Administrative Services

The specialist society administrative services from the AAGBI range from the provision of a central London postal address and telephone number to full association administration management.

The service is designed to offer a professional level of support as expected by association members whilst at the same time being tailored to the needs of association in question. To allow the service to be customised the services offered are split into components. A list of the main service components available can be found below.

Advise New Societies: For completely new societies, the AAGBI will provide advice on the best way/practice to set up a new society. This is available in the form of document titled “How to set up a Specialist Society”, and has been put together based on the vast amount of experience gathered over the years in setting up societies.

Hosting the Specialist Society’s office: The AAGBI will provide an administrative base for the Society with 21 Portland Place being the registered business address. A wall plaque will be mounted in the foyer of 21 Portland Place to this effect. Note: There is a standard fee of £250.00 per annum for all Societies using 21 Portland Place as their registered address.

The Specialist Society Unit, located on the third floor of 21 Portland Place, is run by three members of staff. The unit is open Monday – Friday from 0830-1700 hrs. All members of the Unit will have full knowledge of the Society’s structure and set-up to ensure cover is provided at all times.

Dedicated lines of communication: Each Society will be allocated a dedicated telephone number which will be answered in the Society’s name. An answer-phone service will be available for out-of-hours calls. The Society will be provided with a dedicated email address for all enquiries in the format of XXX@aagbi.org. This will be monitored daily and all emails responded to within 24 hours.

Post and emails: All post and emails will be opened and dealt with on a daily basis.

Administrative matters will be dealt with by the Unit in line with the Society’s processes; other matters will be forwarded electronically, within 24hrs of receipt, to the relevant Society contact for advice and response.

While a dedicated Society bank account is in the process of being opened, the Unit will collect subscriptions and any other funds. These will be paid into a separate AAGBI account designated to hold Specialist Society funds. Appropriate and accurate records will be kept of all funds paid into this account on behalf of the Society and a quarterly report provided.

The Unit process and bank credit card and cheque payments.

Full financial records will be maintained on behalf of the Society in compliance with all legal requirements and in line with the Society’s wishes.

Financial post and related matters will be dealt with in a timely manner and the Society Treasurer or appropriate Council Member informed as required.

The Unit will process all membership applications, issue welcome information as appropriate and update the Society’s database with additions, amendments, resignations, lapses and deaths. These tasks will be done in accordance with the processes and procedures laid down by the Society.

The Unit will ensure that members can apply for membership both electronically and by post. All such applications will be processed in a timely manner.

The Unit will email the Society’s Honorary Secretary with updated membership numbers at the end of each quarter.

The Unit will facilitate all communications with members on behalf of the Society, whether electronically or by post. Where such mailings include deadlines that must be adhered to (such as AGM and election papers), these will be entered on the Unit’s electronic calendar and reminders duly scheduled to avoid delay.

The Unit will administer the Society’s membership database regardless of format.

The Unit will cross-reference the Society membership database with that of the AAGBI to confirm details and update these as required.

The Unit will be the Society’s administrative hub and act as the central point of contact for all Council, Committee and Sub-Committee members.

The Unit will maintain a list of Council and Committee members with all relevant contact details. This information will be updated within 48hrs of the Unit being informed of any changes.

All Committee and Council meetings will be hosted at 21 Portland Place. Note: This is subject to the availability of rooms.

A small working area will be made available at 21 Portland Place for Officers of the Society who wish to hold ad hoc meetings in central London or need office space in which to work between meetings.

The Unit will distribute draft agendas, gather requested documentation and collate and distribute papers prior to all meetings. Papers will be circulated to members of the Committees in whichever format desired. The Unit will ensure that additional paper copies are available at meetings should they be required.

The Unit will ensure that all meeting requirements, including audiovisual and catering requests, are met and provide full administrative support, including the taking of minutes of the meeting should this be required.

Where staff are physically unable to attend a meeting held at 21 Portland Place, the Unit will provide recording facilities in the room and will transcribe the recordings for the Society to stand as the minutes.

Minutes of all meetings will be stored electronically, as well as in paper format. These will be provided to the Society’s Officer for reference on request and will be distributed in line with the Society’s wishes.

The AAGBI has retained the services of a provider which enables us to run an unlimited number of surveys throughout the year, catering for up to one thousand respondents per survey. The Unit can provide access to this service on behalf of the Society at an added cost.

The Unit is also able to run electronic elections through an external provider. This is quite a straightforward process whereby each eligible voter is allocated a random four-digit number. Each member will be sent an email with this number and containing a link to the voting website. Members will cast their votes by entering this number and will accordingly only be able to vote once.

The AAGBI is able to provide a maintenance service for Specialist Societies’ websites.

To maintain a site the Unit must be provided with details of current web hosting arrangements, and the requisite login and password details. The Unit will also require the necessary permissions to maintain the site.

The AAGBI will shortly launch a new website which will be able to host a number of micro-sites for the various Specialist Societies. Further details about the micro-sites will be available towards the end of summer 2011.

The AAGBI will assist with the abstract management process; receiving and acknowledging all abstracts, forwarding the abstracts to an appointed review committee and ensuring all authors are notified of the outcome of their submissions. Where required an abstract book will be prepared for the conference.

The Unit currently produces newsletters for a number of Specialist Societies in–house. These are both professionally printed and emailed to members. We would be happy to provide this service for the Society at an additional cost.

The Unit can, with the agreement and approval of the Society’s Honorary Secretary and/or Editor, layout and design newsletters on behalf of the Society. These are produced according to agreed schedules and the desired format. The Unit can distribute these to the Society’s members.

The Specialist Society Unit provides administrative services for one day conferences/meetings and study days. Larger conferences will be referred on to the AAGBI Events Team who will provide a separate document detailing the full list of services available in support of Society events.

Note: This list of administrative services is not exhaustive and will be reviewed depending on the needs of the Society.

Specialist societies can use the facilities of 21 Portland Place to hold meetings and events. These will be offered on a first-come, first serve basis. All rooms are equipped with standard Audio Visual (AV) facilities, WI-FI and air-conditioning. Please note, that all AV and Catering will be charged separately

Financial arrangements

All administrative services will be charged on a timed basis using the Complete Time Tracker. This software generates reports on time spent on each task. A standard fee of £28.00 per hour will be charged for all such services.

The cost of all stationary and other consumables used by the Unit to deliver services under this Agreement will be charged to the Society. This is in addition to the “hourly administrative fee”.

The Society is required to pay all re-chargeable bank costs incurred by the Unit in carrying out the activities of the Society.

A quarterly statement of all financial activities will be provided for each specialist society.

The AAGBI will, if required provide the use of the Specialist Society bank account during the first year of operation.

Data protection, confidentiality and record-keeping

The AAGBI has a code of practice on confidentiality which contains the key provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 and mechanisms to ensure compliance with these requirements.

In delivering these services, the Unit will comply with all legislation, including guidance issued by the Charity Commission and required by the Companies Act in relation to the retention and destruction of records.