I’m on a mission to remove the mystery and complexity from administration.
I’ve been working in administration for over a quarter of a century now, having trained as a medical secretary and practice manager back in the early 1990s. Like most of us, I have had a varied career path which eventually brought me to taking on my own business, enabling me to combine my knowledge of business and systems with my experience of working with clubs and not for profit organisations. This allows me to support some of the most enthusiastic and dedicated individuals I know and for that, I feel truly blessed!
As well as working with volunteer-led organisations I volunteer myself, currently holding the position of County Senior Team Manager as part of my archery hobby. I have also ‘accidentally’ ended up on committees (more than once) and even with my previous experience in public sector management roles the specific rules and regulations relating to not for profit organisations took a bit of figuring out.
Questions like ‘what should be recorded in the minutes of meetings and why are they important?’ to ‘what is an AGM and why do we need one?’
I have struggled to find information specifically relating to not for profit organisations.
I love streamlining systems and processes to make them more efficient but before you can do that you need to understand the legal and regulatory requirements which generated the need for those systems in the first place.
There is a wealth of information on the gov.uk website about how to set up and run a business or registered charity and lots of professionals writing articles and offering support about all manner of things legal and financial for these groups. However, I can’t say that the same is true for non-profit organisations like membership associations, community groups, social clubs and the like. The problem is compounded by the fact that the wonderful people running these organisations are all passionate about the aims of the organisation but not all will arrive with a background in business and detailed knowledge of the regulatory requirements (and nor should we be narrowing board recruitment to account for this).
My book is intended to act as a simple handbook for those newly elected (or aspiring to) committee roles.
My book is intended to help fill this gap and act as a handbook to the administration required to successfully and legally run an organisation. I want it to help as many people as possible because I don’t feel that the information required is easy to find in one place, or that volunteers are necessarily aware that there are any requirements, particularly when they are starting a new organisation or joining a committee for the first time.
I am hoping my book will become a simple reference guide to help those newly elected (or aspiring to) committee roles understand what is required of them whilst also explaining why the regulations are so important (and helpful).
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