Purpose
The Communities Resourcing Committee is the overarching group responsible for leading the work of the IET’s volunteer communities around the world, including its Local and Technical Networks. The Communities Resourcing Committee:
(a) facilitates communications between all communities;
(b) ensures that the work the communities do is aligned to the IET’s strategy;
(c) allocates resources to the communities;
(d) monitors the communities’ performance.
It does this with support from a number of governance teams, as follows:
(a) Communities Committees – five geographic governance teams that cover the world, each responsible for community activity in their region;
(b) Technical Networks Communities Committee – the governance team that leads and represents the interests of the technical networks.
The five regional Communities Committees represent the IET world regions: (1) Americas, (2) Asia Pacific, (3) Europe, Middle East, and Africa, (4) South Asia, (5) United Kingdom.
The Communities Resourcing Committee supports all IET communities, whether geographical, technical, demographic (eg age related) or otherwise.
Planning and Resourcing
(a) Co-ordinate the planning and resourcing of community activities around the world;
(b) Agree priorities for communities activities with the Volunteer Engagement Board to be communicated to the Communities Committees as the basis for planning;
(c) Secure overall funding and other resources for IET communities around the world, including development funds that can be allocated to opportunities and initiatives arising in-year;
(d) Agree and monitor community KPIs with Communities Committees and promote remedial action where required;
(e) Allocate funding and other resources to the five Communities Committees for distribution by them to the Local Networks in their region; allocate funding and resources to the Technical Networks Communities Committee to distribute to the Technical Networks;
(f) Evaluate initiatives and opportunities generated by inter-regional communities in-year and allocate development funding as appropriate;
Communications
(g) Develop, maintain and promulgate guidelines and best practice guidelines to help support and ensure consistency between communities;
(h) Receive input and advice on community issues from the five Communities Committees and provide input and advice to the Volunteer Engagement Board as appropriate;
(i) Propose changes to IET products and services to the Knowledge Services and Solutions Board, the Membership and Professional Development Board and the Volunteer Engagement Board as applicable;
(j) Report to the Volunteer Engagement Board;
Supporting Communities Activities
(k)The Communities Resourcing Committee will co-ordinate, guide and support the governance teams to:
(i)Proactively review the programme of communities activities to highlight gaps in coverage to the communities;
(ii) Enable a more integrated approach between communities around the world (eg between Local Networks and Technical Networks);
(iii) Identify required community tools and facilities;
(iv) Make decisions regarding the creation, closure, merger or re-focus of Local Networks, Technical Networks and other formal communities to the Volunteer Engagement Board as deemed necessary, taking into account any recommendations received from the Communities Committees and other communities;
(v) Resolve difficult communities issues, as required.
Constitution
- The Communities Resourcing Committee should be constituted of fifteen members, including a Chair, appointed by the Volunteer Engagement Board and a Senior Staff Member.
- The fifteen include Chairs from each of the five geographic Communities Committees, and the Chair of the Technical Networks Communities Committee.
- The fifteen include three members, who must be actively involved in one or more IET communities, elected from and by the membership. At least one of these three members should be under the age of 30 at the time of their election.
- The fifteen include three members, who must be actively involved in one or more IET communities, appointed by the Volunteer Engagement Board. At least one of these three members should be under the age of 30 at the time of their appointment.
- The Vice Chair of the YPC will be an ex officio member of the Committee to represent the global Young Professional audience.
- The Communities Resourcing Committee will meet virtually as required for short meetings and will require up to three physical meetings per year.
- The quorum is one half of the Communities Resourcing Committee membership (excluding vacancies), plus one.
Expectation of Attendance and Contribution of Members
- Any member who has not attended three or more consecutive Committee meetings (physical or virtual) spanning a period of more than six months, and has not contributed to the work of the Committee outside meetings during the same period, may be considered as being eligible for removal from the Committee. The decision to start the removal notification process from the Committee shall be agreed by the Committee by majority vote at the next Committee meeting. In the event that the Committee agrees that the member should be removed from the Committee, the following process shall apply:
- A senior staff member from another Committee should be asked to try to contact the member via each form of communication once more. Then, if no reply is received, a formal letter (signed by the Head of Governance) should be sent from the IET to the member’s last known registered address, by recorded delivery, saying: “The IET has been unable to make contact with you over the past 6 months to discuss your membership of the xxxx Committee. In view of this, unless we hear otherwise from you, we shall assume that you no longer wish to continue to be a member of the Committee.”
- After twenty-one days, in the event of no satisfactory reply, the member shall be removed from the Committee and a suitable replacement sought.