Click here to be taken to the interest form! Please indicate the positions you’d be interested in by Sunday Nov 27 at 10:00pm.
2022 Annual General Meeting
Our Clarendon Family is absolutely amazing, and its growth and well-being is the responsibility of the Clarendon Council. It takes a committed Team to do what we do, but creating a thriving community that empowers our Scholars to reach their full potential is well worth the effort that goes into it. Teamwork makes the dream work–and we’d be delighted to have your talents come aboard the Clarendon Council
Descriptions of each of the Council positions are below, but these are very general and flexible descriptions (with the exception of the Executive Team) meant to give you an idea of what each role possibly entails. We are glad to have people share any role (with the exception of the Treasurer), as that allows for more novel ideas, and it’s nice to be able to distribute the workload and have buddies. We appreciate creativity and vision so if you’re interested in expanding a position or introducing a new one we’d love to hear about that as well!
Please note that you must still be a student through the end of Michaelmas 2023 to be a Council Executive (President, Vice President, and Treasurer), but for all other roles and teams you are enthusiastically encouraged to join regardless of your graduation date!
Role Descriptions:
President:
The President is the figurehead and elected leader of the Clarendon Scholars Association and the Clarendon Council. The president is responsible for developing the Council’s vision and goals, overseeing its activities, and serving as the public face of the Council. The President needs to be able to lead and empower a team of 15-25 people. This necessitates being able to effectively communicate, delegate tasks to other Council members, and generate and maintain the infrastructure necessary for the Council to work collectively and efficiently. The President needs to have somewhat of a flexible schedule and be able to stand in the gap, so to speak, when necessary, as events and community management don’t always go according to plan. The weekly hours of this job vary greatly and will largely depend on the extent to which the President is actively needed in any given endeavor. The President also needs to be able to work in conjunction with the VP and Treasurer to establish the Council’s approach to the annual budget. This involves a fair amount of financial risk management, particularly for potential large events.
Vice President:
The Vice President is the right hand of the President. The VP is responsible for organizing Council meetings, writing the meeting minutes, organizing the Google drive and our files, contributing to the weekly bulletin, event planning, and budgeting. The VP is also responsible for ensuring that the Council is not acting in violation of the Constitution. The extent to which the VP and President’s roles and tasks overlap varies considerably based on unique power sharing dynamics that the two will need to establish as a team.
Treasurer:
The Treasurer is responsible for making Council invoice payments for events and for distributing reimbursements. The Treasurer must make sure our books are balanced and all expenses are accounted for so you need proficiency with excel. The Council operates on a calendar year, annual budget. The 2022 Council approached each term budget as a whole Council, and we decided collectively based on members’ proposed events what individual event and initiative budgets should be. Please note, you need to have a UK phone number to be the Treasurer, as this is required to gain access to our bank account. This role usually requires on average less than one hour a week, but you do need to be available to make payments within 1-2 working days.
Communications Secretaries:
We’re glad to have multiple Scholars join this team! Our growing social media accounts need to be regularly managed and ideally continually expanding so Team members will be regularly posting on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. If you’ve got an eye for photography or have always dreamed of making TikTok or YouTube videos and Instagram reels this is the position for you!
Communications Secretaries are also responsible for helping draft the weekly bulletin, which is all done through our SquareSpace website. The interface is very straightforward once you get used to it. There are several of us who currently work on the bulletin each week (graphics, event descriptions, formatting and linking, and website updates) so you won’t be working on this alone! The Communication Secretaries will also take the lead together on the Clarendon Chronicle beginning in Michaelmas. The Chronicle is being done in a “year in review” format this year. The Chronicle is a collective Council effort, and is essentially a compilation of all the events and Community news.
Social Secretaries:
The Social Secretaries are responsible for fostering and building connections in our Community, and they take the lead on our large social events (like our Oxford University Press Welcome Reception or museum receptions). This usually amounts to two events per term. This team works best if there are at least 2 people to work on the large events, and all the better if other Scholars wish to join to help facilitate smaller activities, like coffee walks, ice skating, board game nights etc.
Diversity Secretaries:
The Diversity Secretaries are responsible for helping us embrace and enjoy our global Clarendon Family! The Diversity Secretaries have the freedom to choose how they might go about this–events, communication between Scholars, or accentuating our diversity in our public image are all options, and we welcome new ideas and initiatives.
Cultural Secretaries:
The Cultural Secretaries are responsible for helping us enjoy all the cultural opportunities available to us, be that in the form of Scholars sharing their cultures with the community or us as a Clarendon Family enjoying some of the culture that Oxford and the UK have. The Cultural Secretaries and Diversity Secretaries often work together
College Relations Secretaries (Dining Secretaries):
Because our Clarendon family has grown considerably and we don’t have a physical space to call our own right now, it’s important to build positive relationships with Colleges whose event and study spaces and dining facilities we might want to use. The “College Relations” role is an expansion of the previous role of Dining Secretary, which involved organizing formal dinners at colleges (usually 1-2 per term). A fair amount of this work can be done outside of term.
IT Secretaries/Website Managers:
This is definitely a team job! One person could take responsibility for managing our SquareSpace website design as well as creating our events on the site (the interface does not require any coding skills whatsoever), and the second person would be responsible for our data management and maintaining the overall integrity of our website. We also warmly welcome creative ambitions beyond these parameters as we continue to grow and expand! A Clarendon app pershaps?
Academic Secretaries:
The Academic Secretaries are responsible for helping us sharpen, express, and highlight our Scholarly acumen. This can take the form of more formal academic events, such as the Clarendon Colloquium (TT ‘22) or more informal events like study sessions or academic workshops. We’re aiming to have Clarendon begin to have more of a formal presence on the academic stage and for us to build our database of our Scholars’ academic contributions. As we’re looking towards Clarendon’s future (and future potential partnerships with external organizations), we want to be thinking critically about how we can demonstrate the enormous talent in our Clarendon community.
Outreach Secretaries:
The Outreach Secretaries are responsible for engaging with our Clarendon Family and helping to maintain communication channels between the Council and Scholars. We’re hoping the Outreach Secretaries will be willing to conduct community surveys and help the Council stay aware of what Scholars would like to see us do, as well as think about how we can better serve and support our wonderful Clarendon Family. This is a relatively flexible role in its scope (we currently do not have an Outreach Secretary), and someone who loves to engage with people and make them feel welcome is an ideal candidate.
External Secretaries:
The External Secretary maintains and cultivates relationships with external (non-Oxford) and internal (Oxford) scholarship groups, organizations, and companies for the benefit of the Clarendon Family. This has thus far primarily centered around Rhodes and Gates, but the role is one ripe for expansion as we continue to think critically about Clarendon’s public and academic potential.
Alumni Secretaries:
The Alumni Secretaries are responsible for helping us capitalize on the brilliance of current and former Clarendon Scholars. This role will be taking on a new shape, as the formal creation of the official Clarendon Scholars Alumni Association in partnership with the University is underway. We need to continue to reach out to Alumni to build this network.
Non-Elected Positions:
Ball Committee:
Help us make our next Ball as stellar as our last one, Under the Stars! If you’ve got an aptitude for envisioning and/or planning an extravagant affair come join the Ball Team. There will be lots of of help!
Graphic Design Team:
We’d love to have help with our event cards, innovative branding spins, photography etc.
Hospitality and Welfare Team:
Sometimes it’s just nice to get a kind note in your pidge or the occasional baked goods. If making people feel loved and welcome is your cup of tea, we’d be thrilled to have you.
Stash Team
If you have an eye for design, merchandise, or love managing distribution logistics this team is for you! We had amazing stash this past year, and we’re hoping to keep some of our sleek and polished branding as well as provide some new and creative twists on the classics.