Home » Resources » Movement building » How to run an SCM unit without becoming a matryed zombie

Michael Perkins, National Administrator
Leadership Training Conference
July 2000

Introduction

The basic life of an SCM Unit is the discussions that take place in the forums, and the actions that stem from those discussions. In these sessions we witness to everyone present the trust we have in each other and in God(de)/ss(es). It is this trust that makes the rather adventurous nature of SCM life possible. Ironically this joyful spontaneity needs careful planning, and we call this Unit Administration.

Just as we witness to the world how we joyfully, respectfully and yet adventurously deal with the issues that our faith raises, we also need to witness to the world how we can joyfully and respectfully we can keep our own house in order. This is called Unit Administration without becoming a martyred zombie.

Just as there are different approaches to housework, so there are different approaches to running SCM local units. One is to have formal job descriptions and assigned areas of responsibility. The other is to divide tasks up as they become relevant. Neither is better than the other, although each has advantages. This means that it is up to the people involved to choose one that they are most comfortable to live with.

The most important thing to remember is that a unit that has good paperwork, but no-one interested in coming to meetings is not a well-run unit. There is no justification whatsoever for maintaining a local group structure that no-one enjoys working within, and that does not encourage members to cheerfully express to the world what it means to be an SCMer.

When running your unit, don’t focus on the details of the structure, concentrate instead on the tasks that you would like to get done. This is a kind of freedom that the National Movement does not have as it is bound by the Constitution and by the appropriate Incorporated Societies legislation. Make the most of the freedom!

Despite all this, there are some skills and responsibilities that are common to any approach, and that do contribute to a well-run unit. These are the skills that we will be looking at today. I can’t promise that they will be interesting, but I can promise that you will need them at some stage.

These are:

• Basic accounting
• Liaison
• Membership check-ups
• Publicity

Basic Accounting

Depending on your Student Union you may or may not have to be audited each year. Even if you are lucky enough to escape this requirement, the ability to keep simple financial accounting information is still necessary. Your unit may be put in charge of running an SCM National Programme, such as a conference, or you may want to organise an event such as a dance party or a public flogging. It is much easier and quicker to keep accounts if you have access to a computer and a spreadsheet such as Microsoft Excel, or OpenOffice.

That being said, it is perfectly possible to do accounts on paper, and if your computer access is limited it is a whole lot quicker in the long run.

Available here is a basic system for keeping track of money in an SCM Unit. It allows for two bank accounts and for making an annual budget. It can also be adapted for running a one off event, just change all the labels in the Budget and they are reflected in the Ledger, provided you don’t increase the number of categories.

Things to remember in making accounts: Everything should be counted against a category as well as being counted as going to or from a bank account, so there will be two entries for each amount. The included spreadsheet will check this and signal an error if you don’t do it. It is important to distinguish transactions with meaningful labels. In some ways the most important is the ‘ref’ field. There has to be a cheque number, deposit indicator or petty cash indicator and of course all receipts be kept.

Liaison

Do liase with the National Office – because that’s what it is there for. There is someone on the end of the office phone/fax for 20 hrs a week, and available by email and cellphone for even more hours than that. These are your obligations as far as liaison with the National structure is concerned. Ensure that each task is covered by one person (the same person for all, or instead, different people).

1. Call the National Secretary once a month

A detailed run-down on what has been happening since the last phone call is useful and should include:

• what forums/activities have been run, and who organised and lead them,
• if any Senior Friends have got in touch (always get contact details and ask if they would like to get SCM Update)
• who is going out with who,
• what the best cafes in your town are,
• what is planned for the next month,
• names of people who could be interested in a trip to an overseas trouble-spot such as Indonesia or Lebanon
• what resources you need or problems you as Unit and/or Administrator are facing.

The edited version of this report is what is used to build the Unit News section of SCM Update.

Good clear information here is an excellent advert for a local unit because SCM Update is not just read by the National Movement, but by chaplains, Senior Friends, church youth workers, CCANZ and other supporters of the Movement. Quite a few of these people have students as their friends and families.

The National Secretary needs as much help as possible to make that section of SCM Update seem as un-cliquey and attractive as possible. If good records are kept through SCM Update then it will be significantly easier to prepare a report for the AGM.

2. Prepare a Report for the AGM!

This may seem like a pain, but it is a very good way to increase your chances of featuring in the next SCM history book. Unit reports should name as many people as possible so that future Senior Friend Coordinators can have a sense of who has been involved in the Movement and what experience or expertise you might be able to give back in 20 years time.

3. Make sure that everyone has filled in a membership form and paid the membership fee. We are legally obliged to keep a register of members, and if the National Office has a record of everyone’s addresses SCM Update can be sent to everyone far more easily. If people move flat, remind them to let the Office know of any new address or phone number.

Our membership fee is ludicrously low because SCM acknowledges that being an SCM tends to involve the expenditure of a lot of time and emotion. Nonetheless, we do rely on many different income streams, and this is one of the least reliable! It is important to pay this fee, because it covers most of the expenses of one National Coordinator. Perhaps if the fee was larger people would be more inclined to pay it?

4. Nominate an email collector and a postal address

Your Unit will have an email address organised through the website. These are not addresses in their own right, they are just redirected to an existing address For instance: auckland@scm.org.nz -> localperson@campus.nz

It makes sense for the email collector to be the same person who clears the Unit pigeonhole at your Student Union (or who is the nominated postal address), unless they are not a frequent checker.

4. Make sure that your NCG representative is reporting back about decisions and discussions had at NCG meetings.

When you are on the NCG it is easy to forget to report back, and a gentle reminder is valuable.

There are other good people to liaise with too. Make regular contact with your local chaplaincy team. They are automatically sent SCM Update (or they should be) and really is part of their job to resource Christian groups on campus, although some seem to need some convincing of this fact.

Keep supportive local clergy and Senior Friends aware of what is going on and details of meetings, whilst not pressuring them into more involvement than they are comfortable with.

Consider making a visit to the local student media early in the year (or indeed anytime) and offering SCM as being available for comment.

Membership check-ups

Is everyone in your unit happy? They may seem to be perfectly friendly, but the ability of SCM’ers to let ancient sores fester away invisibly is unsurpassed, and unhelpful. Just because we are trying to be an inclusive and friendly community does not mean that we have to forget about our own needs, and put up with things smilingly.

One way to avoid things overcooking, simmering and boiling-over is to structure time for people to talk about how they feel the unit is going and if their needs are being met. Some organisations have a specific person who looks after new members and periodically and privately checks in with everyone to see if they are happy with the organisation.

This could be quite a stressful job for one person to undertake, and careful consideration should be given to whether or not volunteers have the empathetic and ego-laying-aside skills that are required.

Other jobs that a membership person can do are to keep contact with people who have recently left the local unit. Too frequently people drift or even sprint into Senior Friend status as soon as the ink is dry on their thesis or final exam. You are still an ordinary member of SCM for three years after leaving university. Although the almost entirely student-based culture of units of SCMA at this point in time is a good thing, it does not encourage a sense of support and connectedness with the Senior Friend community.

Publicity

Do you always meet at the same time in the same room? If so is this fact well known and publicised. If so then, that is great. If your meeting times are irregular and the venue moves around, then the outside world needs to be notified as a matter of course. SCM is a great and precious thing, but it is not one that we have a right to keep and protect for ourselves.

Publicity is like evangelism – it is the cheerful unselfconscious sharing with the world who we are, what we do and why. So many people have no idea what we are about, and although there is no one particular solution to that problem we need to remember that we and our supporters and Senior Friends are our best advertisements.