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Handbook > Duties of Society Officers
If you are experiencing any difficulties with regard to running the society, please either call in to, or ring the CSC office and we will try to help out, or you can e-mail the central office at lucy@csc.tcd.ie or emma@csc.tcd.ie
Responsibilities:
The CSC regards the Society Chairperson as being ultimately responsible for its activities and for the society's relations within College and outside. You should oversee the members of the society committee and ensure that the Treasurer and Secretary of the society are keeping in touch with the CSC. The Chairperson is also jointly responsible with the Treasurer, for the society's finances. It is therefore advisable for you to keep an eye on the books, as you can be held personally liable for any debts incurred.
You will obviously chair all committee meetings of the society, and should be aware when general meetings of the CSC are taking place so that you can involve your committee in decisions that are to be voted on by your Treasurer on the Society's behalf. Even though you are not a member of the CSC, you are may of course attend all general meetings.
Formulating Granting Policy
Societies have an input in formulating CSC Grants Policy. The CSC Executive will formulate what it thinks is a realistic policy, and this is circulated to you early during Michaelmas Term. If you want to suggest changes or additions, you must inform the CSC in writing with your motion, proposed and seconded by members of the CSC, at least one week in advance of the Michaelmas Term general meeting (MTGM).
Applying for Grants
Go to the CSC webpage: http://www.csc.tcd.ie/grant_app. On this page you will see instructions about filling out the Grant Application Form, and a login prompt. The application should be completed and submitted in consultation with the rest of your committee. You and the Treasurer will be asked to attend an Executive meeting of the CSC to run through your application and explain any queries the Exec may have. You should try and include as much as possible on the actual Grant Application Form, but if you need something before the form is circulated, or at any stage later in the year, you can apply on a supplementary grant application form which is available online at the same address.
Responsibilities
The Society secretary should act as the link between the society and the CSC. You should ensure that the CSC has an up-to-date list of the Committee and society officers, and inform us if they change at any stage. One of your main responsibilities is to ensure that you enter ALL society events (public or private) in the Event Guide: this is a requirement for funding as noted in the Grants Policy Document. (GPD 9.2)
To do this, go to the CSC webpage: http://www.csc.tcd.ie/grant_app use your society login and password (available from lucy@csc.tcd.ie if you don't know it) and click on "post events" - this brings up a page where you can enter details of your upcoming event. If it is a weekly event, by clicking on the little box on the "Repeat" line, the event will appear every week in the online guide - you should obviously fill in the termtime dates.
If you don't want the event to appear in the event guide, you can untick the "show in event guide" box, and it will be stored for the purposes of the secretary's report at the end of the year, but won't be displayed on the event guide at http://www.csc.tcd.ie/events.php. If you have any queries email: emma@csc.tcd.ie.
Secretary's Report for submission to CSC
Before the CSC can consider your Grant Application, a Secretary's report for the previous academic year must be submitted. It is possible to do this too online. If the event guide is kept up-to-date, the job is pretty much done for you, and it's just a matter of editing and submitting what is in the file already. The Society Officers will be there - forwarded from the grant application which will have been submitted previously. If you've entered the society events as you go along, they will also be stored. You should enter ALL events, even ones which you don't want to appear on the event guide. If you untick the "Show in Event Guide" box, the information will be stored for the purposes of the Secretary's report but will not show up on the Event Guide - this might include committee meetings, or meetings of sub-committees, etc. The Other Information section is there should you wish to add an overall view of the society's activity throughout the year.
Society Constitution
The Secretary should also be responsible for the Society Constitution. We hold the most recent copy of all the society constitutions in the CSC. Any Constitutional changes must first be passed by an EGM or AGM of the society and then ratified by the CSC Executive. It should be noted that the activities of a society should primarily be those which promote its aims as stipulated in its constitution and it is these activities, and only these, which are grant-aided by the CSC.
Society Room Keys
If you have a society room, please inform your officers that keys are available in the CSC office for a personal (i.e. not out of society coffers!) deposit of €30, which will be refunded at the end of the year when your key is returned. There is a maximum of 2 keys available for each society. If further keys are deemed necessary to allow the society to fully function, you may apply on a case by case basis to CSC Executive. Society officers may borrow a key on request, and by leaving their ID card, but CSC should be provided in advance with a list of the people who may do this.
Mail
Each Society should have a postal address. Some societies receive mail c/o their departments, but most have a mail box, either in the Atrium or in Regent House. We have plenty of vacant mailboxes at the moment, so if you wish to avail of one of these, please let Lucy know and one will be allocated for your use.
Responsibilities
Your job may sound complicated, but with a little organisation, need not take up too much of your time. As mentioned above, you are held, along with the Chairperson, to be responsible for your Society's finances. It is your responsibility to enter all transactions to and from the society bank account into the online system. You should get a receipt for all monies you spend; keep these carefully, as you will need them to claim back money from CSC, and those that aren't claimed will have to be presented with your accounts at the end of the year. As Treasurer, you should be involved in filling out the Grant Application Form in October/November. All results of CSC meetings will be notified to you by email and will be available on the website: http://www.csc.tcd.ie
Claiming your CSC Grant
Once you have been allocated a grant, you can start to claim money from the CSC. We can only pay out money on receipts, so you have to spend your money first, get receipts and then submit them to the CSC to get your grant. Usually payments from the CSC will be made directly to the society bank account. If you receive cheques or payments from any other sources, these too should be lodged to your bank account. This includes your membership money, which should be lodged to the bank and then cheques written for any payments. Please do not use membership money as petty cash, as the CSC uses these lodgments to calculate your society's membership. Certain grants that the CSC gives are calculated on your membership numbers, so it is in your interest to lodge all money taken in during freshers' week.
Accounts preparation for CSC submission
You have to prepare the accounts to be audited at the end of each year. Your financial year runs from 1st April of one year to 31st March of the following year, so please make sure that you are aware of all the transactions carried out by the previous treasurer during the time already elapsed between April and now. You should do this now, while it is still fresh in everyone's minds. (You try tracking down last year's Treasurer a month before his/her finals and asking them to make your accounts a priority!) You will be keeping your accounts on line which means that the preparation of the Society accounts for the year should be greatly simplified. Entering into the system your society transactions as you go along will mean that - with perhaps a little tweaking at year's end - you will be able to press a button and print out the accounts in one fell swoop.
Go to www.csc.tcd.ie/grant_app and login with your society username and password (available from lucy@csc.tcd.ie if you don't know it). Go to the Society Accounts section. There is a section for opening balance (which will be fixed from last year, if accounts for 2006/7 have been submitted), outgoings and income, and one for submitting the accounts at the end of the year. As you go along, you can enter in all your payments out and lodgements into the bank account. It is very straightforward, but if you need any help, please ask either of the CSC Treasurers or Lucy to explain further.
Your completed accounts must be handed in by 30th June 2008. Between the 31st March and until your accounts are handed in, you will be unable to claim any money from the CSC, so again, the sooner you complete them, the better. Bear in mind that if a society fails to hand in satisfactory accounts for two consecutive years, it will be put up for automatic derecognition.
You and your Bank
Finally, if your society is having financial difficulties, please let us know. We have a good relationship with the banks and can authorise temporary overdrafts for your society if we are sure you only need short-term bridging. Even if you can't make it into the office, you can always ring between 10a.m. and 3p.m. and we can organise things over the phone, or e-mail me at lucy@csc.tcd.ie.
Petty Cash
Generally the CSC recommends that all of your business be transacted using cheques but there are the inevitable cases where this simply doesn't work and you'll need to use cash. Petty cash improperly handled will be the bain of any treasurer's existence. The simplest system for dealing with petty cash is to, at the start of the year, cash a cheque for say €50, as you spend this petty cash, store the receipts you get along the way with the remaining petty cash, eventually you will have spent nearly all the cash you had at the outset, say €47.28 is gone, but you have the equivalent amount's worth in receipts. Staple all of these receipts together and write and cash a cheque for this €47.28, the gathered receipts act as the overall receipt for this second cheque, you now have €50 again. This process can be repeated as often as required through the year. Prior to the end of the accounting year end (March 31st) you carry out the second step as described above and then lodge the €50 you have just generated into your account. This lodgement acts as the receipt against the first cheque - because in your statement you have a balancing of money in and money out. This may seem a little odd but performed correctly will really make life easier in the long run.
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