Positions

CSHPS Secretary-Treasurer

Unpaid volunteer academic service position.

The CSHPS Secretary-Treasurer involves two main functions: 1) principal society membership secretary; and, 2) chief financial officer. Together with the President and two Vice Presidents, the Secretary-Treasurer is an Officer of the Society and part of the CSHPS Executive Council. As such, the Secretary-Treasurer is involved in general society planning and strategic discussions with the President and Executive Council.

The primary duties of the Secretary-Treasurer are to maintain the society’s membership records and finances, to prepare reports on these for the Annual General Meeting, and to advise the President and Executive on related matters. Regarding membership, the Secretary-Treasurer monitors and maintains the CSHPS Square account (through which most member dues are paid) as well as the society’s bank account (TD Canada Trust). The Secretary-Treasurer maintains an annual database of paid CSHPS members and coordinates with the listserv manager to keep the listserv up to date. Membership payments not handled automatically via Square (e.g., payments by cheque and bulk subscriptions) are handled by the Secretary-Treasurer. 

Regarding finances and the annual meetings, the Secretary-Treasurer is also responsible (together with the President) for creating the agenda and collecting reports the CSHPS Executive Council meeting (generally held the evening prior to the start of the annual CSHPS meeting) and the CSHPS Annual General Meeting (AGM), for attending both meetings, and for recording the minutes of the Annual General Meeting and preparing them in final form for inclusion in Communiqué along with other CSHPS executive and committee reports presented at the AGM.

Additional responsibilities include: Maintaining a regular line of communication with the President of the Society and other members of the Executive Council; receiving and responding to correspondence from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences (CFHSS), including ensuring that the CSHPS annual dues to CFHSS are paid when the invoice is received; coordinating reimbursements to applicants for the Student and Contract Faculty Travel Bursary Fund (for travel to the annual society meeting); coordinating expense reimbursements as determined in consultation with the President to various distinguished speakers and participants at the annual meeting.

The workload for the position is fairly light for much of the year but does require ongoing, regular attention, especially to email and maintaining the membership list. The workload intensifies somewhat in September-October (general preparation prior to November CFHSS planning deadlines for the following Congress) and during the months immediately surrounding the CSHPS meeting at Congress (so, generally, May-June/July). The most onerous parts of the job include manually migrating membership data from automated messages (sent from Square) to a CFHSS-required Excel spreadsheet format and preparing the Secretary and Treasurer’s reports for the AGM.

©2000-2024 CSHPS/SCHPS
contact web manager