Neighbourhood Forums depend on volunteers: as members, as leaflet-deliverers, as committee members and meeting organisers, campaigners and as officers. Most Forum committees elect at least three officers – Chair, Secretary and Treasurer. Some also have positions for Vice Chair, Publicity Officer, Planning Contact or Community First Reps. Some separate out the functions of membership secretary and minutes secretary. A few Forums have a network of street reps who take responsibility for keeping in touch with people in their part of the area.
Not all officers have to be part of the committee chosen at the AGM. Ones that are include the key posts that are set out in the constitution:
Chair – responsible for chairing meetings of the committee and for making urgent decisions between meetings of the committee. Note: many committees can also ‘meet’ electronically – that is using email. In which case the chair can consult over urgent decisions between face-to-face meetings.
Secretary – responsible, with the chair, for organising committee meetings, making sure meeting notes and membership lists are kept and represents the committee between meetings in dealings with members and outside bodies.
Treasurer – responsible for keeping the books, managing the bank account and providing financial reports. The Treasurer is also usually one of the cheque signatories.
The Secretary also (usually) organises public meetings which are (usually) chaired by the Chair, but these jobs can be delegated to other members. In some forums, the committee delegates some of the tasks of the Secretary to other people, eg to a minutes secretary and a membership secretary.
Committees may appoint particular members to be responsible for linking with local councillors, with other Neighbourhood Forums or with particular groups within the area. As well as the functions described above, Forum officers and committee members are sometimes called on to represent the Forum at events and in other advisory and decision making bodies set up by the Council or other bodies. All of which represents many hours of volunteer time – don’t forget to thank officers, committee members and anyone else who has put in time to the forum at the AGM!
Timebanking is a way of recognising volunteer time and making more of it. Follow the link to visit the Birmingham Timebanks site which has information and help for those setting up a local timebank.