Committee Secretary

The Committee Secretary is responsible for keeping the troop committee organized, maintaining troop records, and facilitating communication between leadership, volunteers, and families. This involves preparing meeting agendas, tracking action items, and ensuring that important information and decisions are effectively communicated to everyone involved. The Secretary plays a key role in supporting the troop committee’s efficient operation, and ultimately in providing the Scouting program to our families.

Reports To

Committee Chair

Responsibilities

• Attend the monthly committee meetings
• Prepare and distribute the agenda before each committee meeting
• Record and distribute meeting minutes
• Track committee action items and deadlines
• Facilitate communication between the committee and the troop membership
• Before exiting the role, make any needed updates to this manual and help transition in your successor

Preparing the Agenda

Before each committee meeting, you prepare the agenda. The agenda should be in a digitally shareable and printable format, e.g. Google Docs or Microsoft Word. The agenda contains:

1. Secretary’s Report
2. Scoutmaster’s Report
3. Committee Member Reports
4. Unfinished Business
5. New Business
6. Action Items Review

During Committee Member Reports, each member shares an update on their work. Some positions, such as Advancement Coordinator, Eagle Scout Coordinator, Treasurer, etc. will have something to share every meeting and should be included on every agenda. Other reports, such as from the Fundraising Executives, should only be included on the agenda when relevant.

One week before each committee meeting, send an email to the committee with a call for agenda items. Each member, if unable to attend, should provide you their report ahead of time. Members can additionally ask that you add items to the “New Business” section.

The “Unfinished Business” section should contain a list of issues which were left open-ended during the last meeting.

Three days before the meeting, send out the agenda via email. Bring printed copies of the agenda for everyone to the meeting.

During the Meeting

The Secretary’s Report is the first part of the committee meeting, when you share the list of action items from the previous meeting and solicit a short update on each one.

During the other committee member reports, you read out the reports sent by members unable to attend.

At the end of each meeting, you lead the Action Items Review, where open tasks are confirmed and assigned to members. You should also share the date of the next committee meeting at this time.

The Minutes

The Secretary takes notes during each meeting and creates minutes. Minutes contain key updates shared, decisions made, open action items and their assignees, and a list of the unfinished business from the meeting. These minutes are emailed out to the committee and posted to the troop calendar entry for that meeting.