Ever Wonder What SLSA Directors and Officers Do?

Now that we’ve seen it’s time for the SLSA’s Call for Candidates for filling some upcoming vacant positions, you might be wondering… what the heck does an SLSA Director actually do?

As usual, the SLSA’s Constitution has the answers. It’s mostly all about carrying out the mission of the SLSA in terms of competitions, acting in the interest of the majority of SLSA members, and generally promoting surfing in SL.
Basically, Directors conduct meetings among themselves both inworld and in a Directors only area of the forum. They generally need to work as a team to discuss event planning, scheduling, rules, and finances both for the competitions and the SLSA’s home sim, Solace Dreams. Section 1.4 of the Constitution goes into more detail on some specifics of how all this business takes place. Quite a bit of this business, by necessity, takes place as discussions just between the Directors, but decisions that impact the membership will be made public. Many times, Directors will seek input from members publicly or privately.

There are also Officers for the SLSA. Some of these roles must be filled by a Director, but some may be appointed by Directors. The activity of these Officers is generally more visible to the overall membership due to their roles. Section 1.5 of the Constitution spells them all out. There are seven Officers, all of which are appointed by the Directors, as follows:

Human Resources Officer
The HR Officer must be a standing Director. This job is responsible for recruiting and training appointed officers and maintaining a pool of trained event day staff.

Financial Officer
This one must also be one of the Directors. This job Is responsible to oversee all aspects of financial areas. Duties include: making payments, collecting receipts, and keeping an accurate record of all transactions and the current balance of SLSA funds. A financial Officer must keep other directors apprised of financial payments. Only the Financial officer may make payments on behalf of the SLSA. The Financial Officer also posts monthly forum reports for the financial standing of the accounts used for Competitions and Sim maintenance.

Communications Officer
The CO can be anyone appointed by the Directors. This one is responsible to oversee all aspects of communication to the SLSA membership and surfing community. Duties include: Maintain website (yes, the SLSA has it’s own website); advertise surfing events via group notices, and SL Events postings (this is the Events facility provided by Linden Labs), and via web publications.

Events Officer
This one is specific to competitions, is appointed by the Directors, and more often than not changes with each competition. The EO is a pretty big deal for a competition. They are responsible to oversee all aspects of a single contest or event and ensure the surfing aspect of the event runs on schedule and according to the rules and that the staff is not making any errors. The Events Officer is the only person who can give the exact schedule of events and rules in all protests in collaboration with the Judging and Marshaling officers.

Head Judge
Another Director appointed officer that may change with each competition. There is more detail about the specifics of this one in Section 1.5.4 of the Constitution.

Marshal
A competition only Officer that is appointed by the Directors and may also change with each competition. Generally, the Marshal is responsible for trying to facilitate a smoothly running competition. There is also more detail about what’s entailed in Constitution Section 1.5.5.

Security
Appointed by the Directors and may change for each competition. As you might guess, this one is responsible for maintaining a secure competition area. More specific details are outlined in Section 1.5.6 of the Constitution.

All competition specific roles are also entitled to a payment as described in the “SLSA schedule of fees”.

Share: