Do you need a professional to help you with your association?
Belinda's Business Centre provides complete management services for associations.
Volunteers are becoming harder and harder to find to do what is needed to run their association or their club. The few that do help out are getting on in years and are not up to date with the technology which is required to keep their members happy.
One of the most difficult tasks is to keep up with the list of members and their details and to have this information in a form which can be easily used for mail outs, mass emails and subscription records.
It's time to get a professional secretariat when the kitchen table is no longer big enough and the treasurer says that he or she cannot do another year in the job!
Ask yourself what you want from your secretariat. Write a list of what you want them to do and the equipment you want them to have. Your list might include:
- A separate dedicated telephone line
- Facsimile and Email facilities
- Up to date office equipment and a high volume photocopier
- Keep your membership database
- Receipt and bank all monies and payment of creditors
- Monthly statement of profit and loss and help with annual budgets
Wouldn't life be easy if you had someone to do all that for you!
One of the trickiest problems facing an association, group or club is how to keep the membership records up to date. Your secretariat should use a straightforward data base system to complete the tasks you want.
Don't be taken in by technobabble.
If you are lucky you can find a secretariat who can look after the membership invoicing, payment of bills and banking and even produce the monthly and financial annual accounts.
You don’t need to in the same street or even the same town as your secretariat. A post office box can be used for the mail and internet banking makes it even easier.
An association of 500 members might expect to pay a secretariat about the same as it costs to employ a typist. So, conduct interviews, check on references and have some hard negotiations about price and then sit back and let someone else do the work for you.
The first thing to do is to know what you are looking for. Ask yourself what you want from your secretariat. Write a list of the duties you want them to perform and the equipment you want them to have.
Your list might include:
- Ability to provide a separate dedicated telephone line
- Facsimile and Email facilities
- Up to date office equipment
- Quality printers and high volume photocopier
- Offer on-call support and liaise with Executive and Committees
- Answer general inquiries in an efficient and friendly manner
- Mail inwards and outwards, mass mail-outs, membership packs
- Maintain membership database
- Prepare for and attend all Executive meetings
- All back office tasks, including payment of creditors
- Monthly statement of profit and loss, bank reconciliations
- Receipt and bank all monies
- Assistance preparing annual budgets
- Liaise with appointed auditor
Imagine how less difficult life would be if you had someone to do all that for you!
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