President - Presides over and facilitates the monthly meetings. Finds people to present trips and adventures. Compiles the monthly agenda for the meeting. As the club executive makes decisions on policies and procedures in consultation with the other officers. Establishes and maintains relations with the 4 Houston area BMW motorcycle dealerships. Supervises and monitors the other officers. Leader and mentor to the other officers who may step up to be the next president.
Vice President - Primary responsibility is the planning and execution of the annual rally. Also MC's ("master of ceremony") the annual Christmas party and white elephant gift exchange. Presides over the monthly meeting in the absence of the president. Generally expected to serve as the next president. Traditionally the VP is a training position to be president, learning the club systems and getting familiar with club members.
Treasurer - Responsible for tracking and reporting on the club finances. The new club website automatically manages the members' renewals and payments so this is now primarily a reporting function. Keeps the main reporting spreadsheet current with our bank statements. Collects the mail from the post office (once a month before each meeting).
Secretary - In the past has written the minutes of the club meetings but in reality the monthly agenda serves as the minutes. I would like to see the secretary be responsible for the club's social media, ex. Facebook, website blog and forum posts. Interact with new members, post interesting stories from motorcycle news or members' travel stories, maintain the club's photo online album, etc.
RideMeister - Coordinates and generally leads club rides about once a month or more. Posts ride-related info by email and in the website forums. Maintains the ride library of rides documents, GPX files, and PDFs for future reference. Finds and manages ride leaders to break the participants into smaller groups. Attempts to coordinate one or more longer multi-day rides (Arkansas, Big Bend, etc.).
Information Management - The officers' email accounts are based on Google "Gmail for Business" so they are associated with the club domain (for example president@bmwclubofhouston.com). That means that each new officer inherits the previous officer's email account (we just change the password). That way the new officer can search through all the past emails and see what has been done in the past (think Christmas party, rally, rides, everything that has been discussed). The club also uses Google Apps and Google Drive for files. This is common file storage for shared access so all the officers have access to all the files. This allows for reuse and prevents "reinventing the wheel" for recurring events. The Google Apps are simple to use and free forever so anyone can use them and it saves the club money in the long run.
Website - Since May, 2018, the club has been using the ClubExpress membership management application to manage the website, memberships, mass emailing, event management, online payments, and discussion forums. It is completely menu-driven and easy to use.
Jerry Matson
President
BMW Motorcycle Club of Houston