Where the current officer has provided a description it is included below. For other positions, please put one together during handover.

The President has overall responsibility for the running of the club, save for diving safety related matters which are the Dive Officer’s responsibility. The president is responsible for:

• Organising committee meetings at appropriate times and frequencies and calling the AGM
• Filling in the appropriate sportsfed paperwork at handover, and dealing with sports department concerns and procedures etc. throughout the year
• Ensuring the club complies with the constitution and code of practice at all times, and ensuring amendments are incorporated into these documents when appropriate.
• Ensuring all other committee members are carrying out their duties, approaching them directly when possible and raising concerns at committee meetings if necessary.

Beyond these direct responsibilities, I would see the president’s role as driving the club in a direction that will attract and maintain student members by keeping committee positions manageable and ensuring there is an appropriate range and cost of activities available. The president should also ensure the club complies with university regulations and is financially viable – often a contrast to the role of dive officer where diving is championed ahead of all else.

The president should also be a visible and involved member of the club – where possible assisting with training, attending social events and going on dive trips. In addition, the president will often help other committee members with aspects of their duties and help them seek extra assistance where appropriate.

The time commitment can be considerable – especially in Michaelmas term and often unpredictably if things go awry. Flexibility is therefore important, probably more so than overall time commitment. A high degree of organisation is required to keep track of all the different aspects of the club, and to ensure paperwork is completed in a timely manner. The president should also be prepared to support their opinions firmly where appropriate to their core responsibilities, and also be prepared to push committee members to do their tasks effectively – as such timid or sensitive would probably not be the best types of personality!

Main duties:

- Maintaining a database of club members

- Maintaining a database of BSAC members within the club

- Dealing with new club and BSAC membership requests

- Preparing the agenda and taking minutes for club meetings

- Managing correspondence between the club and outside bodies

Maintaining a database of club members

Membership dues for the club are due at the start of each academic year. The secretary is responsible for ensuring that full details are held by the club for members, which should include contact details (term and vacation), next of kin, diving qualification and diving insurance, and any medical or similar considerations which might affect the member's participation in club activities.

The secretary should hold an up-to-date list of the current club membership and if any members lapse should contact those members shortly after the start of the academic year to find out if the lapsed member wishes to rejoin the club.

Maintaining a database of BSAC members within the club

Club members are not obliged to become members of BSAC, but must hold some form of third party diving insurance (DAN Master insurance is a common alternative for members holding qualifications from PADI). The secretary should hold an up to date list of club members who are members of BSAC, and note their BSAC membership numbers.

Dealing with new club and BSAC membership requests

The secretary should be responsible for collecting membership details for club members when they join the club, and adding the details to a membership record as detailed above. This data should be collected on membership forms filled in at the same time as dues are paid, and the payment of such dues should be recorded on the form as well as the method of payment.

Members wishing to join BSAC may do so through the club, either through a renewal form if they have previously been BSAC members through OUUEG or through a new member form if they are joining for the first time. Members transferring from another branch may bring renewal forms with them, or may fill out another form specifying their BSAC membership number.

Non-student members need to submit their BSAC membership form along with the BSAC dues owed for the year. Student members also need to include a photocopy of their student ID, which should be a Bod card or similar - photocopies of NUS cards are not accepted.

The secretary should give one part of the triplicate form to the member as their receipt, keep one part as the club record of the BSAC membership, and send the third part to BSAC along with the payment and proof of student status if applicable. If the member has filled out an electronic form, the secretary should keep a photocopy of this form for club records when the form is sent to BSAC.

Preparing the agenda and taking minutes for club meetings

For club committee meetings, EGMs, and the AGM, the secretary should liase with the president in determining when a meeting is to be held, and should be given details of any points to be discussed at the meeting. The secretary should prepare, print, and distribute the meeting agenda along with the minutes of the previous meeting to be approved as a correct record. The secretary may also be asked to print and distribute any other material required by the meeting.

During the meeting, the secretary should take minutes of the procedings and in a timely fashion (normally within a few days) send a neat version of these minutes to the committee. They should also bring the minutes to the attention of the next meeting to be approved after any corrections, and enter them into the club records.

Managing correspondence between the club and outside bodies

On occasion the club may correspond with BSAC, other local clubs and organisations, the University, the Sports Federation, or other parties. The secretary may be requested by the club to make and receive such communication and keep copies in the club records.

Responsibilties of the Treasurer

• Providing interim financial updates at committee meetings, when requested.

• Producing consolidated, simplified accounts to present at the AGM.

• Producing a projected budget at the start of the year and helping to produce one at the end of the year.

• Completing the treasurer’s pack at the end of the year.

• Carrying out maintenance on the accounts.

o Getting signatories added and removed
o Changing the structure of the accounts
o Keeping up the stock of cheques and paying-in slips.
o Transferring money between the three accounts (money should be split between the accounts depending on where it comes from).

• Being the point-of-contact for financial issues.

o Answering queries from members and from Sportsfed
o Receiving invoices from companies
o Receiving and filing bank statements and bank communications.

• Issuing cheques.

o Ascertaining exactly what the money is being spent on and whether receipts are needed and have been received.
o If the expenditure is not reasonable and/or significantly deviates from the projected budget, the treasurer should refuse to issue a cheque and raise the issue at a committee meeting.
o Likewise if receipts have not been provided.

• Paying in cheques and cash.

o Currently it is not the treasurer’s responsibility to chase people who owe money for membership (this is the secretary’s job) or as a result of a trip (this is the trip organiser’s job).

o It is the responsibility of the treasurer to chase people for money owed for other reasons.

o It should be absolutely clear what the money is for and who it is from before it is paid into the OUUEG accounts.

• Keeping full and detailed records of every transaction.

o All transactions should be recorded when they are made, in as much detail as necessary to allow a reader unfamiliar with the club’s accounts to know the reasons for every transaction and the source/destination of the funds.

o Errors can arise when, for example, cheques are not cashed or paid-in cheques bounce. These can be corrected by tallying the bank statements with the accounts, although this is easiest at the end of the academic year.

o Transactions should be recorded in the main accounts (currently a collection of red ledgers) and in the chequebooks and paying-in books.

o It is currently not in the treasurer’s remit to keep accounts for trips. These should be kept by the trip organiser and copied to the treasurer.

What is the DO responsible for and what does he do??
(Questions I've asked myself a few times over the last year!)

The short answer is that the DO has final responsibility for all diving activities. What this really means is ensuring that nobody does anything stupid and everyone remains safe. Sounds like a tall order but when you break it down it isn't so bad.

The DO is also a voting committee position.

Training:

The DO is responsible for the quality of training people receive. This means making sure people don't get their qualifications unless they can dive to the required standard. The actual training gets organised by the training officer and carried out by instructors but the DO needs to ensure that all instructors are assessing at the right level, teaching things in a good and consistant way and things are not getting missed out. (As an example, this year a headache for me has been BSAC allowing Ocean and Sports Divers to dive Nitrox. This has meant some divers can now dive nitrox without knowing anything about it.)

Organisation of trips:

The DO is responsible for ensuring that trips are planned well following safe diving practices, and then executed well. Since the DO won't be going on all trips this means setting out some clear guidelines for trip organisers and being available to offer advice on plans. All trip organisers need to inform the DO of there plans which creates a good oportunity for this to happen. When organising or on trips it is down to the DO to set a good example!

When things go wrong:

So assuming that everyone is well trained and trips are well planned, nothing should go wrong...! If things do go wrong it is the DO's responsibility to make sure incidents are reported and lessons are learned. So what are the key requirements for the post??

Experience:

BSAC guidelines recommend that the DO is a BSAC Advanced Diver. These are just guidelines but they do show the importance of having a good bit of experience. Really this needs to cover the range of diving activities the club will be carrying out and not just be diving experience but also boat handling, trip organising, rescue management, etc.

Personality:

Personality is quite important. The DO role is regulatory and can often mean getting people to modify or drop their plans. Being able to do this without causing bad feeling is pretty important. It is also crucial that the DO is forthright enough to speak to any member of the club and get them to change their plans if required. Being timid doesn't work!

Paperwork:

Fortuantely being DO involves very little paperwork. At the start of the year there are a couple of forms to fill in for the sports fed. After that the only thing that needs doing is to stamp someones qualification book every now and again!

Time Commitment:

The DO needs to be able to attend committee meeting and input into decisions about training, boat use, diving, etc, but also hopefully to use their dive experience to input into other areas.

While it's not part of the job description, I also think it is down to the DO to promote and champion diving in the club. We are a dive club but the committee has other responsibilities (like making sure we have enough money) and when decisions are being made I think it falls to the DO to try to ensure that the club will support and enable as much diving as possible

The role of the kit officer within the club is to:

- Take responsibility for the condition of the club kit

- Take responsibility for the routine maintenance of the club kit

- Ensure that any action is taken such that kit is available for diving

- Check kit after it has been used and if necessary report problems

- Keep records of club kit

Throughout these jobs the kit officer should take every opportunity to ensure that best practise is followed by all members of the club as far as kit use and maintenance is concerned, and be proactive in helping and informing members who are not following best practise.

* Condition of the club kit

Any diving club with centrally-owned kit is maintaining life support equipment to which club members will entrust their lives whilst underwater. It is important that this is always kept at the forefront of kit considerations.

The kit officer should always be aware of the condition of kit so that if any damage or wear occurs the kit officer is quickly aware of it and can either fix it or take kit out of service until it can be repaired. This may take the form of regular checks after equipment has been used, backed up with periodic checks of the whole inventory. An initial check when taking on the post is particularly important so that the kit officer becomes aware of the club equipment, and the previous kit officer should be present to pass on information, particularly on the common problems with equipment. It is unlikely that any other members of the club will routinely check club kit, and it is likely that divers will not appreciate how important well maintained kit is, so the kit officer is in a very real sense responsible for the safety of club divers through remaining informed about the condition of club kit.

* Routine maintenance of the club kit

Diving equipment needs maintaining on both routine and irregular schedules. In particular, regulators require regular servicing by a professional technician to conform to Sports Fed HSE requirements, and general wear and tear on hoses, BCD clips and inflators, and tank o-rings will need ongoing attention to replace worn parts. Genuine accidents will happen such that kit gets damaged in use, and unfortunately some divers are negligent as far as kit care is concerned.

It is the responsibility of the well-informed kit officer to fix both these routine and these exceptional problems quickly and effectively. Basic tasks such as swapping in new hoses and o-rings and replacing BCD clips can be carried out within the club; more complicated tasks such as cleaning flooded first stages and repairing torn BCDs will need kit to be sent away and the kit officer will need to contact professional repair shops.

Also within the kit officer's remit in this area is maintaining a set of spares for the club kit, along with a tool kit for effecting repairs. They may make a subset of this to be taken on trips, and if they are not on a trip themselves may appoint a trip kit officer to look after and carry out basic maintenance on kit during the trip.

* Ensure that kit is avaiable for diving

Trip organisers should inform the kit officer, either directly or through the committee, if club kit is going to be needed for a diving trip. The kit officer should then check exactly what kit is required and make sure that the kit is available in the hut. Training evenings fall into a similar bracket, but with the assumption that all club kit will be required.

A major requirement here is to arrange for club tanks to be filled by the Oxford Dive Club who need contacting some time in advance. The kit officer does not need to take tanks for filling in person but may find it useful to set up a rota of tank filling duties to spread the task load amongst club members.

Beyond this, the kit officer should make sure that regulators, BCDs, timers, and weights are available for trips and training, and check that all kit to be used is in the best possible condition prior to being borrowed.

* Checking kit after use and reporting problems

Once kit has been used, whether for training or trips, there is a chance that it will not have been properly maintained and may have sustained damage. A good routine for kit checking is, once the activity using it has finished:

- Check that the right number of items are in the hut
- Check that all used equipment is rinsed of salt/chlorine
- Check that regulators breathe properly, SPGs move correctly, inflator connections are free of dirt and operate smoothly, and hoses are all present without any external blemishes. Listen for any small leaks.
- Check the external condition of BCDs for any damage, check all clips are present and operate correctly, check there is no water left in bladders and that the bladders are left partially inflated, and check that octopus and SPG clips are present and correctly positioned.
- Check that BCDs and regs are all correctly racked.

This should not take long once practised and a firm routine ensures that no checks are missed and all kit is present and correct. To aid identifying the causes of any problems, trip divers should personally sign out kit and sign back in after use. Where deposits are taken they should not be returned until the kit officer is fully satisfied as to the good state of kit after a trip or the blamelessness of kit users if damage has been entirely accidental.

Any missing kit or damage should be reported back to the trip organiser, the diving officer, and the club president, and if necessary raised at the next club committee meeting if action needs to be taken.

* Keep records of club kit

If there are any incidents, particularly involving injury of fatility, which involve club kit, or if club kit is subject to an insurance claim through loss or damage, it is critical that the club has a good record of the kit it owns and the service history and subsequent use where applicable. Where health and safety are concerned this may be critical evidence should the club be investigated by the Sports Fed, the University, or a Coroner's Court.

The kit officer should have on record the serial numbers of all club kit, and be able to tie that to records held by the diving officer which detail when the kit was used, where, and by whom. It is never too late to start such records, and makes it easier to keep track of persistently troublesome kit and identify it for replacement.

The most hours are put in when the boat is wintered here in Oxford when the trailer needs to be regreased, the hand brake and wheel bearings replaced and any broken boat bits repaired for the coming season (usually internal wiring problems). This requires a good knowledge of car mechanics by the person actually doing the work (not necessarily the boat officer). In addition engine servicing must be arranged according to the manufacturer’s guideleines. During the diving season the boat officer checks that all the boat bits are still working, O2 kits fill, good supply of oil etc. On the administrative side the job entails sorting out the summer berthing, boat insurance and keeping track of the booking weekends. Boat handling course organization also falls to the boat officer, in consultation with the training officer.

Act as coordinator for ET and for the Summer Expedition. Research and organise transport, accommodation, diving and logistics. Provide information to interested parties on how the trip will run, what they need to bring etc. Ensure that there’s enough kit available. Coordinate the trip on the ground – sort out any minor problems where possible and delegate responsibility for key functions (safety, social etc). Essentially, act as general enabler for expeditions. Also would be good to generally encourage diving through the year – organise weekend trips etc. and get the boat in the water as much as possible. Absolutely no qualifications needed – just enthusiasm for diving!