Communications Coordinator:
Shriya Mahakala
Most Important Duties:
As CoCo, you have two main duties. One is taking minutes during meetings. Minutes are sent out to the entire board (including the adults) so they must read well, include all important details from the meeting and be accurate. Next, is the website contest. The CoCo is in charge of advertising the website contest and grading the monthly currency points. In addition to these, the CoCo is also responsible for fulfilling their campaign promises and managing the website. One thing to note is that the CoCo does not have direct access over the website. Proposed modifications must be sent to the mentor who will then actually make those changes. Overall, the CoCo has pretty simple official duties allowing us to do a lot of "extra" things like creating a newsletter and joining various subcommittees, which is what drew me to the role.
How to Prepare for Office:
Before running for office, candidates should understand that luck plays a huge role in the whole campaigning process; some years, a position has only one prefiled candidate and another the year the same position will have five. Another thing is that defeat is not the end. Before running for CoCo, I lost my state election for a position but I did not stop there and dwell over my loss. Candidates specifically running for CoCo should have experience with taking minutes and should familiarize themselves with the website contest and its rules. Candidates do not need to have experience with creating websites but it certainly doesn't hurt.
Campaign Analysis:
In my campaign, I emphasized how I had secratorial and webmaster experience (both inside and outside JCL). I also spent a lot of time creating a platform (which in my opinion is the most important part of the campaign) with genuine improvements and that addressed issues JCLers cared about. One thing I wish I had done was interacting more with other JCLers before the national convention through joining the DEI subcommittee and previous national conventions.