Association - Official (Requirements)

Official

To qualify for the Association Official certificate, you must:

Have served in an office of President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, or Director, and have completed satisfactory service in one of the following:

• At least one year in office at the national level.
• At least two years in the office(s) at the regional level, of which one shall be Region President or Trustee.
• At least three years in the office(s) at the regional level, if other than Region President or Trustee.
• Division Superintendents or Directors who serve as voting members of the Region Board of Directors, either by election, appointment, or automatic by-law provision, shall be eligible for the certificate on the same basis as any other Region Board member (i.e. three years of service required).

In some regions the President and the Trustee were the same person (The Region Trustee position was eliminated in January of 2005 when new NMRA Regulations were formally adopted by the BOD). In this case, that person would get credit for serving in both offices, which would mean that they would only require one year of service.
Sometimes there is a question about whether a particular office qualifies for "Association Official " or "Association Volunteer". In general, the test is: if holding an office makes you a voting member of the Region (or National) Board of Directors, then it counts toward "Official"; otherwise, it counts toward "Volunteer".
However, you may receive "Volunteer" credit for holding an office that would otherwise qualify for "Official" as long as you are not claiming credit for "Official" at the same time. For example, if someone were to serve as Division Superintendent for 5 years (and that being Superintendent made them a voting member of their Region 's Board of Directors). They could use the first three years of their term to qualify for the "Association Official" certificate, and the remaining two years to qualify to 24 months worth of "Association Volunteer" points.

I held the position of Region President of the European Region from January 2015 until January 2018 for a first term.

I received my Certificate for Association - Official during the awards ceremony at the British Region Convention on October 28, 2017 in Derby, UK.