Duties of Society Officers with regard to the CSC

As officers, you have a duty of care to your societies, but you also have certain responsibilities towards the CSC as well. If you are experiencing any difficulties with regard to running the society, contact the CSC and we will try to help.

• Chairperson
• Secretary
• Treasurer

Chairperson

Responsibilities:
The CSC regards the Society Chairperson as being ultimately responsible for its activities and for the society's relations within College and outside. You should oversee the members of the society committee and ensure that the Treasurer and Secretary of the society are keeping in touch with the CSC. The Chairperson is jointly responsible with the Treasurer, for the society's finances. It is therefore advisable for you to keep an eye on the books, as you can be held personally liable for any debts incurred.

You should chair all committee meetings, and should be aware when general meetings of the CSC are taking place so that you can involve your committee in decisions. Although your society voting is done through the Treasurer, you may attend all general meetings.

Formulating Granting Policy
Societies have an input in formulating CSC Grants Policy. The CSC Executive will formulate what it thinks is a realistic policy, and this is circulated to you early during Michaelmas Term. If you want to suggest changes or additions, you must inform the CSC in writing with your motion, proposed and seconded by members of the CSC, at least one week in advance of the Michaelmas Term general meeting (MTGM).

Applying for Grants
Go to the Officers site http://www.csc.tcdlife.ie. This page has all you need to formulate and submit your grant application.You and the Treasurer may be asked to attend an Executive meeting of the CSC to run through your application and explain any queries the Exec may have. Try and include as much as possible on the  Grant Application Form, but if you need something before the form is circulated, or at any stage later in the year, you can apply on a supplementary grant application form which is available online at the same address.

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Secretary

Responsibilities
The Society secretary should act as the link between the society and the CSC. You should ensure that the CSC has an up-to-date list of the Committee and society officers, and inform us if they change at any stage. One of your main responsibilities is to ensure that you enter ALL society events into your society event calendar: this is a requirement for funding as noted in the Grants Policy Document. (GPD 9.2)

Click on webmail.csc.tcd.ie  and log into your CSC email account. Click into Calendar and you'll see a second calendar called,  for example 'Comedy Events'. This is a public folder linked to your society profile on www.trinitysocieties.ie enter an event and it automatically updates the profile for your members to see.

Secretary's Report for submission to CSC
Before the CSC can consider your Grant Application, a Secretary's report for the previous academic year must be satisfactory. This is done by keeping your calendar up to date all year log, this will be checked as the year goes on to ensure this is being carried out.

Society Constitution
The Secretary should also be responsible for the Society Constitution. We hold the most recent copy of all the society constitutions in the CSC. Any Constitutional changes must first be passed by an EGM or AGM of the society and then ratified by the CSC Executive. It should be noted that the activities of a society should primarily be those which promote its aims as stipulated in its constitution and it is these activities, and only these, which are grant-aided by the CSC.

Society Room Keys
Keys for society rooms are available in the CSC office for a personal (i.e. not out of society coffers!) deposit of €30, which is refunded when your key is returned. There is a maximum of 2 keys for each society. If further keys are needed, you may apply on a case by case basis to CSC Executive. Society officers may borrow a key on request, and by leaving their ID card, but CSC should be provided in advance with a list of the people who may do this.

Mail
Each Society has a postal address. Some societies receive mail c/o their departments, but most have a mail box, either in the Atrium or in Regent House. We have plenty of vacant mailboxes, so if you don't have one or want to move, please let us know.

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Treasurer

Responsibilities
Your job may sound complicated, but with a little organisation, need not take up too much of your time. As mentioned above, you are held, along with the Chairperson, to be responsible for your Society's finances. It is your responsibility to enter all transactions to and from the society bank account into the online system. You should get a receipt for all monies you spend; keep these carefully, as you will need them to claim back money from CSC, and those that aren't claimed will have to be presented with your accounts at the end of the year. As Treasurer, you should be involved in filling out the Grant Application Form in October/November. All results of CSC meetings will be notified to you by email and will be available on the website: http://www.csc.tcdlife.ie

Claiming your CSC Grant
Once you have been allocated a grant, you can start to claim money from the CSC. We can only pay out money on receipts, so you have to spend your money first, get receipts and then submit them to the CSC to get your grant. Usually payments from the CSC will be made directly to the society bank account. If you receive cheques or payments from any other sources, these too should be lodged to your bank account. This includes your membership money, which should be lodged to the bank and then cheques written for any payments. Please do not use membership money as petty cash, as the CSC uses these lodgments to calculate your society's membership. Certain grants that the CSC gives are calculated on your membership numbers, so it is in your interest to lodge all money taken in during freshers' week.

Accounts preparation for CSC submission
You have to prepare the accounts to be audited at the end of each year. Your financial year runs from  the 1st  of April of one year to 29th February 2012 of the following year, so please make sure that you are aware of all the transactions carried out by the previous treasurer during the time already elapsed between April and now. You should do this now, while it is still fresh in everyone's minds. (You try tracking down last year's Treasurer a month before his/her finals and asking them to make your accounts a priority!) You will be keeping your accounts on line which means that the preparation of the Society accounts for the year should be greatly simplified. Entering into the system your society transactions as you go along will mean that - with perhaps a little tweaking at year's end - you will be able to press a button and print out the accounts in one fell swoop.

Go to www.csc.tcdlife.ie/grant_app and login with your society username and password (available from lucy@csc.tcd.ie if you don't know it). Go to the Society Accounts section. There is a section for opening balance, outgoings and income, and one for submitting the accounts at the end of the year. As you go along, you can enter in all your payments out and lodgements into the bank account. It is very straightforward, but if you need any help, please ask either of the CSC Treasurer or Lucy to explain further.

Your completed accounts must be submitted in by 30th June. Between the 29th Feb 2012 and until your accounts are submitted, you will be unable to claim any money from the CSC, so again, the sooner you complete them, the better. Bear in mind that if a society fails to hand in satisfactory accounts for two consecutive years, it will be put up for automatic derecognition.

You and your Bank
Finally, if your society is having financial difficulties, please let us know. We have a good relationship with AIB and can authorise temporary overdrafts for your society if we are sure you only need short-term bridging. Even if you can't make it into the office, you can always ring and we can organise things over the phone, or e-mail me at lucy@csc.tcd.ie.

Petty Cash

The CSC advises that all of your business be transacted using cheques/electronic payments (direct debit, standing order, cross border transfer, etc) but there may be inevitable cases where this simply doesn’t work and you’ll need to use cash.
The simplest system for dealing with petty cash is to, at the start of the year, cash a cheque for an adequate amount (Recommended €50). As you spend the petty cash, store the receipts along the way with the remaining petty cash. Eventually, you will have spent nearly all the cash you had at the outset, but you will have the equivalent amount’s worth in receipts. Staple all of these receipts together and write & cash a cheque for this amount. Thus, the bundle of receipts acts as an overall receipt for the second cheque and you now have €50 petty cash again. This process can be repeated as often as required during the year.
Prior to the end of the accounting period year end (end of February) you carry out the second step as outlined above and then lodge the €50 you have just generated into your account. This lodgement acts as the receipt against the first cheque – because in your statement you have a balancing of money in and out.
If done correctly, this method of managing petty cash should make the management of the accounts very easy. Otherwise, petty cash can become the bain of any treasurer’s existence.

 
 

 

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