The Bridge Student Ministries
Officer Manual and Website Proposal
Jerry Nation












Executive Summary
This is an executive summary to show why The Bridge Student Ministries is in need of more organization and ways of keeping things consistent from year to year. One of the most prevalent problems faced by student organizations is inconsistent leadership over changing semesters. As one group of students moves on from their college life and begins their career a new group of students must assume the leadership roles for the organization. In some cases they have had enough time to adapt and learn the ways of the organization so that it can continue to function, but in many instances it becomes important for them to have a knowledge base on how to deal with situations that may not arise on a regular basis that they may not have had cause to observe before. If such a situation arises then they would have no way of knowing how to deal with this. My proposal therefore is to create a manual that will demonstrate to officers how the affairs of the club will be run and maintained.
The Bridge Student Ministries is a new organization so none of this material has been collected or documented to date. There are a few loosely followed policies that demonstrate how to do certain aspects of the group’s business, but these have not been documented and as of this point in time would largely be lost if the current leadership were to leave without passing on this knowledge.
The manual will take on a number of different parts:
1) Organization constitution
2) Mission statement
3) Description of officer roles
4) Code of conduct for officers and group members
5) Financial management
6) Meeting structure
With these areas clearly outlined it will ensure that the essence of what the organization is remains true throughout the course of its existence. It will also lead to an ease of transition from one group of leadership to the next. The possibility of an entirely new leadership in one year is small, but possible, more than likely there will be at least one underclassman that remains in a leadership position after the upperclassmen leave. However since elections will be held for the officer positions it will ultimately come down to chance and if there is not anyone left that has led the club in the past, then this manual will be indispensable.









Proposal for Manual
The organization already has a drafted constitution that has floated around from one current member to the next. One of the first steps in assembling a helpful manual will be to locate this constitution and include it in the final manual. After the constitution is in place it will be important for the purposes of this document to list what the mission statement for the organization is. To my knowledge this has not yet been drawn up and will need to be made by either myself or another member of the organization so that it may be included.
Once this first section of the manual is complete I will then add a section that describes in detail what each of the four officer roles will be:
President: Overall in charge, will be responsible for keeping officers on task and for making sure that meetings flow well. This will include but not be limited to setting up speakers for the weekly meetings and making sure that there is an area where the group can meet on campus.
Vice President: Will be in charge of getting the word out about the organization and making sure that there is a growing level of attendance at the meetings on campus.
Treasurer: There will be membership dues and donations for eventual mission trips that need to be managed and made sure that they are secure; this person will be in charge of this area of the organization. This will be accomplished also through the use of an organization bank account at Bank of America.
Secretary: This person must be at every meeting and will be responsible for taking down the meeting minutes and keeping the other paper work of the organization organized.
All of these positions will more than likely have more responsibilities that will be added throughout the course of this project as I find out more and more of what the organizations pastoral advisor is looking for from each of these positions. While he may want to leave these positions loosely defined so that the group has more room to change, I feel that the preference will be for a more structured and fixed in stone organization that runs without as much interjection on his behalf.
The manual will include a section that shows how not only the officers, but the general members should conduct themselves when having dealings with the organization. As a ministry outlook, it is important that he group keep a certain appearance for the public.
Finally the manual will include some form of basic structure for how meetings will be setup. This will not be a guide to show exactly how it must be done every week, but rather will be there to help new members and officers have a jumping off point to help the meeting flow better.