CWRA SYP Roles and Responsibilities

All of us volunteer for the CWRA… and you can take on a variety of roles depending on where you want to contribute and what you want to learn. It can be as simple as just adding your name to a list and receiving useful emails, or it can be as complicated as leading teams of people in your own neighborhood and across the country. The choice is yours.

If you do want to get more involved, we have an organizational formula for SYP teams at all levels. Our chapters and sub-committees each work with the same roles. These roles and their responsibilities are described below:

Team Leader Role
The team leader is responsible for leading the team. Team leaders are generally involved with keeping the bigger picture in mind, long-term planning, "fire fighting," ensuring continuity and helping the group be as effective as possible.

Facilitator Role
The facilitator has two key responsibilities. The first is to do the leg-work of organizing meetings. Performing this task allows the team leader to focus on his or her job of leading rather than simply organizing meetings. The other key role for the facilitator is to ensure that meetings run smoothly. Running an effective meeting is a skill that takes time to develop. There are lots of resources on the internet, but one that you might find useful can be found at:

http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/LEADS/FACT%20Sheets/fact2.pdf

Secretary Role
The secretary's role is to write down the discussion and produce a coherent set of minutes from the meetings. This is super-important as most of us tend to forget what was said and agreed upon at the meeting. (Well... maybe I'm just speaking for myself, but I've been to plenty of meetings where nobody kept any notes and the meeting ended up being useless as a result.)

Project Manager Role
The project manager is responsible for leading projects within the sub-committee. The projects can be run by individuals or groups, depending on the size of the project. The project manager should be able to focus on completing a successful project without having to worry about keeping a chapter running.

Team Member Role
The team members have the responsibility of helping complete projects. The purpose of this role is to help people get involved without getting "sucked-into" the organization. Sometimes it's nice to get involved in a minimal way knowing that there's no other committment.