Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Secretary's Duties

NEW FACILITATOR JOB DUTIES (DRAFTED DEC 2011, TO BE VOTED ON JAN 16, 2012)

Welcome to the wonderful world of Facilitatorship of the Babysitters' Club 3000. Your term as facilitator starts as soon as the blogmeister publishes the monthly sit report. 

1. Your primary job as facilitator is to facilitate sits and verify that sit reporting is happening appropriately. Solicit responses when people don't respond in a timely fashion, and assign sits once the facts are in. You may need to work "offline" via email, instead the comments section of 30boxes. 

Ideally, you assign sits by clicking "edit" on the sit request (it's under "My Stuff") and adding a comment in all caps, eg: FACILITATOR SAYS: SIT GOES TO MERGATROID. Sits should be assigned to whomever says yes is most negative in points (check the sit log on this blog for point standings.) In addition to documenting it on the calendar, email the relevant parties to let them know the sit is assigned. Keep an eye on the previous month's totals to help you assign sits quickly - if the most negative person has already said yes, you can assign the sit to him or her as you wait for other responses to come in.

If the requester has started their own sit request (as is increasingly the case), you as facilitator will not be able to modify their sit request for them. In this case, simply assign the sit by leaving a note in the comments. Clarity is your goal. 

2. Most people in the co-op are accustomed to making their own sits, so when you are facilitator, keep an eye on sit requests to make sure that the requester has included everyone in the co-op. Sometimes you may be asked to make a request on behalf of someone who can't. Before you start your term as facilitator, ensure that your 30boxes account is "connected" to everyone in the co-op. If it's not, contact your blogmeister. 

3. Mid-month, remind non-requesters that they will incur the 2 point penalty if they don't use the co-op. This is a good time to review all the sit requests against the spreadsheet to make sure sit-reporting is going well. 

Note that some members choose to self-facilitate their own sits, by issuing their own sit request. While you are still the secretary, you will not have access to edit their sit requests for them. I guarantee that you will need to remind someone to record who got the sit or whether it was no takers, etc. KEEP AN EYE ON THINGS. You'll be glad you did at the end of the month! 

4. At the end of the month, review each sit in the calendar and make sure it has a corresponding entry in the sit log (the link is on the website.) Ensure that sits that happened were filed properly (sometimes they are double-filed, sometimes they are not filed at all) and in an email to the blogmeister report any inconsistencies. Clarify the inconsistencies with the appropriate people and then email the blogmeister with your clarifications.

5. Also fill out the monthly non-use form. 

6. The blogmeister will award sits at the end of your term. You get 4 points from each member for your 3-month stint. 

7. If you are going to be out of regular email contact for some reason, or unable to fulfill your duties as facilitator, let the blogmeister and the group know.

8. Please ensure that you report to the blogmeister within a few days of the end of the month.




OLD SECRETARY DUTIES: 


Welcome to the wonderful world of Secretarydom of the Babysitters' Club 3000. Your term as secretary starts as soon as the blogmeister publishes the monthly sit report.

1. Your primary job as secretary is to facilitate sits and verify that sit reporting is happening appropriately. Solicit responses when people don't respond in a timely fashion, and assign sits once the facts are in.

Ideally, you assign sits by clicking "edit" on the sit request (it's under "My Stuff") and adding a comment in all caps, eg: SECR SAYS: SIT GOES TO MERGATROID. Sits should be assigned to whomever says yes is most negative in points (check the sit log on this blog for point standings.) In addition to documenting it on the calendar, email the relevant parties to let them know the sit is assigned. Keep an eye on the previous month's totals to help you assign sits quickly - if the most negative person has already said yes, you can assign the sit to him or her as you wait for other responses to come in.

If the requester has started their own sit request (as is increasingly the case), you as secretary will not be able to modify their sit request for them. In this case, simply assign the sit by leaving a note in the comments. Clarity is your goal.

Note that the Manual Override Rule still requires a sit to go through the normal process of request-respond-assign.

2. Most people in the co-op are accustomed to making their own sits, so when you are secretary, keep an eye on sit requests to make sure that the requester has included everyone in the co-op. Sometimes you may be asked to make a request on behalf of someone who can't. Before you start your term as secretary, ensure that your 30boxes account is "connected" to everyone in the co-op. If it's not, contact Laura or whoever is your blogmeister.

3. Mid-month, remind non-requesters that they will incur the 2 point penalty if they don't use the co-op. This is a good time to review all the sit requests against the spreadsheet to see how things are going.

Note that some members choose to self-secretary their own sits, by issuing their own sit request. While you are still the secretary, you will not have access to edit their sit requests for them. I guarantee that you will need to remind someone to record who got the sit or whether it was no takers, etc. KEEP AN EYE ON THINGS. You'll be glad you did at the end of the month!

4. At the end of the month, review each sit in the calendar and make sure it has a corresponding entry in the sit log (the link is on the website.) Ensure that sits that happened were filed properly (sometimes they are double-filed, sometimes they are not filed at all) and in an email to the blogmeister report any inconsistencies. Clarify the inconsistencies with the appropriate people and then email the blogmeister with your clarifications.

5. Also fill out the monthly non-use and manual override forms.

6. Halfway through your term, you collect your sweet sweet pointitude. (2 points per member per 2-month term.)

7. If you are going to be out of regular email contact for some reason, let the blogmeister and leader know.

8. Please ensure that you report to the blogmeister within a few days of the end of the month.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Point Standings for July 2010, calculated Aug 5

Hello. The point standings are a little goofy this month in that I caught an error in the correction I did last month, which is to say not awarding points for the secretary in June, and that we are officially starting the new "payment" system to the leader/blogmeister/secretary this month. If anyone would like to go over the specifics of these numbers I'm happy to review them. Basically, most of you got double-billed for secretary this month, as you didn't pay for it last month. Next month, however, you will not be billed again, as we agreed that it would be a bimonthly calculation.

In any case, that's all a bit prolix. The numbers are (in order of seniority):

Karen -31
Kevin 30
Eric -5
Laura -16
Celia 21
Jen 7
Bank 2

Eric's List
Karen -31
Laura -16
Eric -5
Bank 2
Jen 7
Celia 21
Kevin 30

Reminder that Kevin is once again secretary in August. September and October will be Jen. I believe a meeting is coming up soon; let me know and I"ll calendar it so we don't keep forgetting! 8-) Everyone is out of town in August. I am unavailable for anything remotely related to children. If you would like to play poker or blow glass, please do let me know.