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Replacing the Treasurer/Membership Secretary: Jane Green
I have been Membership Secretary and Treasurer for the Society for 5
years and now I am retiring from the post. As it is essential for someone
to take on the role or roles at theAGM in March it seems appropriate to
describe the roles and the work they involve in this newsletter.
The choice was mine to combine the roles and they can easily be separated
again if necessary.
Treasurer
The basic task is to record income and expenditure. Income is from membership
subscription and the occasional grant. Expenditure involves cheques for
which there is always a receipt (otherwise no payment!) At the end of
our financial year an independent person has to examine the books and
sign a copy of the Balance sheet. The balance sheet is literally that
- income plus balance from last year equals
expenditure and balance from this year. The reason the 2 roles are combined
is that it is easier to receive all membership cheques and bank them as
Treasurer than rely on someone else sending them to you, but this was
my choice - it's not essential. The busiest time of the year is April/May
when the majority of people send their money or pay by standing order.
All payments out are only done with a receipt -NO petty cash is held!
Membership Secretary
The job involves recording payments from existing or new members and sending
membership forms to prospective new members. The membership cards, which
are ordered from Bruce Aiken each spring (March/April), are sent out to
each individual to acknowledge receipt of money. An up-to-date list of
members has to be kept to ensure no communication breakdown. This is extremely
easy on a computer database such as Access, which I use, but it can be
done by hand if someone is not happy with computers.
Whichever choices are made all the information I have on the computer
is freely available to whoever takes the jobs on - printed out if a computer
is not to be used. I have not found the job arduous at all and will give
any help required to the new Treasurer/ Membership Secretary.
Thanks to all who helped me and tolerated any mistakes over the years
- there were a few!
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