Officer Support Committee (OSC)

Currently, JALT officers are by tradition trained by the officers that they replace, but this is an unreliable and inconsistent method. New officers have reported feeling lost, unsure of their responsibilities, and unaware of the resources available to them. The Officer Support Committee (OSC) was established in early 2022 to systemize what has been an ad hoc process of orienting new officers. This committee will also help train all officers on new systems; currently, the new JALT website is almost one year old, and JALT has recently adopted BaseCamp for communications, and many officers would benefit from orientation and training on these systems.

Many of the members of the OSC are in liaison positions for officers holding specific positions in our chapters and SIGs, so, as an example, if you are a new membership chair, please contact your Membership Liaison for help getting started.

What we’re working on currently:

• Reorganizing the Officer Support area. Currently, we are evaluating the existing documents and how they’re organized. Our next step will be to organize these resources more intuitively. 
• Updating the JALT Basics manual, which is a short manual to help new officers get pointed in the right direction, and to help all officers get a better overall understanding of JALT and the resources that are available. We published the first version in March 2022. Thanks to everyone whose comments and suggestions have helped improve that document. (Note, this document is not behind any password protection, which is why all of the “contact” suggestions are links to contact forms rather than email addresses.)
• A list of basic duties for Liaisons. The current version is in the Handbooks section of Officer Resources.
• A checklist for incoming Committee Chairs

Future Live Sessions

• Other support sessions for JALT officers outside of the OSC take place during the JALT ZPD sessions (usually the final Tuesday of each month), and Officer Liaisons themselves organize support sessions.

Past Live Sessions

• At PanSIG 2022: JALT Officer Support Meeting (Sunday, July 10, 14:05)
• At JALT2022 in Fukuoka: NPO JALT Officer Support Meeting (Saturday, November 12th 3:50 PM). 
• At JALT2023 in Tsukuba, we shared a table with the Board of Directors. 
• All officer liaisons are automatically on the OSC. The recent online workshops for JALT officers were organized by the Officer Liaisons themselves, not through the OSC.