Secretary

The Secretary of the UCDRA is responsible for ensuring that accurate and sufficient documentation exists to meet legal requirements, and to enable authorized persons to determine when, how, and by whom the board's business was conducted. In order to fulfill these responsibilities, and subject to the organization's by-laws, the Secretary records minutes of meetings, ensures their accuracy, and availability, fulfills any other requirements of a Director and Officer, and performs other duties as the need arises and/or as defined in the bylaws.

Accountability

The Secretary is accountable to the Executive Board and Members of the Association as specified in the bylaws. Through the Executive Board, certain duties of the Secretary may be delegated to the President, board members and/or committees as appropriate; however, the accountability for them remains with the Secretary.

Position duties 

Minutes

The Secretary is responsible for ensuring that accurate minutes of meetings are taken and approved. Requirements of minutes should include at a minimum:

• date, time, location of meeting;
• list of those present and absent;
• list of items discussed;
• list of reports presented;
• text of motions presented and description of their disposition.

Minutes should have enough information to help absent members understand what issues were discussed and what decisions were made. Minutes should include summary of discussion, rationale for decision, names of those participating in the discussion, and the roll call, noting any declared conflicts of interest. These circumstances: are if the matter is contentious, if board members dissent, if there is any concern about exposure to liability, or if a board member has a conflict of interest.

The Secretary signs a copy of the final, approved minutes and ensures that this copy is maintained in the Retiree Center records. 

Meetings

The Secretary participates in Board meetings as a voting member. The Secretary provides items for the agenda as appropriate. In the absence of the President and Vice-President, the Secretary calls the meeting to order, presiding until a temporary chairperson is elected. The secretary records meeting minutes as described above. Depending upon the bylaws and practices of the Retirees Association, the Secretary may perform these duties for Member meetings (eg. Annual General Meeting) and/or for executive committee meetings. 

Signing Officer 

The Secretary may be designated by the Executive Board and/or bylaws as one of the signing officers for certain documents. In this capacity, the Secretary may be authorized or required to sign documents on behalf of the organization.