeping Records Keeping accurate and up-to-date records is one of the most important duties of the club secretary. Here are things you should consider to keep accurate, portable, and useful. Service Hours You should keep a spreadsheet (in either Excel or Google Sheets) that lists every service project, how many hours each member received, and the total number of service hours for each event. A template, using Microsoft Excel that may be used to track service hours, is available to clubs and can be downloaded under templates from www.nycirclek.org/resources. Attendance You should keep a spreadsheet (in either Excel or Google Sheets) that lists for every general body meeting and every board of officers meeting all of those in attendance. Bring a sign-in sheet to all general body meetings to accurately track attendance. A template using Microsoft Excel that may be used to track meeting attendance is available to clubs and can be downloaded under templates from www.nycirclek.org/resources. Funds Raised Work with the club treasurer in keeping accurate records of all funds raised, all funds donated, and who they were donated to. Be sure to keep information consistent to what is reported on the MRF. Minutes During all general body meetings and all board of officer meetings, you must take minutes of relevant and important information. Publish general body meeting minutes online or through an email to the members who could not attend the meeting. Keep in an organized file system a digital copy of all minutes and corresponding agendas from all meetings. Club Roster Keep an accurate roster containing information on each members contact information, graduation year, and other club specific details. 6
Organizing Committees Keep accurate and up-to-date records of all committees, including a committee roster, committee meeting minutes, and all committee reports. The chairperson is responsible for taking or delegating the responsibility of taking minutes for committee meetings. Centralizing Records One of the easiest ways to organize and centralize records is to keep everything digital and on a centralized file sharing system such as Google Drive or Dropbox. It may also be a great idea for your club board to get a club email account through either your school or a service such as Gmail that hosts file sharing, that way you can easily pass down records to your successor. Be sure to keep all club records in a place that can easily be given to your successor, and even accessed by other club officers. The most effective way to keep and maintain accurate records is to update them frequently! Updating your records immediately following meetings and events is the best way to ensure things are accurate, and will make it easier for you when it comes time to complete the Monthly Report Form. 7
Monthly Report Forms The Monthly Report Form (MRF) is your clubs most official communication with the New York District. Every month of the service year, all New York District secretaries are required to accurately complete and submit the MRF. The MRF must be submitted every month of the year by every New York District Circle K club secretary. This means that a club secretary will submit a new MRF once per month, for a total of 12 MRF submissions throughout his or her term. Getting the MRF The MRF must be downloaded from www.nycirclek.org/mrf. Submission Guidelines For any given month, the MRF must be submitted by the 7th of the following month. For example, the first MRF of the service year would be due no later than May 7, reporting information for the entire month of April. The MRF reporting information for the entire month of May would then be due by June 7. The MRF must be submitted for every month of the year, including during school recess or summer vacation. MRFs are submitted via email to District Secretary Jerry Cimo at jerry.cimo@nycirclek.org. It is also asked that you CC your Lieutenant Governor on the email so he or she can view your report. If you are having trouble filling out the document, or have any questions, please ask District Secretary Jerry Cimo directly. He is eager to assist you and answer any questions you may have regarding the MRF or related subjects and secretarial duties. Filling out the MRF The MRF consists of multiple sections, each containing fields to report different information. Below is an in depth description of all of these sections, and how to fill them out. Header General information on your club and your MRF submission Month: Which month is this MRF reporting for? For example, if you are reporting for the month of September, and submitting it during the first week of August, you must still write September for the month. 8
Club: The name of your college or university where your club exists. Please do not write Circle K as your club name, but rather just the name of your school. Division: The name of your New York District Circle K division. The New York District is currently made up of 10 unique divisions, each containing a set of clubs. Do not confuse this with your schools sports division or region. Members: the total number of members in your club as of the end of the month you are reporting for. Email Address: please write the email address that is the best way for me to contact you as club secretary. Service Hours Here you will report all information on club service hours and service events. In order to fill out this portion, you must ensure that you have all information on all service projects your club held for the month. You must know how many attended each event, how many hours each attendee participated in the event, how many funds were raised at the event, what cause the event supported, and if the event was an interclubbing event and/or a Kiwanis Family Relations event. But first, what is a service hour? A service hour is 60 minutes of work performed by a CKI member in good standing on a service project. A service project shall be defined as a voluntary act by at least one CKI member in good standing that will aid the community, directly or indirectly. A voluntary act is one for which no payment is received for services rendered. All proceeds raised during a fundraising activity must be applied toward a charitable entity for the fundraiser hours to be considered as service hours. A fundraising activity is one for which payment, profit, or donations are received. A charitable entity is an organization that provides service or monetary assistance to an individual or a group of individuals who poses a basic need for said services. Each row in the table in the service hours portion of the MRF represents a service project as defined above. You must list all service projects from the month that you are reporting, including all relevant information for these projects. Each service project requires the following fields of information be filled: 9
Date: the month, date, and year that the event took place in the format of mm/dd/yy. If the single event extends over one day, you can represent the date as a range. If the same event occurred multiple times over the month, with potentially different attendees or hours, you should list each occurrence as a separate event (row). For example 5/6/15 would represent an event on May 6, 2015. Additionally, 8/13-15/15 represents an event that went from August 13, 2015 to August 15, 2015. Name of Service Project: the descriptive name of the service project. In this name you must include the names of any organizations you volunteered or fundraised for, and also a description of what activity happened at the event. o Examples of poor, non-descriptive event names: Halloween Bake Sale Riverbank Cleanup Breast Cancer Walk o Examples of good, descriptive service project names: Bake Sale for the American Cancer Society Park Cleanup at the East Greenbush Town Park Endicott Visitor Center painting project Total Attendance: the total number of volunteers (members, prospective members, or guests) from your club that participated in the service project. Total Hours: the total number of service hours calculated from your club s total attendance at the service project. This total is equal to the sum of service hours from each individual member. For example, if 2 members attended a service project where one member participated for 4 hours and the other participated for 3 hours, the total number of service hours (what you report) for that service project would be 7 hours. Total Funds Raised: the amount of monetary income from your fundraising event that is being donated to a charitable entity as defined above. For example, if your club collects $100 from a bake sale, with a profit of $70 after subtracting the costs, please report only $70 if that is the amount you are donating. If your club chooses to donate the total revenue without subtracting the cost, you would report the total of $100 in this scenario. In summary, the total funds raised is equal to the fundraised income that your club donated or is in the process of donating to a charitable entity. Project Initiatives: If the service project qualifies for one of our project initiatives, you must enter an x in the appropriate box. Please see the Know Your Projects section of this handbook for more details on if a service project qualifies for one of our New York District Project initiatives.maint 10
Interclub: An interclub shall be defined as an event organized by one or more club with at least one other CKI club in attendance, each having two or more members present. o Each CKI club with two or more members present will have each completed an interclub, and each shall mark the event as an interclub on their MRF. o CKI clubs in formation (prospective new clubs not yet chartered) may count towards an interclub event. Kiwanis Family Relations (KFR): An event attended by at least one CKI club and at least one club from another branch of the Kiwanis Family, each having two or more members present. o The other levels of the Kiwanis Family are: K-Kids, Builder s Club, Key Club International, Kiwanis International, Young Professionals, Golden K, and Aktion Club. On the bottom of the Service Hours portion of the MRF, a summary is automatically calculated based on your row entries above. If the summary does not look accurate, you may have entered something incorrectly above. Meetings Here you will list all general body and board of officer meetings for the month. In order for a meeting to count as an official meeting to be recorded, there must be a call to order and minutes must be taken. Social Events In this section, you have the opportunity to list all fellowship events (social events) your club held throughout the month. A fellowship event is any event that is not a service project, organized by your CKI club, and has the purpose of fostering fellowship between your members. A social event may qualify as an interclub or as a KFR by the same qualifications listed above for a service project. A meeting cannot be a fellowship event. However, a fellowship event may occur after a meeting has adjourned. Social events must be promoted to all club members, where all members are allowed the opportunity to attend. Examples of fellowship events: o End of the year social o New member social o Club spaghetti dinner Things that are not fellowship events: o Icebreakers during meetings o Fun events that are also service projects 11
Communication These questions give your club board of officers an opportunity to give the New York District feedback, ask questions, and let us know of any concerns you have. While these two questions are not required, it is highly encouraged you discuss with your club officers every month to see if anyone has something they would like you to list on the MRF. Recognition Member of the month: Each month your board of officers has the opportunity to choose, together, a member to recognize as member of the month. Be sure to discuss with your club officers every month who you would like to recognize, as this can be any member in your club. Secretary of the month: Use this section to highlight your own personal involvement in the club, and how you ve gone above and beyond throughout the month, if you chose to do so. Frequently Asked Questions Can an event be both an interclub and a KFR? Yes, an event can be both an interclub and a KFR, as long as it fits the specific requirements of each. My club didn t have events this month. Do I need to submit the MRF? Yes, you must still submit the MRF even if you have no service projects or other events. This lets the New York District know that we aren t missing any reporting, and that we can confirm what events took place every month. Does my club need to choose a member of the month every month? No, your club does not need to choose a member of the month for every month, but it is highly encouraged and suggested that you do so. Do individual service hours count towards the MRF? Yes, any service projects members hold or attend individually still count on the MRF. Be sure to ask your members during the summer and over school breaks to see if someone has service hours to report. My club has a points system. How do I report this on the MRF? You should not report any points on the MRF. Some clubs choose to correlate member points to service hours and attendance, but this is not something that the district regulates or oversees, and does not belong on the MRF. You may, however, use that information to help decide a member of the month. 12
Know Your Projects The New York District has four service initiatives for the 2015-2016 service year. When filling out the MRF, you must mark off which initiatives, if any, a given service project may fall under. Governor s Project: Knock Out Cancer Any service projects raising funds, awareness, and/or volunteering for any cancer related organizations, nonprofits, or CKI service partners. The Governor s Project may benefit many different organizations, nonprofits, and individuals, as long as the project is related to cancer. District Project: Thirst Project Any service project raising funds, awareness, and/or volunteering for the Thirst Project (www.thirstproject.org). The Eliminate Project Any service project or fundraiser that raises funds and/or awareness for The Eliminate Project (www.theeliminateproject.org). New York District Kiwanis Foundations Any service project or fundraiser for the New York District Kamp Kiwanis, New York District Kiwanis Pediatric Trauma Center (KPTC), or the New York District Kiwanis Pediatric Lyme Disease Foundation (KPLD). 13
Minutes Minutes are a great reference to what occurred during a meeting, serve as official documentation for decisions and discussions that took place during the meeting, and are also a way to let members and the public know what occurred during a given meeting. Minutes must be produced for every general body meeting and for every club board of officers meeting. While the general body meeting minutes should be publicized and sent to the members, the club has the option of using the board meeting minutes for internal use and reference. Minutes are designed to include important and relevant information that will be available for the public to see. Please remember that this means that minutes are an official, formal publication. Unlike a club newsletter, it is important to realize that club minutes have the purpose to inform, not to entertain. Here is an outline of what the contents of typical general club body meeting minutes should look like: University Name Circle K General Body Meeting Minutes Day, Month Year Location: Address/Campus, Building, Rm. Presiding Officer: President name Secretary: your name I. Meeting called to order at 00:00 PM II. Subject 1 a) Topic a i) Subtopic i b) Topic b III. Subject 2 a) Example motion 1 i) Name seconded b) Example discussion 1 c) Example motion passes with x in affirmation, x in opposition, and x abstentions IV. Meeting adjourned at 00:00 PM 14
Closing Remarks A wild and fun year awaits as you continue your journey serving as club secretary. Be sure to never hesitate to ask me, your New York District Secretary Jerry Cimo, for any help or questions you may have about anything related to your club and your duties as a secretary. While you serve on the board of officers, the most rewarding experience will still be in staying an active member of your club by attending service projects, fellowship events, and getting to know the members. Don t be afraid to ask for help from others, as there are many of us eager and waiting to assist you. Likewise, don t hesitate to assist another club s board members in fulfilling their duties if they need a helping hand. While you may be serving as club secretary, you are more importantly serving as part of your club s leadership team, a team that must work together and rely on each other to survive and to grow. I look forward to working with you as a fellow secretary, and know that this service year is going to be of legendary proportions. Sincerely, Jerry Cimo New York District Secretary Circle K International 15
16 2015-2016 New York District Circle K International