Committee Member Roles

Please find the different roles listed below with a description of what it entails and the respeonsibilities.

CHAIR

The chair’s role in a skating committee is primarily one of leadership and governance, focusing on ensuring the club or organization runs effectively, legally, and according to its constitution.
Key responsibilities of the chair include:
Leading Meetings: Planning the agenda with the secretary, presiding over committee meetings and the Annual General Meeting (AGM), and ensuring discussions remain focused, orderly, and productive.
Facilitating Discussion & Decision Making: Encouraging participation from all members, ensuring all viewpoints are heard, managing conflicts, and confirming that clear decisions and action points are reached and recorded.
Oversight and Accountability: The chair is ultimately responsible for ensuring other officers and committee members carry out their delegated duties and that the club’s objectives are met.
Representation and Liaison: Acting as the primary liaison and spokesperson for the club to external organizations, such as national governing bodies (e.g., U.S. Figure Skating, British Ice Skating, Skate Canada) or arena management.
Strategic Planning and Development: Leading the creation and implementation of the club’s development plan and helping to set the club’s vision and long-term goals.
Ensuring Compliance: Ensuring that club policies, safeguarding procedures (especially concerning children and vulnerable adults), and legal requirements are understood and followed.
Financial Scrutiny: Monitoring the budget, overseeing financial planning, and ensuring that the club’s financial position is sound.
Delegation and Support: Delegating tasks to committee members, providing support, and helping to develop leadership skills within the committee to ensure smooth succession planning.
In essence, a good chair is an impartial leader who provides direction, ensures effective governance, and fosters a positive and inclusive environment for all club members and volunteers.

SECRETARY

The role of a secretary in a British Ice Skating (BIS) or general sports committee is primarily administrative and communicative, supporting the chairperson and ensuring the committee runs smoothly and legally. They act as a central point of contact and an information hub for the committee, members, and external bodies.
Key Responsibilities
Meeting Management: The secretary, in consultation with the chair, is responsible for the logistics and documentation of meetings. This includes:
Scheduling meetings and booking venues.
Preparing and circulating agendas and supporting papers in advance.
Taking accurate minutes of discussions, decisions, and action points during the meeting.
Circulating draft minutes to members shortly after the meeting and ensuring they are signed as a correct record once approved.
Ensuring a quorum (minimum attendance) is present at meetings, as stipulated by the club’s constitution.
Administration and Record Keeping: Maintaining clear and secure records is a core duty. This involves:
Managing incoming and outgoing correspondence (letters, emails, calls) and ensuring prompt responses or delegation to the appropriate person.
Maintaining an up-to-date register of members’ names, contact details, and other relevant information.
Ensuring the safe custody and maintenance of all club documents, including the constitution, policies, financial statements, and historical records.
Compliance and Governance: The secretary helps ensure the club adheres to its own rules and external legal requirements. This can include:
Understanding and upholding the club’s constitution and any relevant governing body regulations (e.g., British Ice Skating rules).
Organising Annual General Meetings (AGMs) and facilitating officer elections according to established procedures.
Liaising with external bodies like the national governing body or local authorities and submitting required reports or applications (e.g., event sanctions, DBS checks).
Communication and Liaison: The secretary serves as the primary link within the club and with the wider community.
Disseminating information between the committee and general members, coaches, officials, and external agencies.
Ensuring action points agreed upon at meetings are followed up and completed by the responsible individuals.
Essential Qualities
An effective secretary is typically well-organized, reliable, detail-oriented, a good communicator, and able to work impartially to support the whole committee. While the role is demanding, many administrative tasks can be delegated to assistant secretaries or other staff, with the secretary retaining overall oversight.

TREASURER

The treasurer’s role in a British Ice Skating (BIS) or general sports committee involves the oversight and management of all financial affairs, ensuring probity, transparency, and accountability to the committee, members, and regulatory bodies.
Key Duties and Responsibilities
The specific responsibilities of a treasurer typically include:
Record Keeping: Maintaining accurate and up-to-date financial records of all transactions (income and expenditure), often using a cashbook or accounting software.
Income Management: Invoicing and collecting all money owed to the club, such as membership fees, event fees, and sponsorship funds, and ensuring all cash and cheques are promptly deposited in the club’s bank account.
Expense Oversight: Paying the club’s bills and authorised expenses in a timely manner, ensuring all payments are properly approved by the committee and documented with receipts or invoices. It is a common practice to require two authorized signatures for payments.
Financial Reporting: Preparing and presenting regular financial reports (e.g., balance sheets, cash flow statements, budgets) to the management committee and a final annual financial statement for the Annual General Meeting (AGM).
Budget Management: Leading the process of creating an annual budget and monitoring the club’s performance against it throughout the year, advising the committee on the financial implications of their strategic plans.
Compliance: Ensuring the club adheres to all relevant legal and regulatory requirements, including tax obligations (e.g., VAT, CASC status), auditing requirements, and the club’s own constitution or articles of association.
Financial Viability: Monitoring cash flow and advising the committee on the financial health of the club, making recommendations for cost savings or fundraising efforts to ensure long-term sustainability.
Essential Qualities
A good treasurer should possess:
Honesty and Integrity: This is paramount, as the role involves handling all the club’s funds.
Organisational Skills: Meticulous record-keeping is crucial for accuracy and transparency.
Numeracy: Confidence with numbers and an eye for detail is essential for managing accounts.
Communication Skills: The ability to explain complex financial information clearly to other committee members and the general membership is vital.
While the treasurer has primary responsibility for financial administration, the entire committee remains jointly and severally accountable for the organisation’s financial management. The treasurer’s role is to ensure effective systems and procedures are in place so the whole committee can make informed decisions.

FUNDRAISING OFFICER

A Fundraising Officer is a key role within a non-profit organization, responsible for generating income and managing relationships with supporters and donors. Their duties are diverse, combining relationship management, administration, and events organisation to secure a sustainable funding base for the charity’s mission. 

Core Responsibilities
The main duties of a Fundraising Officer generally include:
• Securing Funding: This often involves writing compelling grant applications and proposals for trusts, foundations, and corporate partners.
• Donor Stewardship and Communication:Building and maintaining strong, long-lasting relationships with individual donors, community partners, and volunteers through timely and professional communication.
• Events Management: Planning, promoting, and executing a calendar of fundraising events, campaigns, and appeals, which may sometimes require evening and weekend work.
• Data Management and Reporting:Maintaining accurate and GDPR-compliant records of donor information and activities on a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) database, and producing reports to track progress against targets and demonstrate impact.
• Community and Corporate Engagement:Leading outreach efforts to engage local community groups, schools, and businesses to promote fundraising opportunities and raise the charity’s profile.
• Marketing Support: Collaborating with marketing and communications teams to create engaging content and promotional materials that inspire action and raise awareness of the organisation’s work. 

Key Skills and Qualifications
Successful Fundraising Officers typically possess a blend of skills and attributes: 
• Communication Skills: Excellent written and verbal skills are vital for writing bids, engaging with donors, and public speaking.
• Organisational Skills: The ability to manage multiple projects, prioritise tasks, and meet deadlines effectively is essential.
• Interpersonal Skills: Empathy, a professional attitude, and the ability to build trust and rapport with diverse audiences are crucial for cultivating relationships.
• Experience & Knowledge: Previous experience in the charity sector or a related field (e.g., sales, marketing), knowledge of fundraising regulations (Charity Commission, GDPR), and proficiency in using CRM software are highly valued.
• Motivation: A results-driven, proactive, and creative approach is necessary to meet and exceed income targets. 
The role is dynamic and multifaceted, perfect for someone passionate about making a tangible difference to an organisation’s mission.

SAFEGUARDING OFFICER

Key Responsibilities
• First Point of Contact: Serves as the initial contact for anyone with safeguarding worries about a child or vulnerable adult.
• Policy & Procedure: Ensures the organization’s safeguarding policy is current and implemented, keeping up with local and national guidance.
• Staff Support & Training: Advises staff, ensures they understand signs of abuse, and arranges for appropriate training.
• Referrals & Reporting: Makes formal referrals to social services or other agencies, logging concerns securely and maintaining confidential records.
• Liaison: Connects with external agencies (police, social care) and supports parents/families.
• Monitoring: Tracks cases, attends relevant meetings (like case conferences), and monitors children receiving support.
• Advocacy: Acts on behalf of the individual to protect their health, safety, and welfare. 

A Safeguarding Officer (like the one for British Ice Skating – BIS) acts as the primary contact for welfare concerns, ensuring policies are followed, training staff, and making referrals to social services for children or vulnerable adults at risk of harm, liaising with agencies, and maintaining confidential records to protect individuals within their organization. They provide expert guidance, support staff, and ensure adherence to legal standards, handling sensitive situations with discretion and maintaining up-to-date knowledge of safeguarding best practices. 

Key Skills & Qualities
• Excellent listener, communicator, and motivator.
• Tactful and discreet with confidential information.
• Knowledgeable about legislation and procedures.
• Resilient and able to remain calm in emotional situations. 

Example (British Ice Skating – BIS)
For British Ice Skating (BIS), the Safeguarding Officer (John Mills) leads efforts to keep members safe, managing concerns and ensuring policies for children, young people, and vulnerable adults are applied, as detailed on their safeguarding page

COMPETITION SECRETARY

The role of a Competition Secretary in a skating committee involves managing all administrative aspects of competitions, from planning to results, and ensuring effective communication between coaches, members, and governing bodies.
Key Responsibilities
Competition Planning: Formalizing the events calendar with the committee and event organizers, organizing and booking facilities/venues, and ensuring all required licenses and permits are obtained from the governing body (e.g., British Ice Skating).
Entries Management: Providing competition details and entry forms to members, processing all entries, ensuring eligibility criteria are met, and managing entry fees in liaison with the Treasurer.
Event Administration: Preparing all necessary event paperwork, such as running orders, programs, and score sheets. This also involves working with the Workforce Coordinator to ensure officials, timekeepers, and volunteers are available and scheduled.
Results and Records: Collecting scores, compiling results, ensuring the official results are accurate, and maintaining comprehensive paper and computerised records of all competitions and skater achievements (e.g., personal bests).
Communication: Acting as the primary point of contact for competition-related queries from members, coaches, and external organizations. They communicate event details, deadlines, and results effectively.
Meetings and Governance: Attending committee meetings, taking minutes related to competition matters, and ensuring all competition activities align with the club’s constitution and the rules of the national governing body.
Awards: Coordinating the provision of awards and trophies with the relevant secretary (e.g., Trophy Secretary).
The role requires strong administrative, organizational, and communication skills, and often involves using specific software for managing meet entries and results.

HONORARY PRESIDENT

The role of an honorary president in British Ice Skating (BIS) is primarily an ambassadorial and ceremonial position. It is an honorary title, typically awarded to individuals who have demonstrated outstanding, long-term service and dedication to the sport.
Key aspects of the role include:
Ambassadorial Duties: The honorary president acts as a public face and advocate for BIS, promoting the sport and its values.
Ceremonial Functions: They often attend events, present awards or medals, and carry out other representational duties.
No Executive Power: The position is a voluntary, non-remunerated role with no executive or decision-making authority within the organisation’s management or board.
Advisory Capacity (Optional): While they do not vote, the honorary president may be invited to attend Board meetings in an optional capacity to offer their expertise, provide an independent viewpoint, and relay feedback gathered from the wider membership.
Recognition of Service: The title is an honour bestowed upon individuals, such as Olympians like Robin Cousins or dedicated officials and volunteers who have significantly contributed to the skating community over many years.
In essence, the role serves to formally recognise an individual’s immense contribution while leveraging their experience and profile to inspire the next generation of skaters and support the organisation’s public image and community engagement.
For more information on the organisation and its governance, you can visit the official British Ice Skating website.