The Guild Founder is the member who started/founded a particular group. In a new group the Guild Founder may act as both the Chairperson and Treasurer until the group has sufficient motivated members to fill these positions. A group is not dependent on the Guild Founder’s participation, and a healthy group will continue to flourish even if the founder moves on.
A General Member is anyone who goes to Friendship Guild Meetings. People do not need to qualify as members. A person can decide at will that they are a Friendship Guild member.
A Group Member is a general member who considers a specific guild to be their “home group”
The Chairperson controls the meeting. The chairperson is responsible for setting up the meeting room, recruiting a speaker for each meeting, and for encouraging all members to participate. Members are encouraged to take turns being Chairperson for 3 month terms, although one member can continue indefinitely in this position if they are comfortable doing so.
The Treasurer looks after group finances, keeping a record of group income and expenses and paying bills from the groups coffer. Members who consider the Guild their home group should be encouraged to accept a term as treasurer, although if one member is comfortable doing the job long-term that is ok too.
The Speaker. Members take it in turn to be Speaker at successive meetings. Each meeting should have a different speaker for as long as different speakers are available. All members should be encouraged to do speaker at some time. The Speaker will tell a story from their experience. The story may be happy, sad, inspirational, motivational, a lesson learnt, a tale of triumph over adversity, or not. The subject matter of this story is purely at the discretion of the speaker. Some members may ultimately generate a repertoire of stories should the opportunity arise to be speaker. Some members may prefer to just listen.
The Group Trustees is a collective term for the Guild Founder, the Chairperson, the Treasurer and any current group member who has performed one of these roles. Guild Trustees may meet separately at a Trustees Meeting to discuss management issues such as meeting venue and group expenses.