Association Board of Directors
Board Mission and Responsibilities
The mission of association's board is to manage and lead the association according to laws, ordinances and association's rules.
Board is an executive and preparative actuator. The highest power in an association is usually used by the meeting. The board must act in these meetings according to accepted action plan and financial statement.
Usually, the members of a registered association are not personally responsible for associations obligations. Board members and association officials might be responsible to compensate the loss, that they have deliberately generated for the association.
Board's tasks include
represent the association and make engagements for the association
summon association's meetings and prepare the discussed issues
oversee the obeying of the made decisions
take care of association's finances
prepare assiciations annual and financial reviews
prepare suggestions for actions plans and financial statements
execute other tasks necessary for running associations operations.
Members of the Board
An association must have a board, which includes at least three members. The board must have an elected chairman.
Association's rules determine the number of board's members, possible vice members election, board member term and the maximum duration of board membership. Association's annual meeting will be notified of the board members, whose term is coming to an end.
The most common titles on association's board are chairman, vice chairman, secretary and treasurer. In addition, many boards include e.g. an attendat of the member register and a spokesman.
Chairman
Chairman guides the activity of an association and its board. Often the most effective boards are teams lead by their chairman. Chairman also represents the whole association and handles the external relationships.
Chairman also e.g. oversees association's finances, prepares and summons board meetings and ensures that records are up-to-date.
Secretary
Secretary prepares association's meetings with chairman and handles association's documents, e.g. minutes and applications. He/She composes agendas, annual reports, etc. and deals with other tasks he/she has received from the board of directors.
Treasurer
Treasurer oversees and controls the monetary transactions of an association and takes care of the accounting. Treasurer also prepares budgetary estimates. An important task for a treasurer is also collecting and monitoring membership fees.
Members from Outside the Board
In addition for the board elected in association's annual meeting, different kinds of committees can be elected to run association's errands. Members of these committees can be members outside the board of an association. It is common, that a part of the members of a committee are board members and rest are from outside the board.
These kind of committees can be e.g. publicity committee, pastime commission or an event arrangement committee.
Hired Officials
Big associations aren't usually run with pure volunteer work, when an association can hire different kinds of special officials to take care of some areas of an association.
An association may hire e.g. a full-time or part-time executive manager, spokesman, or office worker.
Association's operations must run financially steadily, so it can take care of the salarial expenses of hired officials. Sometimes, if an association is a non-profit organisation, it can apply for a grant from appropriate directions to partly or fully cover the salaries.
This article is a modification of the Finnish version produced by Optinet Ltd and found on www.yhdistystieto.fi.
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