Volunteer Recognition Team Charter

Name of Committee or Team:
Volunteer Recognition Team

General Purpose:
To build engagement of members and friends by recognizing those who are giving time and talent to activities throughout the Fellowship

Membership: Specify the size (number of members). Between 6 and 10, depending on the number of Lay Ministry Clusters.

How is the committee/group formed (e.g. elected or appointed, and if so, by whom?). Recruited by current members

What are the requirements for committee membership? Interest in recognizing volunteer accomplishments

What is length of a committee member's service (e.g., can members serve only a set number of years?)? A team member will serve a two-year term, with an unlimited number of terms.

How are vacancies filled? Members discuss possible recruits and the chair or another member talks with the person.

Is the minister, or other staff, or other leaders, involved in the committee/group (e.g., as ex officio
members)? The lay ministers participate at varying levels. Currently (2017/2018) we have two. Can non-members of UUFA be members of the committee/group? yes
Is there a fixed and/or maximum number of committee members? Having 6 members allows for coverage of Lay Ministers' honorees, with one lead team member and support from others.

What is the selection process if more people are interested than there are slots available? That has not been an issue.

Leadership:
What are the leadership roles in the committee/group? E.g., chair, secretary, others? Roles relate to talents and knowledge of Fellowship members, for example art, photography, public speaking, writing, gardening skills.

How is/are the leader(s) chosen? The chair will be chosen by volunteering. Only people who have been a member of the team for at least one year may serve as chair, but this could be a person who has been off the team and is returning.
What are the responsibilities of the leader(s)? Currently the chair writes agendas, leads most meetings and writes and distributes minutes.

Meetings:
How often does the committee/group meet? once monthly

How, when and where are committee meetings announced and to whom, e.g., Board, Leadership Council, Congregation? The meetings are included in the online calendar. The Lay Minister liaisons are included in all email.
How are committee meetings run, insuring that they are effective, creative, and community-building? We follow an agenda and encourage participation.

How are decisions made (e.g. majority vote or consensus)? consensus

Are committee meetings open? They are open. We haven't announced their being open.

List the specific duties and responsibilities of the committee/group:

Communicate with Lay Ministers for selection of groups to be recognized by Clusters.
Team members volunteer to be leads on specific recognitions of groups. They contact Lay Ministers to coordinate recognitions, gather information, sometimes write scripts, contact honorees if the Lay Minister doesn't. Other team members support the leads in these ways:
The team decides token gifts and procures them. The team gets photos.
Assignments relate to skills of team members: crafts, art, writing, photography, public speaking, etc. The team chair prepares materials for weekly email, Tapestry, OOSs, and posters.
Team members volunteer to participate in the services.

For monthly Spotlights of individuals, the team accepts nominations from the membership and makes nominations as needed.
Given the computer skills needed to prepare the posters, the team chair takes the lead on preparing materials.

The chair prepares and distributes minutes and agendas.

Annual Goals, Objectives: (State how and when the committee will develop a set of goals for itself. Will the committee annually review its functions and duties?)
To date the goal setting has been informal - to encourage participation in the life of the Fellowship by recognizing achievements, by helping members and friends get to know one another's interests and skills, by informing members and friends of volunteer opportunities. Another goal would be to recognize individuals who contribute to each cluster in order to educate members of the congregation about the clusters and what happens in each.

Accountability: (To whom is the committee or group accountable or answerable? The congregation, the Board, another committee, or perhaps the committee’s/group’s members only?)
The team is accountable to the Ministry Council via its assigned Lay Ministers.

Reporting requirements (e.g., To whom does the committee/group provide reports? How often does it report?):
Our Lay Ministers request updates from us to include in their reports to the Ministry Council - usually monthly.

Relationship to professional staff and other committees/groups of UUFA: (State the explicit relationship of the committee/group to each member of the professional staff, and to any other committees/groups with which it has an important relationship.)
Our scheduling and publication needs are handled through contacts with Shaye. Rev. Alison is available for consultation. We conferred with the RE director in the past for suggestions of volunteers. Our Cluster recognition leads confer with each Cluster's Lay Minister as determined by the schedule developed by the Ministry Council.

Communications: List in what ways the committee/group communicates regularly with other committees/groups, the congregation, and the wider Athens community. State what presence the committee/group has or would like to have on the Fellowship’s web site.
A variety of contacts are listed above. In a previous design of the website, the team had a homepage announcement at all times connected to blog posts. Currently the only static mention of the team is a contact listing on the volunteer page: http://uuathensga.org/stewardship/volunteering-time-talent/ Currently news is submitted for publication in the website news/weekly email news/Tapestry.

What decision-making authority does the committee/group have? (e.g., communicate with groups outside UUFA, represent UUFA outside, create policies, etc.)
The team functions within the Fellowship. Policy creation does not appear to be a need for the team.

Spending authorities: Does the committee/group have to request approval for any expenditures within its budget? Who will be authorized to sign for committee/group expenditures against the budget?
The team has a budget line item and presents receipts to a Lay Minister liaison (Vivian Preston Sellers or Herb West) for a signature.

Susan Curtis, team chair
Proposed charter submitted by (name and title): Date: Sept. 18, 2017