Most students picture the role of a secretary as being the minute-taker for meetings (or often the transcriptionist). Although secretaries are in charge of creating minutes, this task is only a simple portion of what they do behind the scenes!

Depending on your organization or a secretary’s passion, the role of the secretary can venture into more creative and challenging work. This can be especially true for smaller organizations that have more work to accomplish than people in authority positions. Before accepting a position as Secretary, make sure your aware of the organization’s expectations of the position.

The secretary has two essential roles in the organization as a record keeper and a correspondent. It’s not uncommon to find that some student organizations have elected two different officers for these roles, thus, diving up the work for busy students. The Secretary position can be sliced many ways, but let’s look at their two main functions as defined in Robert’s Rules of Order, the Recording Secretary and the Correspondent Secretary.

The Recording Secretary has the job of record keeping. Record keeping goes beyond writing the minutes – it encompasses creating, organizing, and distributing meeting minutes and agendas, keeping up-to-date list of members, meeting roll call list, the governing documents, information held in a knowledge base, and much more!

. The Correspondent Secretary is the public relations director for the student organization, focusing on spreading newsletters and important information to members about events and meetings.

At a minimum, a student organization needs someone to handle the basic secretarial duties such as meeting minutes, agenda, and correspondence.

Whatever your responsibilities as secretary include, the following information can help further carve out your role as a secretary!

Recording Secretary

Keeps records of all the members and non-members of the organization

If you like lists, this is the job for you! Seriously though, you will have the important job of creating and maintaining lists of potential and current members.

Potential Members List

• After obtaining Potential Members’ (“leads”) contact information at student org fairs, on the website, or at your student org’s first couple of public meetings, you need to compile a list to be used for marketing purposes.

Current Members by Semester

• Most clubs offer a semester membership and an annual membership, with the annual membership usually offered at a lower price. The best way to record paying members is by maintaining a list for EACH semester.  It’s less confusing than tracking them on one large spreadsheet.

Check Out: How to Keep Track of Current and Potential Members

Prepares an agenda with the president for all meetings

Creating an agenda not only prepares your group for a more organized meeting but also can serve as a basis for your minutes.

Need tips on preparing an agenda? Check out Creating an Effective Agenda that Organizes and Shortens Meetings

Compiles and distributes minutes at each meeting

Most assume that writing minutes is like transcribing a court proceeding with a document of “she said, he said” (I was on this same boat during my time as a secretary). Thankfully, writing minutes is incredibly simple and not as tedious.

Minutes are simply a record of subjects discussed, actions taken, and conclusions reached.

Check out this article: Creating Effective Minutes that Saves You Time & Energy

Maintains organizational records, storage, and office (The Knowledge Base)

This can be done by a binder or my personal favorite, Google Drive (We do live in 2018). I like to call the storage of organizational records The Knowledge Base since it is a source of transparent information that any officer could pull the information they need from.

Check out this article: Building a Knowledge Base for your Student Organization

Correspondent Secretary

Obtains appropriate facilities for the organization activities

This is a pretty straightforward task, but you can get creative with it!  Instead of reserving a meeting room at your college for an officer meeting, why not reserve a large table at the favorite local coffee spot? Just make sure to factor in parking, wifi (if needed), and table space in the cafe.

Notifies all members of meetings and upcoming events

Keep members in-the-know about all organizational activities through email, Social media, text message and/or newsletters. Don’t assume that one email will do the trick. Keep the upcoming event fresh on members minds by sending reminders and using multiple channels to reach out to members.

Prepares the organization’s calendar of events

At the beginning of each semester, it’s a good idea to plan dates for all the meetings and events in advance. I suggest doing this planning session after class syllabuses are issued, this way, officers can get a general sense of what weeks/days to avoid hosting activities due to exams, large projects, games, or other University happenings.

Keeps the organization informed of both organizational and university business

It’s your job to keep officers aware of upcoming university events or student org fairs so that you and your fellow officers can consider getting involved. Also, actively seek out news pertaining to your organization.

Handles all official correspondence of the organization

As the Correspondent Secretary, it’s your job to keep the organization informed, and be the loudspeaker for the organization. It can be a mess if every officer is individually reaching out to different organizations without someone central coordinating those activities. This doesn’t mean that you have to send out every email personally, but you should be CC’ed in emails, at a minimum.

What Do You Think?

Did this guide cover your duties as Secretary? Does your organization do something different? Let me know in the comments!