The MAFA Board handles the day-to-day operations of MAFA, as directed by the bi-yearly Representative Assemblies.  The board sets the strategic direction of the organization, develops a budget, organizes authorized activities, develops policies and standing rules to ensure the organization remains healthy and vibrant into the future.

There are four elected officers, four appointed board positions, and up to three additional appointed board positions. Most board meetings are conducted via teleconference. Much board work is conducted online, so members need to be comfortable with technology, and willing to learn new skills to facilitate communications. The board attempts to reach consensus on issues, so board members need to be team players, willing to step up and help out, but also willing to compromise when that is in the best interests of the organization.

Elected Officers

The President functions as the Chief Executive Officer, runs the meetings, and signs the contracts. In reality, presidents are deeply involved in organizing the conference, setting the budgets, creating content for the website and newsletters, dealing with the financial aspects of the organization budgets and helping to ensure that the whole team is pulling in the same direction, doing what it can to further the goals of MAFA and to help our guild members.

The Vice President performs duties as requested by the Board of Directors, and will run meetings in the absence of the President. The Vice-President may serve as a committee chair or coordinator of one of the standing committees listed below, or of any ad-hoc committees set up by the Board.  

The Treasurer is the chief financial manager of the organization, and bears the primary responsibility for all association’s monetary transactions and financial records.  This involves maintaining the electronic records and paying the bills, producing regular reporting, preparing the annual budget, and ensuring compliance with IRS regulations. In addition, the Treasurer serves as Treasurer of the biennial conference. This position requires a well-organized person who has experience with online financial software and tools, and who has the time to maintain the books on a regular basis, as well as the ability to take on the additional time commitment for conference tasks.

The Secretary is responsible for documenting the work of the organization. This includes maintaining the corporate records and ensuring that proper filings are made, providing logistical support for meetings, writing up the minutes, and tracking action items. The secretary also usually takes a role helping to organize the conference, through documentation of meetings and in other roles, as needed.

Appointed Positions

The following positions are appointed by the Board of Directors:

The Conference Chair is the coordinator for our biennial conference and chairs the Conference Committee. The planning for each conference begins almost as soon as the previous one ends. The Conference Chair is responsible for recruiting volunteers, working with the Board to determine the conference venue and budget, liaising with the conference venue, and driving her committee to decisions on conference theme, keynote speaker, desired activities and events, conference schedule, selection of workshops, recruitment of vendors, establishment of website content, publicity for the conference, etc. It’s a big project management job, requiring organizational as well as strong communications and people skills.

The Communications Chair chairs the Communications Committee and is responsible for defining MAFA’s communications strategy, which includes developing the MAFA social media strategy and presence, the website content, and the marketing and publicity for the conferences. Highly dependent upon web-based activities, this position requires a well-organized person with good written communication skills and, ideally, is comfortable working with communication technologies, including website, social media and other online applications.

The Membership Chair chairs the Membership Committee which maintains the list of member guilds and their representatives and officers, as well as the list of associate members. The Membership Chair works to increase guild membership in the organization, and helps the guilds to communicate with MAFA and with each other, through the newsletter, website initiatives, and other efforts. Being able to help with website updates and content is useful in this position. (This can be taught if the willingness and aptitude is there.)

The Grants Chair chairs the Grants Committee, which is responsible for developing the guidelines and applications for the guild grants and conference fellowships, and for reviewing the proposals and providing recommendations to the Board for final approval. The Grants Chair and Committee then monitor completion of the grants and fellowship projects and recommend payment of the final portion of the grant/fellowship. This position requires facilitation skills to lead the committee, as well as good written communications skills, and the ability to track details of the grants through their entire process.

Up to three additional committee chairs designated by the Board of Directors may also serve on the Board. The immediate past President shall serve in an advisory capacity to the Board of Directors. Currently, other appointed board members include:

The Webmaster is responsible for maintaining the MAFA website in good working order through regular scans, backups and monitoring of the servers. In addition, the Webmaster creates WordPress websites for individual guilds to maintain, assists with updates to MAFA website content, and provides technical assistance and consulting to the board and committees on a variety of software tools and solutions.