The President acts primarily as a facilitator of the Board meetings and the Community meetings. As such, she prepares a tentative agenda, alerts the Board and the Director of the Program to the next scheduled meeting date and location and requests input from the Board on the agenda items. It is her responsibility to work with other members of the Board to help keep the Board focused on the business at hand during the meetings, work with the other Board members in forming committees, etc. needed to further the interests of the McBride Community on campus.

It is possible she will be responsible for obtaining a room for the Board and Community meetings and notifying the Board and Community of meeting time and place (but can also been shared with other members of the Board).

She works closely with the Secretary and Treasurer in having Minutes of the meetings available and filed in the Archives (presently located at the Circulation Desk in Canaday Library), as well as creating a budget for submission to the SGA Finance Committee that will adequately cover the proposed expenses of the McBride Community activities.

This position is very simple but meaningful. Your job is to record attendance and all the ideas and decisions taking place at each of the Board meetings. Then you must send them to the Board President, usually over e?mail as soon as possible to help her remember what was mentioned or decided at the meeting. Sometimes members who are missing from the meeting might request a copy so they can see what might have gone on in their absence. This takes between one and two hours each month. It is not difficult; it is just a matter of transcribing your notes from the meeting into a coherent document. At each Board meeting the minutes from the last one are reviewed and approved. It is the secretary's responsibility to keep all current year minutes together for the archives. Also, there is a locker in Canaday that holds all archived minutes and it will be your responsibility to know where that locker is and where to get the key in case anyone needs to see historic Board minutes.

The elections mistress oversees and executes the process for nominations, publication of the ballots, tabulation of votes, and the announcing the of the election outcome. The particular challenge of holding elections for the McBride Community is the problem of how to operate an election for a commuter population. I will describe my approach and how I handled it. This in no way sets a precedence for how things ought to be done but it is hoped that my experience will help my successors perfect the process to the benefit of the entire Community.

•Board members: yearly, in second half of spring semester, and special elections are held as seats are vacated. Seats are held for two years (except seniors).

•Senior Reader: the Senior Reader is elected yearly in the Fall to be the student representative on the McBride Admissions committee.

•McBride Rep for Student Government Assoc. (SGA): McBrides may elect two representatives who alternate attending the meetings. I do not know if this is mandatory or if it is an allowance for the McBride population to split up the inconvenient commute to campus on a Sunday.

Nominations

1. Announce by McBride listserv a call for nominations for a said position. I allowed for nominations to be sent to me by email, listing my email address with a reminder not to send publicly over the listserv.

2. Order address labels from the McBride director (Rona) for the ballots. It can take up to a week to get them.

3. Place a nomination sheet on the McBride bulletin board in the Campus Center. The sheet must be signed by the attending worker at the CC desk.

4. The announcement and the nomination sheet should state that the permission of the party being nominated should be granted before being nominated.

5. The responsibilities of the position should be described in terms of duties and time commitments.

6. The calling for nominations should list the start of nominations and the closing of nominations. I usually allowed a week for this process. This is also posted on the nomination sheet and the closing is announced by listserv.

7. After the closing of nominations, I remove the list from the CC and I publish on listserv the names of the nominees. At this time I state when the ballots will be placed in their mailbox and the deadline for receiving ballots.

8. Making the ballots so that they are confidential and easily facilitates their getting returned to you is the most difficult part of this office. I attach a copy of my best effort at achieving the above conditions.

9. The ballots must include the following:
The position being voted for, Names of nominees (with their permission)
The deadline for voting: usually allow a week for ballot return. (If a McBride only comes for one class, then we must allow a chance for her to get a ballot). Your return mailbox number
Clear instructions for casting the vote:
(i.e., mark with an x on the line by the name of the person you vote for. Believe me, you’ll gain an appreciation for the “hanging chads” of the 2000 election in Florida)

10. Send out a reminder on listserv a couple of days before the voting deadline with motivational force that inspires them to participate.

11. Count the ballots with a witness (Pray that there isn’t a tie. I use my vote as a tie-breaker as the President of the Senate does. I’ve not had to do this but because our Community is small the chances are pretty good that it could happen.

12. Announce to the Community by listserv the winner of the election and offer them the congratulations of the Community. Send a private note to them as to whom/when they must report/commence their duties.