Manchester Classical Association

Manchester Classical Association was a branch of the national Classical Association, with its own bank account and committee.

Treasurer

When I took over as treasurer, the accounts were kept in a paper file. I migrated the accounts to a software system and stored them in Dropbox. This provided the following benefits:

• Access to the accounts for multiple volunteers
• Removal of key person dependency on the treasurer
• Automated generation of annual accounts for the AGM
• Accounts could be backed up to multiple locations

After serving for four years - the maximum permitted under the branch's constitution - I handed over to another volunteer. Due to circumstances outside their control they were unable to continue as treasurer after a few months, and at the branch's request I returned for an interim period until a new treasurer could be found. The handover process was repeated and the new treasurer continued to use the same system I had setup.

Committee member

After stepping down as treasurer (an ex officio committee member), I stayed on as an ordinary committee member for five years.

Webmaster

Although not an official committee position, I was responsible for building and maintaining the branch's website for 14 years. It started off with a static site but was moved to WordPress, with the following benefits:

• Removal of key person dependency
• Spread the load of updating content
• Automated population of event pages

I also hosted the site for many years, but eventually moved it to an account which was controlled by the committee.