What is Clerks Week and why you should celebrate!
Clerks are one of the most under recognized professionals, typically staffed by humble civil servants that are too busy keeping everyone organized to stop and explain how they do it. And when asked that dreaded question "What does a Clerk do?", they tend to shy away and say things like “create agendas, take minutes, or work with Council Members” instead of answering truthfully with the impressive list of duties they do behind the scenes. So how will the world know just how amazing clerks are? Simple answer, you can celebrate IIMC’s Clerks Week and proudly promote being a clerk.
Clerks Week celebrates the clerk profession internationally and provides you the unique opportunity to promote yourself, your department and your staff. It might go against the very nature of your being to brag about yourselves, but it is important that people understand what clerks do and why they are an important part of the organization (especially during budget time when you need new software or must justify an increase in your training line item). To help you with that foreign feeling of self‐promotion the AMCA Communications Committee, in collaboration with the Membership/Mentoring Committee, has created a Clerks Week Promotional Packet with ideas of how you can celebrate and promote the clerks profession at your municipality!
The Clerk’s Week Promotional Packet includes:
- A Clerks Week Proclamation for you to use at your municipality. Accepting it at a meeting may be intimidating, but it gives your Council a chance to show their appreciation and it is a public forum to showcase the Clerks Department.
- A Clerks Week Promotional Flyer for you to display and/or post to social media to explain what a clerk is and what clerks do.
- The AMCA’s What is a Municipal Clerk brochure and the Welcome to the AMCA flyer for you to display and/or share on social media to educate on what a clerk is and to promote the AMCA.
- A link to the League of Cities and Town’s What is a Municipal Clerk video to post on social media. Contact us if you would like the original file emailed.
- An IIMC Fact Sheet and a link to the IIMC’s Clerks Week promotional packet for even more ideas!
- Host a celebration party – invite coworkers or open it to the public, but definitely serve food or fancy cupcakes to show it’s a celebration!
- Invite the public to tour the Clerk’s Office and ask questions so they can get to you know you and what your department does.
- Create a public “Brag Board” to display of how many public records request were completed, how many meetings were attended, contracts processed, etc.
- Color pages for children.
- Social Media Promotional Campaign.