Succession

The purpose of this post is to help smooth over the transition of leadership within the group by passing on vital information to the successors of those currently elected. In particular, this post is intended to keep Gator Freethought successful and long-lived in the time it will likely be weakest -- when new persons take over.

One of the most obvious problems with student organizations is that just when someone is getting familiar with administration of the group, and has a handle on things, said person graduates, or gets too busy to continue on in their leadership capacity. Passing the torch must be planned for ahead of time, lest the flame burn out.

Here are the integral parts of running Gator Freethought (as President, but these duties may be shared, so long as said person has the information they need):

1. Re-registering with the CSI (used to be the SAC) every year -- you will have to have the renewal form signed by the President, Treasurer, and Faculty Advisor. (see here for form) You will also need their emails and UFID numbers in order to update your record online.
   
2. Once your registration is renewed, you can go in and update the online record of the group, and you will need the emails and UFIDs of the Prez, Treasurer, and Faculty Advisor, as well as phone numbers of your officers (optional). You will also enter in the website of the group, and meeting information (I recommend listing this as, "See website"). The faster you do this, the better, as the CSI is very slow and you need your information cleared asap to get monies and for advertising purposes.
3. If nothing about Gator Freethought changes, you will not have to alter the constitution. If something does, use these guidelines (it's a pain, too).
   
4. Plan ahead for the student org fair with IDEAL, also see here.
   
5. You must do the "tutorial" they require every semester to submit forms and event plans (in order to table, or have speakers, or reserve rooms, etc.)
   
6. You need to work out financial requests with the SG far in advance of the plans you've made -- you can go down to the CSI and get a form to fill out to get money for the group. See here for forms and here for some outlined requirements.
7. You will want to plan a schedule for the semester to post as soon as possible. I suggest keeping the same meetings file we have now, and just move the old ones down on the page, or else you'll have to revise a hundred thousand links on all of our other documents. Avoid football game dates, and try to move the day of the week around to cast as wide a net as possible. Try to use the same locale and time whenever possible. You will have to contact speakers and show them your scheduled meetings, but give them flexibility...don't procrastinate!
   
8. You must renew our affiliation with all the groups -- CFI, SSA, AA, FFRF, etc. I strongly suggest having a personal membership with all of these, so that you will receive new materials to distribute to the group and use in presentations and tabling. They are all very cheap, and you can always request money from the SG to cover the expense (I'm not sure if they will approve that or not).
9. Plan for the CFI Summer Leadership Conference every summer. Contact Debbie Goddard (dgoddard@centerforinquiry.net) or Lauren Becker (LBecker@centerforinquiry.net) for help.
   

Number 8 is huge -- you really have to get plugged in to the national groups. Their materials, support staff, conference events, speaker resources...on and on and on...are precious to a group's success.

In addition, these groups have a lot of experience in running groups like this and supporting them, and even have put out a document to help maintain/establish campus freethought groups like ours:

• CFA Affiliate Group Organizing Guide
  

Computer-related stuff:

1. Renewing the Grove account every six months -- you can visit CIRCA on the 5th floor of the CSE building for help.
   
2. Keeping backup copies of the template of the blog and all posts on the site.
3. Keeping backup copies of the graphics and files of importance to Gator Freethought from Grove.
4. Try to use the same posts from the Gator Freethought main site for the meetings, constitution, FAQ, etc., because these posts are cross-linked extensively and changing the location of these will leave you with a million broken links to fix.
   
5. Keep .doc and .htm external copies of the constitution and some other essential files, and save different revisions of them. This will come in handy, I promise.
6. **done this: It would be great to get a domain name for the group, say freethoughtuf.org or something similar**, and you could upload a free .php bbcode discussion board as well. Also, you could organize the listserv from our own domain, and assign freethoughtuf.org emails to all of the officers. It would be great, but it would require SG funding and some hard work at first to transition everything over to the new domain and update lots of links.
7. Try to use only the gatorfreethought@gmail account for everything group-related, so that when you post articles and group information, it will still be useful even after you are gone -- the next person to take over obviously needs the password(s) for this email and other group information.
   

General points:

• You will also want a generic form/link to give via email and Facebook messages to everyone who contacts you, or else you will get extremely tired of typing this same information over and over. I used this post, and just copied it in full into each message/email I got with queries about joining Gator Freethought -- with a little personalization, of course.
  
• If you ever need help, contact the CSI:
  
• Phone: 352-392-1671
• E-mail: CSIDesk@union.ufl.edu
• It is usually a good idea to keep in contact with past presidents and officers so that they can give you advice should you need it.
• Make sure you keep even outdated materials from the various organizations that we are affiliated with, as these will come in handy for tabling and the IDEAL SOF. Make sure you pass all of this on.
  
• Give a hard copy of all of the Gator Freethought files to each of the officers, and to those taking your place, on CD or DVD or whatever.
• Keep freethought movies and books available to the group through the library system.
  

Yes, there will be some time required, but it is not so difficult to maintain something as it is to produce it or make it grow. You'll get out of it what you put into it, like most things. It will be much easier on you (and consequently on everyone else, since the quality will be improved) if you try to recruit lots of officers and get them to help with your responsibilities when they can.