Getting involved in YRes

Now that you have established a committee you will need to think about how you run the committee, including the assignment of roles and responsibilities to committee members and the frequency of meetings.

Committee roles

Each YRes committee will have their own roles and responsibilities, and this will be affected by the size of the committee and the needs in each specific area. However, we have set out some of the roles that are currently allocated in various regions, and a description of their responsibilities:

Role description

Chair - Leads the committee and responsible for directing the committee’s activities and ensuring goals and objectives of the committee are met, has the casting vote in decisions.
Vice Chair - Supports the Chair and has the final decision in the absence of the Chair.
Treasurer - Responsible for all finances including receiving and then paying any payments for events.
Secretary - Responsible for taking the minutes of each meeting and circulating in advance. Also responsible for sending diary invites out for each meeting and any events to all committee members.
YRes Recruitment Rep - Responsible for maintaining an up to date list of all YRes members including email address, firm and firm address. Also responsible for maintaining a list of attendees for each event.
Social Secretary - Responsible for organising socials (e.g. Christmas party drinks) throughout the year but will of course be supported by all committee members.
Marketing & Communications Officer - Responsible for producing leaflets, newsletters and marketing documents etc. for any events and then sending out to all members. This person will obviously need to work closely with the Membership Development Officer.
Social Media Officer - Responsible for all social media posts e.g. Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

If you are Chair, you may find that having other distinct roles within the committee makes it much easier for you to see who is doing what and who may need more support.

Some committees adopt a stringent rule about attendance at events and committee meetings to ensure that everyone is sharing the load. This is up to you and the running of your committee.

Meetings

On average groups meet once each month to plan ahead and ensure that things are running smoothly. Committees are not required to have a prescribed number of meetings and you may find that you don’t need to meet as frequently as once a month.

Your Secretary should take notes of the meetings and agree action points and ideally, these should be distributed to your regional Resolution committee as well, so that there is a cohesive plan for Resolution in your region.

Timings of meeting vary- it will depend on what you have to go through. Ten minutes can be enough for some meetings!

If you are a geographically large region, consider holding your meetings at different venues to accommodate everyone, or hold them by Facetime/Skype if needed. The important bit is to communicate regularly.

Agendas and minutes

It’s definitely worth preparing an agenda and sending this out to your committee with a copy of the last meeting minutes. If possible, get this out a week before your meeting, so that action points can be worked on prior to your meeting. A template agenda is included in this pack. The chair is usually responsible for setting the agenda.

Minutes should be taken at every meeting (usually by the secretary) and these should ideally be circulated within a couple of weeks following the meeting. Template minutes are included in this guide.

Suggested agenda items

We have found that having a standing agenda template that can be modified as required a useful tool to provide structure to your committee meetings and to ensure that all members are kept informed of updates and developments. Some examples of agenda items are:

• Apologies for absence
• Volunteer to take minutes of this meeting (if not ascribed to a particular committee member)
• Minutes of last meeting - approval
• Feedback from last event
• Next event
• Topic
• Speaker
• Venue
• Date
• Cost to members & non-members
• Budget
• Key committee member(s) responsible
• Chair/Vice-Chair’s report
• Treasurer’s report
• Recruitment rep’s report
• Social secretary’s report
• Marketing officer’s report
• Social media officer’s report
• National Resolution/YRes updates
• Date, time and location of next meeting
• Any other business

Succession planning

There are no hard and fast rules about elections, but most of us have found that recruiting for new members and having an application process works. It avoids creating “cliques” within the committee and has helped us all expand the range (geographically, experiences and skills) of committee members.

There doesn’t have to be a formal application process, but it might help as a committee for you to agree on what you are looking for in a new committee member, and what role (if any) you are looking to fill.

Standing down from the committee should ideally be done at around the same time as your regional committee AGM so that all committees run together. Where this isn’t possible, it’s good practice to give as much notice as possible of your intention to stand down, so that the committee can plan to recruit.

If you are standing down, think about how else you might become involved in Resolution. There are numerous committees looking for YRes members and it is often a natural progression for a YRes committee member to move onto their regional committee as they become more senior.