Clerk-to-Clerk
A new clerk in Clearwater is typically appointed with two weeks of handover, no predecessor to call, and an election eleven months away.
Clerk-to-Clerk pairs a records officer in their first two years with a veteran from a neighbouring district. It runs for twelve months. There is no curriculum, no reporting, and no cost.
The commitment is one phone call a month and permission to be interrupted in between.
What mentees ask about, in order
- Minutes — what goes in, what stays out, and how to fix an approved set that is wrong.
- Their first records request that is not straightforward.
- Executive session wording.
- The election calendar.
- Whether they can say no to a council member.
The programme exists mostly for the fifth one.
How to be matched
Mentees and mentors both sign up in the member area. Matching is done by the Membership Committee twice a year, in January and July, by district adjacency and by municipality size — a clerk from a town of 900 is not well served by a mentor from Fairholm.
Sign up as a mentee · Volunteer as a mentor
Mentors
We need more of them in the Uplands, where districts 11 and 12 have twenty-two municipalities and four available mentors. Five years in the role and a CCRO is the usual bar; the real bar is answering the phone.