2013/5/1 Florence Devouard anthere9@yahoo.com:
True. Not all associations are looking for such support and indeed, the association needs to show a decent amount of activity to make it worth it.
Note that in many cases, the secretary hired for such positions is NOT a student, but rather an experienced person willing and able to do multitasking stuff in an autonomous manner and rather looking for a long-term position. This balances the fact the volunteers come and go and that the board term is often for a limited time (2 or 3 terms maximum). This secretary provides an unvaluable element of stability.
In our case (Wikimedia Polska) we were very careful with hiring. The idea appeared around 2009, but there was no money for both having an office and paid secretary at that time and it was decided that it hardly make sense to have empty office or paid secretary working at home. Next year we had enough money for both. Before hiring we had made of list of duties and a list of skills needed for doing this duties. Our first secretary was hired only for a year contract and for part time (3 days a week 4 hours of work in the office + some duties outside the office). Our first secretary was mainly working as a attorney's assistant and work for us was just her extra job. She left us after a year, as demanded by her attorney boss. Then we hired the next person - with some modified list of duties and skills needed - for 4 days of week, still 4 hours of work in an office). Finally - just in the middle of last year we decided to employ the secretary for full time. It was decided due to gradual increase of our activity which need more paper work.