About the GRSPSociety Working Groups
The GRSPSociety working groups are the main functional units of the association. They allow our members to develop projects within their professional and academic fields of interest that address Romania and/or Romanian communities. The groups are meant to serve as a catalyst for civic, professional, and academic projects that benefit Romanian communities while giving its members a chance to collaborate with academics and professionals with similar interests from around the world.
It is generally expected that the working groups will function independently. While potential projects may involve a wide variety of activities such as research, advocacy campaigns, events, or social entrepreneurship, working group activities are dictated by the interests and initiatives of its members and depend on decentralized leadership from working group members and chairs. GRSPSociety, in turn, provides its working groups with guidance and with support in raising funds, recruiting human resources, and forging ties with relevant partner organizations for its projects..
Membership in the working groups is free, voluntary, and not limited by geography.
Description of the GRSPSociety Working Group Chair Position
Working group chairs provide guidance and leadership to the working groups.
They are responsible for ensuring that working groups are meeting basic performance objectives set together with the board and WG members.
The chairs work closely with the WG Project leaders by offering guidance, coaching, support, and execution where necessary. They are also meant to serve as a bridge between the GRSPSociety Board and the working group members by communicating to board members how projects are progressing and what resources they need.
For 2010, these objectives mainly involve the cultivation and successful realization of member projects. Projects are meant to meet the following four objectives:
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Make a positive impact on Romanian communities with the help of GRSPSociety’s international network
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Build the working group active member base by creating concrete ways for potential members to get involved
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Stimulate partnerships with other organizations
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Raise the profile of GRSPSociety and its working groups
The working groups are broadly autonomous and meant to work “from the bottom up”. However, working group chairs are expected to work together with the GRSPSociety Board—primarily through the two vice presidents in charge of working group development—to supervise and provide high-level guidance and motivation in the implementation of projects by project coordinators and their teams. The GRSPSociety board together with the chair will help vet projects and ensure that projects have all necessary financial and human resources, guidance, and the support of relevant partner organizations for its projects. Chairs will be accountable for maintaining group activity on a consistent basis and for having at least 1-2 successful group projects per year, while project leaders will be accountable for project success on an individual project level.
GRSPSociety Board (VP)
supervises overall progress of working group and its chair; provides guidance, help with HR recruiting, fundraising, and reaching partner organizations
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Working Group Chair
supervises overall progress of working group and project coordinators; project supervision, guidance, communicates with board
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Project Coordinator
manages project team
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Project Team
various responsibilities
Minimum Qualifications:
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Professional or academic experience in the working group field.
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Ability to commit an average of at 4 hours per week to working group chair responsibilities.
Goal: To ensure that WGs are meeting performance objectives set together with the board and WG members.
Objectives:
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1-2 projects complete or making measurable progress by end of 2010.
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WG projects have access to necessary resources (human, financial, partners).
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Increased number of WG active members involved in projects (% to be defined).
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Working group members taking responsibility and discussing; working group activity growing.
Responsibilities:
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Keep WG projects & project leaders on track through supervision and feedback (with VP).
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Provide personal expertise and coaching or help procure external expertise needed for project guidance.
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Help ensure that all projects and project teams have access to necessary resources (with VP).
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Provide quarterly monitoring reports to Board and project coordinators.
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Seed new projects.
Measurable Performance Indicators
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# Active projects
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# Of project completed / different phases completed
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# Members currently active on projects
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# Members active on projects during the year
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# New partnerships gained for projects (with support from Board)
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Amount fundraised (with support from Board)