Exec reports - President

Introduction

The President :

• Must have been on the VOC Exec of a previous year.
• Ensures the overall running of the Club.
• Knows the responsibilities of other Exec's, and tactfully makes sure that things get done.
• Coordinates Exec meetings and Wednesday lunch hour meetings.
• A good position to learn about delegating responsibility. Good public speaking skills will be developed.

How to run the VOC

Congratulations, you are now the guiding light for the VOC. And if you're taking the time to read this (especially in advance) chances are that you're about to do at least an OK job, probably a really good job.

It's been said that there is a limited amount that the president can do, toward either the enhancement or destruction of the club. While it is certainly true that there is a limited amount of damage the president might be able to do (ie. the club will likely survive), it seems that there is really no upper bound. Keep pouring gas on the fire, and it will really get going.

In general

One thing to remember, particularly when somebody gets their panties all tied up in a knot about a job "not done well", is that we're all volunteers - even you. There are certain responsibilities, but at the end of the day everybody is only doing this because they want to. It's important that people feel good about what they've been able to do, or next time maybe nobody will do anything. There are a lot of critics around, but not a lot of artists. Maybe that critic would like the opportunity to show everybody how it's done by doing it themselves, we can certainly provide the opportunity.

Another good guiding principle is that people in general want to do a good job, but they just don't know how. People are flakes, unfortunately, and everybody needs a reminder/guidance. Usually they are perfectly capable of figuring it out for themselves, but they just need somebody to help them remember to think about it far enough in advance, and to make them feel like it really is "their" project.

Your job is to try and keep everybody on track, so that they can be at their best.

Ethos

The club will look to somebody for guidance on the ethos of the club. Ideally you'll come up with something. It might be worth checking out some past president's ideas, for example Exec_report_-_President_2009_-_2010 Veensta's.

Mission Critical

These things have the potential to cause major heartache, so be sure to pay attention to them.

AMS Clubsdays

It is very important for our membership numbers, and getting enough "fresh blood" that we have a good spot in the AMS clubsdays. A year without a good spot at clubsdays is a year without 1st years in the club, which means not enough people eligible for exec the next year. The AMS will naturally try to revert to a policy of "random is fair", whereby they randomize all the clubs and their locations in a misguided attempt to be as fair as possible. Somebody needs to bring the new AMS executive to their senses - it's not that they're crazy or anything, but it's their first time too. The person to bring them to their senses is you, the VOC president.

You will need to run into the new SAC-VC on a couple occasions, and make sure they understand the implications of how they plan clubsdays. Don't be rude or offencive - they are likely trying their best, but just haven't really thought about it. This needs to happen in the spring/summer, because once they've made a decision it's going to be too late for them to change positions gracefully. Some good points to keep in mind might be, for example:

• Clubsdays is a chance for the AMS to showcase their best clubs.
• Putting great clubs in prominent locations is a fitting reward for being a great club.
• Showcasing great clubs also serves incoming students better - they are more likely to join these clubs and have a good time at UBC. These clubs are successful for a reason, probably because people have fun in them.
• Putting great clubs way off in the back makes it difficult to run them effectively, causing wild fluctuations in membership numbers, a lack of fresh blood for executives, and difficulty running large-scale events.
• The AMS's mandate is to serve students and clubs, enhancing student life, not trying to be "fair" to every random new club that starts up.

This is about as close to politicking as the VOC presidency gets. If you're really good at it the AMS will think it was their idea in the first place - this is the situation you are aiming for... Jedi mind tricks. "Gee, I wonder how one might distribute clubs at the clubsday booths in order to best serve both students and clubs"...

It is likely possible to "team up" with other very popular clubs like AquaSoc, Ski and Board, etc. as this distribution serves them well too.

Huts Tenure Expiry

The huts are all under Nominal Rent Tenures with the government, except Sphinx which is in BC parks and we don't need to worry about. These things expire every 10 years, no tenure = no (legal) hut. The file numbers/granted dates are:

• Brew, 2400607, 8 June 2002
• Harrison, 2401192, 15 May 2007
• Phelix, 2410051, 8 July 2009

The government will probably mail us something as these dates approach, but they may not and if they do they will almost certainly mail it to the AMS, not the VOC (as these agreements are really with the AMS - afterall the VOC doesn't actually exist as a society, only the AMS "exists"). Be proactive, and make sure you get the tenure renewed. These agreements hold us to abide by our "management plan" which was submitted with the application (basically, it is the application itself). The application for Phelix is available with Sheldon, the AMS archivist. Who knows where the other applications are, but they are likely similar - we promise to build a shelter for non-motorized recreation, they let us.

Random stuff you'll need to know

There's a whole lot of mundane, everyday, things that somebody has to know in order to run the club. And, as president, you're the one people are going to ask. Many of these things are passwords/combinations, so they can't be written here - but you should tattoo them to your hand, or similar (maybe program them into your smartphone or something).

• The clubroom door code. You should probably change it when the new year starts as well.
• The "execs only drawer" lock combination.
• The combination for the lock box up at Brew, Phelix, and Harrison
• Our full AMS bank account number
• The admin password for the clubroom computer
• Our MEC organization number
• Our interchange email server password

How to modify our email lists

Interchange mail (@interchange.ubc.ca)

Note that the FMCBC also uses the UBC interchange server, so these instructions apply to them too (but it's a different account).

First you need to find the login screen. UBC moves it around sometimes, but it can generally be found by googling ubc interchange email manage account. It's not the 1st hit, but it's close to the top. Right now the webpage is here.

Our username is voc (gasp!), but the password isn't written here (obviously). From there you just need to poke around and figure it out. We have separate email lists for voc-exec, voc-memebers, and voc-alumni. The exec email list must be updated manually, but the voc-members and voc-alumni seem to update themselves via magic (this is the work of Chris Michalak who set up our website to send emails directly to the interchange server to modify the mailing lists as required).

VOC website mail (@ubc-voc.com)

The website, including these email addresses, is managed by Chris Michalak, and sometimes less complicated stuff gets done by Scott Webster.

Past Exec Reports

Exec report - President 2009 - 2010
Exec report - President 2008 - 2009
Exec report - President 2007 - 2008
Exec report - President 2006 - 2007