Category: WRRR Board

Nominations

• At the August board meeting, appoint the Nominating Committee Chair. The Nominating Committee Chair and members can be any club member in good standing.
• Candidates must be members in good standing as of March 1 of the current year and must not have allowed their membership to lapse in the meantime.
• Candidates for officers (President and VPs) should come from the existing board or be a recent officer (no more than 5 years).
• Candidates for Directors-At-Large should consider that they will hopefully become officers.
• The IT Specialist will provide the Nominating Committee a list of eligible candidates. This is done by going to the WRRR web site, going to the Membership Admin menu, then going to Membership Reports and choosing Eligible Candidates.
• The Nominating Committee is expected to provide a list of candidates by October 1.

Election Preparation

• At the September board meeting, the board should discuss finding a person to be the Elections Committee Chair. The Elections Committee Chair and members must be members in good standing but not be on the ballot.
• At the October general membership meeting (assuming there is one), the Chairperson will introduce the nominated candidates.
• At the October board meeting, appoint the Elections Committee Chair.
• The IT Specialist will set up the email address election@wrrr.org to forward to the members of the Elections Committee.
• The Elections Committee will contact each candidate to ensure that they know they are running. (Why? Because we have had a candidate that did not know they were running.)

Balloting

• The IT Specialist will create and send out the ballot to all eligible club members on November 1.
• The President or web site admin will send a current roster to the Elections Committee so that they can verify that club members only vote once. (Note: Prior to 2013, some memberships got 2 votes, but this is no longer the case.)
• Club members will have until November 15 to send in their ballots.
• Email ballots will be collected and tallied by the Elections Committee.
• Paper ballots will be collected by the person who picks up the mail. This person will make the ballots available to the Elections Committee.

Results

• On December 1, the Elections Committee will announce the tally on the WRRR Forums Board of Directors forum.
• The Elections Committee will contact the winners to verify that they know they won and are expected to come to the next board meeting. (Why? We have had a person who was elected and didn’t know it.)
• After verification, the IT Specialist will send the results to all eligible club members.
• The January issue of the Waterlog, which is sent out in late December or early January, will also contain the results of the election.
• The January issue of the Waterlog will be updated to reflect the new Board of Directors in the masthead. Committee assignments will be modified in the February issue.
• After January 1, the IT Specialist will update the web site’s Board of Directors list for the new year.

This document is intended for the incoming President.

Hopefully, you already know all of this, since we try to get someone who has already been on the board for a while to be the President, but this kind of formalizes how to organize things.

At the first board meeting of the year, you should start by making sure that each officer understands what their job is. Most of this is spelled out in the by-laws (which you need to read), but here is a summary with short descriptions:

President – Makes sure everything gets done. Try to delegate as much as possible!

VP Business – Take meeting minutes and publish them.

VP Finance – Handle the bank accounts and budget, including tracking where the money comes from and goes. Also responsible for keeping the membership database up to date (more on this later).

VP River Ops – Organizes the river trips, which is a lot harder than it sounds. This person really needs to delegate.

At this meeting, you will choose a Chairperson of the Board. Traditionally, this role is handled by the President, but it doesn’t have to be. The Chairperson runs the board meetings and makes sure that the board follows the by-laws. You will also choose the committee chairs – Membership, River Watch, Programs, Communications, and Safety & Education. Only the first two of these are described in the by-laws – the others are traditional. These jobs have posts to describe the jobs, but here is a summary:

Membership – Responsible for getting new members and retaining existing members. NOT responsible for maintaining the membership database!

River Watch – Keeps an eye on river issues and projects. Notifies the club of things that are going on, and works to get people to help out with projects.

Programs – Reserves the board meeting locations and plans the January General Membership meeting. In recent years, Programs has handled the Spring Flip Practice and the Fall Gear Swap and Repair Clinic.

Communications – Works with the Waterlog editor and Webmaster to make sure that information gets out to the club members. This person should have a good grasp on electronic communications, since most of the info goes out through the web site, Facebook group, and Yahoo! group.

Safety & Education – Organizes the annual one-day safety class and any other safety events.

Important: Committee chairs do not have to be board members. Find the best person for these jobs!

There are a couple of other important roles that aren’t board positions:

Waterlog Editor – Do not take this person for granted!

THIS IS A DRAFT

The Communications Committee is responsible for informing the club members of events and news related to the club. The committee chair may be any club member in good standing, but is usually held by a board member. The club IT Specialist is automatically a member of this committee, and will provide assistance as needed.

The key tenet of the Communications Committee is: All information should be relayed by one source. We should not have different people sending out information on an event, sponsor,  or other club business. This can lead to inconsistency and confusion. It can also lead to information getting lost.

WRRR uses several methods of communication:

• Board Meeting Agenda – The agenda for the board meetings is created using the Agenda Maker on the we site. The IT Specialist has the details of this system.
• The Waterlog – This is the club newsletter, published monthly except for December. Each issue is expected to be published 3-4 days before the beginning of the month. It is sent to each member as a PDF attachment to an email message.
• wrrr.org – This is the club web site. It hosts the event calendar, posts on club news, and information about the club for members and directors. It also hosts a photo gallery intended mainly for club group photos.
• Facebook – This is the most active and up to date form of communication, and is preferred by most members.
• Forums – This is used by Brenan to inform people who aren’t on Facebook about trips and events. An alternative to the forums would be to point people to the web site, where we can communicate these as posts or events.
• Messages in The Waterlog emails – If needed, messages can be attached the the emails sent containing The Waterlog. Informal discussions indicate that most people ignore these, so they are not very valuable.
• Email blasts – We have the ability to send email messages to everyone in the club. This mechanism is currently primitive, but it can be effective.
• Surveys – Occasionally, we send out surveys to poll the members on various topics related to running the club.
• Signs at Events – At some events, we need informational signs. It is best to have these laminated to be weather resistant.

NOTE: Keep in mind that only The Waterlog and the email blasts are restricted to WRRR members. Other means of communication are available to people who aren’t WRRR members. Consideration must be paid to publishing content that is for members only.

The sections below outline the Communications Committee responsibilities.

Events

Events are operated either by the River Ops or Programs committees. Communications should engage the committee chairs to get the information about the events, and provide them as follows:

• Agenda Maker events table
  • Before November, get the list of event dates from the Board of Directors and update the data in the web site database. Currently, this is done by having the IT Specialist update the table manually. An edit form will be provided in the future to make this easier.
• Web site event calendar
  
  • Add or Edit the event with the date, location, and latest information about the event.
• Waterlog articles
  • Provide an article about the event for The Waterlog. The schedule for the articles can be found in the Agenda Maker templates (ask the IT Specialist about these).
  • Some events have both a teaser (a short article about the event) and a full article with details.
• Forum post
  • This should contain the same information as the article in The Waterlog – Alternative: Post the topic title, but point to the web site event post.
• Web site post (optional)
  • Some events can be added to the main page of the web site as a post.
• Facebook banner (optional)
  • Create a Facebook banner with the name and date of the event and make it the group photo for the group
• Facebook post
  • This is done as a link to the event on wrrr.org with a short description
  • Do this 2 weeks before the event
  • Mark the post as an announcement
  • Consider turning off comments, as people have been known to add comments about unrelated trips, causing confusion
  • Edit the post a few days before the event to bring it to the top
• Email blast (in emergency)
  • If an event happens or changes outside of the normal cycle of The Waterlog, such as a change to camping location or the sudden cancellation of an event, this method can be used to inform people.

After the event has taken place, it is nice to provide some sort of follow-up. We usually get some photos and postings on Facebook by members.

• Facebook banner (optional)
  • Find a nice group photo and make it the Facebook group banner
• Waterlog article (optional)
  • Try to get a club member to write an article about their experience at the event
• Web site post (optional)
  • This would be the same as the Waterlog article
• Web site photo (optional)
  • This should be a group photo from the event

Signs At Events

At some events, we need to have signs to inform people of things going on to avoid confusion. These signs should be laminated to be weather resistant.

• Wenatchee Rendezvous
  • Signs on the toilets informing people when the raffle ticket sales will begin and when the potluck will be
• Skagit Poker Run
  • Signs at the put-in, the covered area at camp, and the toilets at camp informing people when the potluck will be and the final checkout time for camp
  • We may also want to add a note about bears and cleaning up garbage
• Tieton
  • Signs inside the toilets informing people that the toilets are provided by WRRR and mentioning wrrr.org

Special Event Notes

Some events need to have other things communicated. This section outlines these.

• Tieton
  • Make sure that club members know that we do not own or control the camping area we use. People should not come in and hassle people who are there for being “in our area”. The only rights we have are that people can not block river access points.
  • Toilets can only be provided for 14 days because of National Forest restrictions. Since we want to cover the weekend of the Rally, which is closest to September 15, toilets may not be provided earlier. Make sure club members are aware of this.

Announcements

At times we have announcements that are not related to events, such as an announcement for a safety or first aid class, a special deal for club members, or the passing of a beloved member of the club. These should be handled as follows:

• Waterlog article
  • Provide an article for The Waterlog
• Forum post
  • Post the same information to the forums – Alternative: Post the topic title and link to the web site post
• Web site post
  • Post the same article on the web site as a post
• Facebook post
  • Post a link to the web site post on the Facebook group if appropriate.
  • Be aware that some promotions are for club members only and should not be posted to Facebook. Posting these can lead to us losing these special deals.
• Email blast (optional unless emergency)
  • Send out an email blast message if this occurs outside of the Waterlog publishing schedule

Web Site Articles

The web site gets few visitors, mainly because there is not much content. It would be good for the Communications Committee to solicit and publish posts that are related to club activities. We have a few of these on the site now, but they are not often updated.

One idea would be to copy a Waterlog article from a past issue and post it to the web site. Ideally, this would be a trip report of some sort. The most interesting trip reports tend to be about non-club trips, but any trip articles are good candidates.

Another good source of content would be to ask people to write articles about topics like gear and safety techniques. We used to have an article on how to do a Z-drag, showing several techniques.

 

 

 

The VP of Business Affairs acts as the club Secretary.

The main job of the VP of Business Affairs is to take the board meeting minutes and publish them. In addition, this position can involve finding sponsors and advertisers for the club.

The IT Specialist

You may be looking at the size of this manual and thinking “Oh, no! What have I gotten myself into”? Don’t worry. It’s really not that hard, and you have help.

The goal of the IT Specialist is to make your job as easy as possible. If you hate computers or are too busy to deal with all of this stuff, the IT Specialist can do almost everything for you. If you like computers, the IT Specialist can help make your job easier.

One thing to keep in mind is that the IT Specialist is not a mind reader. You need to ask for things, not just assume they will happen just because the IT Specialist is a busybody obsessed with everything moving smoothly.

Task Calendar

Besides dealing with the meeting agendas and minutes, there are several tasks that need to be handled throughout the year. These are described in the manual sections, but here is a quick reference.

• January
  
  • If you are the new VP Business, get set up with the proper account
  • Update the committee table after the first board meeting
  • Verify that the previous VP Business updated the events for the board meetings and updated the river trips table
• May
  • Audit the ads in the Waterlog
• November
  • Schedule the board meetings for the following year
  • Update the river trips table – Note: It is important to wait until after the November board meeting to do this because there should be follow-ups on October events

Web Site Access

There are several tasks that involve using the web site administration tools. You will need an account on wrrr.org and it needs to be set up with the proper role (IT Specialist needs to define this) to allow you to edit the meeting agenda templates and related data, create and edit events, and create and edit posts.

Agenda

The meeting agenda is created as a draft post on the web site on the 5th of each month.

Publishing the Agenda on the Web Site

Editor: Need to add section on publishing agenda on the web site

Printing Agendas for Live Meetings

Editor: Need to add section on printing the minutes for in-person meetings

Taking the Minutes for Phone Meetings

The following are the steps for taking the minutes for phone meetings:

• Before the board meeting, go to the web site and Clone the meeting agenda post
• Change the title of the post so that instead of “Agenda” it says “Minutes”
• Change the link so that it ends in “minutes” instead of “agenda”
• During or after the meeting, edit the minutes post
• Change the categories for the post to “News”, “WRRR Board”, and “Meeting Minutes”
• Publish the post
• Move the Agenda post to the trash
• Edit the previous month’s minutes and remove it from the “News” category
• Go to wrrr.org and verify that the new minutes are there and the old agenda and minutes are no longer on the front page

Taking the Minutes for Live Meetings

Editor: Need to add section on entering minutes for in person meetings

Publishing the Meeting Minutes

Managing the Automatic Agenda Maker

Editor: Need a section on managing the automatic agenda maker system. This should include how to update the templates and how to edit the list of events that generate the River Ops section.

Sponsors and Advertisers

The VP of Business Affairs may attempt to find sponsors and advertisers. This has tended to be optional, but some VPs have been able to get some good deals for the club members.

Standard sponsorship memberships cost $100 per year, which can be in the form of money or merchandise. For merchandise, we prefer a donation of products, but it is acceptable to obtain a substantial discount on desirable products. For example, first aid kits obtained at a 50% discount off retail would qualify if the club could use more than $200 retail value of these to use as raffle/poker run prizes. The budget for these discounted items comes from the River Ops prize budget or the Safety and Education budget if applicable, and should therefore be cleared by the VP River Ops.

A standard sponsorship membership receives a Household club membership, a small ad in the Waterlog, and a sponsor link on the web page. The VP of Business Affairs will work with the VP Finance, Waterlog editor and the club IT Specialist to set these up.

Most advertisers are sponsors, but companies that provide a discount for a product or service that benefits club members can also have an ad in the Waterlog and a link on the web site. This is a less formal arrangement that does not involve a club membership, and the ads are subject to available space in the Waterlog. Currently, the only ad like this is OS Systems (15% discount for all members).

In May, make sure that you audit the ads in the Waterlog and make sure they are paid for or are special discounts (like OS Systems).