YOUR Pony Club

Secretary’s Manual Year

This document is a prompt/resource for Club Secretaries to help define their role in the Club, know where to find Information and Resources, and have a clear idea of what needs to be done and when.

If you would like to be able to get a handle on the role, share duties when appropriate, and/or be able to encourage others to take on the Administrative work to run a happy club when your time is up, it’s a really good idea to give others a clear idea of what’s involved.

General Information

Official Name: Your ClubHorse and Pony Club

Incorporation Number: A001111111

ABN31 000 000 000 (if you club does not have its own use the PCAV one when required – 64 320 020 091)

Website:

PCAV website:

Address: XXX, 100 YYYY Rd, ZZZ3333

Postal Address: PO Box 000, ZZZ 3444

Banking Details

Cheques payable to: Your Club Pony Club

Direct Deposit Details: The Bank

BSB000 000

Account Number 0111 1111

Rallies: First (Day) of month except January

Starting time: 9.30am Gear check

Meetings: Second Tuesday after rally. 7.30pm at ...

Certificate of Currency:

YOUR GROUND NAME

Put in information about your Club Grounds; who has access and when. If there is a Grounds Committee. Key access if applicable.

Ground PIC Code (from Dept Primary Industry; for emergency access)

Recreational Reserve/Grounds Committee contact:

Mr/Ms Ground Chairman

Postal address:

Phone:

Email:

Other Users:

If Applicable. Include contact details if known.

E.g Kyneton & District Adult Riding Club:

President: Before each event, a letter is written to xxx asking for use of their dressage arena.

Secretary: ... Email:

E.g. 2nd Saturday (except winter months – indoor arena used)

Eg. Dog Obedience 3rd Sunday

Hiring Out Your ClubGrounds

Fees: (if applicable)

Explain how fees are structured – are there Reserve/Ground fees? Who needs to be informed? What paperwork is needed on what they want to hire, when they want to hire and if they require exclusive use. Normally it is based
Are Public Liability – Certificate of Currency with the organizations Insurance Company available?

Fees for such? Or donation?

Secretary’s Calendar

Add in any pertinent regular events - e.g. do you always have a Winter Woollies or Camp or Car Boot Sale or something else that occurs every year?

Check if the AGM preparation is in the correct month.

Weekly:

Empty mail box
Check emails and forward if necessary

Monthly:

Prepare Correspondence Summaries for meeting
PC Committee meeting: 2nd Tue after rally

Yearly:

January:

No rally
Pro-rata memberships available

February:

March:

Rally: AGM nominations forms available
If this is the month before your AGM – move this info to correct month oherwise
Advertise AGM in local paper (if this is what your club does traditionally. Otherwise notify all members)
Membership renewal advertised

April

Rally: AGM

April meeting: new committee takes over

May

Rally: Membership forms due in
Consumer Affairs form due in (Public Officer and Financial Statement)

May 15-30: Membership Return in.
PCAV Insurers will require the one page Insurance Compliance form

June rally:

Start of new membership year coming in July

July:

Eg. KPC Combined Training

October:

MacedonRanges Council Seasonal Hire Form due in
Zone Delegate will submit our request to Zone for competition dates for following year. The dates are considered by Zone with all the other Club's dates & competition requests. Confirmation of dates usually comes back to us in October.

November:

Eg. KPC Horse Trials

December:

Xmas rally
Summary of Secretarial Tasks

Obtain MYCLUB Log in. (Note that there is no ‘Club Password’ – you need to obtain your own from PCAV – use form or email )
Send list of new committee members to PCAV, And your Zone (put in how to contact your Zone Secretary)
Set up email address books for Your Club PC members and Club Committee members; (**New database for PCAV will hopefully have a more user friendly database that should remove the need to double up membership lists)
Forward emails to either members or committee members
Membership:
Send out membership renewal forms that will be due back in by 6 May.
Do Membership Return* (must be done between 15 and 30 May).
Adding new members outside of Strength Return: Over the year, update strength return as new members are added.
Sign new membership cards as they arrive.
Clear mail box.
Prepare Correspondence Summaries for meetings and read them out.
Deal with incoming/outgoing correspondence as required.
Know where members and potential members can access information and forms.
Your ClubCompetitions.
Send in Seasonal Hire Form to name Organization and contact
AGM arrangements.
Send in Consumer Affairs Annual Statement no later than 1 mth after AGM
Alter club donation letter to show new secretarial contact details.
Suggest obtain filing cabinet for new clubrooms and file away records.

Details of Secretarial Tasks

MYCLUB Log in

You will need to obtain a password so that you can access MYCLUB on the PCAV website ( and get into the Your Clubmembership database. You will need to do this to do the Strength Return, to add/delete new members and to print off membership lists, etc. Once you get your login ID and password, write it down in a place you can easily find. Old users from the past should be deleted. Current committee members who have a login include *name other password holders.

Get MYCLUB and MYWEBSITE Password Application form signed by President, then send PCAV. However if you require a password more quickly, email PCAV and they will allow it as long as you send the paperwork by mail ASAP.

4. Forwarding Emails

Recommended – have a Club email address such as to save personal emails getting a hammering from all sorts of pony club mail. Ideally – share it with the other club executive who can then help share the load, and if necessary have the back information on relevant issues.

Set up 2 address books on your mail server:

one for Your ClubMembers
BCC when sending emails (some members don’t want their email address displayed)
one for Your ClubCommittee Members
No need to BCC

Advise to check daily and forward straight away if possible. Then place email in relevant file eg correspondence in Apr-May or Events Apr-May.

It’s your choice what you forward on.

Suggest:

All PCAV, Zone forwarded onto either members or committee members
All clinics, special interest events eg microchipping days forwarded onto member. All events used to be forwarded on but are now listed in the newsletter by the current DC.
Horses/saddlery for sale/wanted forwarded onto members if you like (use your discretion). If Your Clubmember asks to forward something on, it’s nice to oblige (to obtain a list of emails from other zones/clubs, suggest copying them from an email that comes in from somewhere else that contains all these (people shouldn’t do this but they do). However you might find that the address book will be too large to send out in one go. In this case you need to send the email out in batches. I haven’t found an efficient way of doing this yet! It would be good to create an address book but this takes time and might not be worth it. Keep an eye on Myclub, this has some facilities with mass email and eventually will be updated to have a lot more functions
Commercial ads: forward onto committee if considered useful, otherwise don’t forward.

Membership

a)Membership Renewals

Membership year: June to May of following year. The ‘Membership Return’ (used to be called a Strength Return) is the term for the main member renewal; the PCAV year runs from 1July to 30 June, but in order for PCAV to be able to process the grading cards, obtain payment and send to the club with plenty of time for the first weekend of the year, this administrative task begins 6 weeks earlier. Members who compete usually need their cards promptly; but they must be paid up at the club to be updated on the system.
Dates for Membership Return: 15 - 30 May.
Send out forms before May rally and ask for them to be back by due date or at the latest the May rally.
Ask newsletter editor to put a reminder into May newsletter.
Take spare copies of blank membership forms (riding member and adult supporter) to rally for those who forget.
Send reminder to those who haven’t sent form in by due date (personally address email?)

Membership Forms

Riding Members
Junior
Associate (>17 yrs to 25)
Adult Riders (if your club has them)
Adult Supporters
Cover Sheet (developed this year to get parents to sign club membership conditions and to list their skills/experience.

I have modified the PCAV forms to make them easier to file. PCAV is happy with this and is modifying the form currently.

b)Membership Return

Every year in May PCAV sends out an envelope of instructions for the Membership Return. This information is also available on their website.

When receiving membership forms, on the bottom of first page fill out the date received, receipt number (from the treasurer) and whether paid by direct deposit or cheque. Fill out the bottom section of last page also.
Complete MR in one or two batches only (preferably one). You can do them as they come in but this gets very confusing for all concerned. Please try to do in monthly batches. If someone is late paying then needs their grading card in a hurry they might have to wait.
See PCAV guidelines – on their website – Club Resource Kit

c)Adding New Members (note: will be a new database sometime)

New Members: Once new members are approved at meetings, add them to the Membership return. Search for them on the PCAV database to make sure they don’t already have a PCAV number.
Transferring Members: If the member is transferring from another club, complete the transfer form that they should have filled out and send into PCAV. Then add them to Membership return. Find them on the PCAV database so that they only keep one PCAV number.

d)Sign New Membership Cards

A new membership card is issued each year. These are sent from PCAV to the PO Box. Check details on each card and sign, then give to the Card Secretary. Membership cards are also called Grading Cards, as they verify the Grading that the rider has obtained, and are used when competing.

New Members

Prospective members need to be referred to the DC. The DC will want to know the age and ability of rider. The potential new member then needs to send in their paperwork and cheque to be discussed at the next meeting. If approved, the rider may come to the following rally. Under some circumstances the rider may be approved at a rally in order to bypass the meeting, however this is not automatic. Try to stick to having the paperwork and cheque in before consideration at a meeting as experience has shown that it is the best policy.

Check with PCAV for insurance rates. This now includes 24/7 insurance.

Categories:

Adult Rider: (if your club admits them)

Associate Member: 17 years and over (can ride until the end of the membership year after their 25th birthday. These riders pay a slightly higher membership fee due to being considered a slightly higher risk by the Insurance Company.)

Junior Member: Under 17 years

Fees: (2012-13)

First rider $265

Second rider $245

Third rider $225

Payments:

Cheque made payable to Your Club Pony Club

Direct Deposit: Your Bank BSB 000 000 Account Number 00 1111 333

Identify deposit with descriptor and surname

Financial Hardship: Under some circumstances, payments may be made in instalments. This needs to be discussed with the treasurer. It is the treasurer’s job to follow these payments up but you might need to remind him/her! Please remember that financial hardship clause is a sensitive one and the privacy of the family must be considered.

Pro-Rata:

Occurs only from 1 January to 30 June annually (from 2015) Contact Pony Club Victoria for more information. There is one fee set for this period, it is not a ‘sliding scale’.

Visiting Members:

Our club allows this (one visit only). Day attendance form needs to be filled out but if visiting member is a PCAV member they don’t need to pay a day attendance fee. Non-PCAV members need to fill out a new "try out day form" and pay $10 to PCAV which covers insurance (form and fee goes to PCAV; unless they go on to join, in which case PCAV do not need the $10 fee).We currently add on $10 to cover instructor fees so this makes a total of $20 that visiting riders pay.??correct

6.Clearance of Post Box: (If a Post Box is used) Suggest weekly and before meetings/rallies. Event secretary will clear mailbox prior to event (unless ill or unable to). Take a pen with you to letterbox and label mail for Event Secretary and Treasurer and leave this mail in the box (unless just before a rally or they request otherwise).

Holders of PO Box keys: Secretary, Name others

Meetings:

Agenda and Minutes done by the Minutes Secretary (If you have one? -. Current person?)

7.Correspondence Summaries

Record of incoming/outgoing emails/mail/phonecalls. See past examples. As most of the incoming emails have already been forwarded on to Your Club members or Committee members then you might only need to list a description of the email in a dot point format. If you decide it is something that needs to be addressed at the meeting, include the relevant document.

You need to be selective about the information contained otherwise the summaries will be too large. You get the hang of it after a while!

The summaries should be emailed to the committee members before the meeting (in enough time for people to be able to read them).

Take a paper copy of them to the meeting (including one for the minutes secretary).

Meeting summary of actions: To be filled out on the night as a summary of actions, photocopied and given to each member before they leave (might be impossible if no photocopier at clubrooms).

8. Correspondence

Write/email

Letters as advised
Thank you letters to outgoing committee members
Send thank you certificates to sponsors
Note any other correspondence that you know of that occurs annually

9. Competitions

Event Secretary sends out the competition flyers and receives entries.
Secretary needs to answer queries by phone and email:
Advise PCAV of competition dates to add to their calendar; or add them through Myclub
Entrants may pay by direct deposit. Identifying text must say HT then name of entrant in that order.
Late entries are allowed but check with Event Secretary first. If allowed, get rider to email Event Secretary with rider names, horse names, grades and then express post their entry to PO Box 00Your Town 3333.
PCAV members competing at an event your club is running in an open section don’t have to pay $10 day attendance fee but they must produce their PC card on the day. If they forget, they must pay the $10 fee.
Checking Riders' Cards at an Event
On event day, secretary usually helps in office receiving cards and checking them at start of day and then returning them at end of day. Back numbers are also given out & received. Tick off rider when card in/back number out and mark off when card returned/back number returned.
Cards must be:
Current year (each Year has a different colour).
Signed by at least 2 (pref 3) club officials of the rider's club

- DC, Sec and Card Sec.

Check rider's grade (for correct event e.g. HT grade for HT event) matches grade the rider is in at the event.
Horse must match horse in card.
must be >50% rally attendance for previous 12 months; unless an Associate (over 17) who needs a minimum of two rallies.

If rider's card incomplete they may have to transfer to Open section.

Signing cards if a state qualifier event:
Only the Zone Rep and DC can sign cards to qualify riders for state. The secretary is not permitted to sign these cards.
Make sure someone keeps track of ribbons. If it is you, be at presentation with a list to fill out tracking the ribbons! (In the past, ribbons have gone missing and if you get the job of sending them out, you will have to order more). It is much better to present ribbons during the day as events occur. This means most of the ribbons will go out on the day as people are still there to collect them. Ribbons also no longer have a date on them so that they can be re-used. Equal placings have also been ruled out.

AGM & Model Rules/Club Constitution

April rally 12.30pm