Group Chair Role Description

The Role of the Group Chair is to represent all Committees within their Group to the IEEE Canada Executive Committee (ExCom) and to represent the ExCom to the Committees between IEEE Canada Board meetings (this should be any meeting where the Section Chairs are not in attendance).

To facilitate the regular communication flow between ExCom and the Committees, the Group Chair shall conduct a minimum of six (6) Group meetings during the calendar year. These meetings should be a minimum of 7 days in advance of a monthly ExCom.

During the Group meeting, the Group Chair shall capture Committee upcoming events, issues, activities, action items, requests (training needs for example) and motions. To ensure the information reported by Committees during Group meetings is accurate, the Group Chair must take meeting minutes. Once the Group Chair has received approval of the meeting minutes from the Committee Chairs, submit these minutes to the IEEE Canada Administrator in advance of the monthly ExCom call, who will make sure they are distributed and archived.

If the individual Committee Chairs within the Group submit a report to the Group meeting, these reports should be submitted alone with the approved minutes to the IEEE Canada Administrator.

At each Group meeting, the Group Chair should report out the issues, activities and actions taken by the ExCom to the Committee Chairs since the last Group Meeting. The report shall also include a summary of the other Group upcoming events and activities. This inter-group communication will support and enhance Region Operations. In addition, if there is any urgent information that needs to be conveyed or input required from the Committee Chairs, the Group Chair will report such out within one week of the ExCom Meeting and may use e-mail or other electronic means to do so. Immediate notification will be important when important events, like training sessions pulled together to cover new policies or tools, arise or when feedback is required by the ExCom or SteerCom to address unexpected urgent matters, such as our policy or position on Humanitarian or Technology issues that must be quickly conveyed to a legislative body.

At the start and end of calendar year (early November) the Group Chair will support Region operations by reminding the Committees in their Group to review and update their Committee’s web page if needed. Also, every January, the Group Chair will ensure each Committee Chair attends, and in some cases, helps to deliver the IEEE Canada Board Training Sessions.

Group Chairs are expected to attend all ExCom meetings, including the Fall (usually held in September) ExCom “Face to Face Meeting”, all IEEE Canada Board Meetings, and all Nomination and Appointment Committee meetings.

Additional duties include:

• Carry out their own Committee Chair duties if they are also a current Committee Chair
• Working with Committee Chars to identify and nominate potential Committee members.
• Working with Committee Chairs to Identify and nominate potential Award recipients to the IEEE Canada Awards and Recognition Committee.
• Lead or facilitate cross-group activities.

Time commitment estimates:

1. Meetings:
   1. IEEE Canada Board – 2 (V)F2F at 20 & 16 hours, 1 V @4 hrs —————– 40 hours per year
   2. IEEE Canada Executive Committee – 12 at 1.5 hours each ——————— 18 hours per year
   3. IEEE Canada F2F ExCom ———————————————————————— 12 hours per year
   4. Group – 6 at 1 hour each (minimum amount) ————————————— 06 hours per year
2. Reports/Meeting minutes
   1. IEEE Canada Board – 2 reports ————————————————————— 08 hours per year
      & one budget submission
   2. Group meetings – 6 meetings —————————————————————— 12 hours per year
   3. Annual training sessions – 3 at 2 hours ————————————————– 06 hours per year
      volunteer, board, and excom training sessions
3. Emails – 2 to 4 hours per month ——————————————————————— 36 hours per year

Total: (minimum) ———————————————————————– 138 hours per year —— 17 days/year