Organisation

Foundation

All directors of the Reformational Study Centre subscribe to the doctrine of the Holy Scripture as it is professed in the Three Forms of Unity. In each member’s involvement with the Study Centre, this doctrine must be actively promoted and defended.

The Reformational Study Centre is registered as an Article 21 Company with registration number 2008/015966/08. Among other things, this entails that the Reformational Study Centre is a non-profit organization which is audited on a yearly basis. Regarding the directors, there will at all times be a minimum of 5 directors, as per legal requirements.

Structure

Reformed character

This is the heart of the organization. Without Reformed trained and trusted theologians, the essence of all the services is lost. The mere reason for our existence, the helping of other ministers and Christians, is in jeopardy if this section does not function well. As should be clear by now, our aim is that all material must be in accordance with the doctrine found in Scripture and the Three Forms of Unity.

We basically have three full-time theologians who are responsible for this section, but they also get a lot of help from other ministers and lecturers on an ad hoc basis.

Library: Back Office

From an operational perspective it will be clear that good co-ordination is required to ensure that the work flows smoothly from one task or section to the next. This is especially true in our situation where we have volunteers helping from all over the world.

The Library Back-office Function ensures that these processes flow according to plan. It focuses on the web processes, but it has as its basis the physical library and literature. As the physical Study Centre develops, the processes of the physical library and the web-libraries will naturally become more integrated.

Other components of the Back-office Function are:

• Introduction and ‘training’ of new volunteers and full-time staff.
• Auditing and correcting each step of the process, such as scanning, proofreading, formatting, layout etc.

General Administration

There are various administrative tasks associated with the mainstream processes. Many of these are not only clerical work, but more advanced and essential correspondence.

Some of these include:

• Basic correspondence with users and subscribers. For instance:
  • Addressing site errors and usage questions
  • General correspondence with institutions
  • Thank you letter for donations
  • Computer help where users do not have certain computer skills
• Maintenance of subscribers: maintaining and updating latest contact details – mainly e-mail accounts. These are for the different subscriber lists of:
  • Vox Viva
  • Preaching Library
  • Volunteers
  • RSC Newsletter
• Newsletter: info gathering, formatting, layout and distribution
• Basic financial day to day activities, such as payments, keeping of invoices and slips, maintaining a spreadsheet of all activities in order for bookkeeping to update bookkeeping system.
• Obtaining permission from writers and publishers for using material. This includes:
  • Obtaining contact and copyrights information
  • Contacting relevant parties
  • Safekeeping of permission letters

IT & Web

This section has to do with the managing and co-ordination of changes to website features. There are still quite a few features that we want to build into our websites. For us it is also very important to see the trends and to stay up to date with the direction in which the information technology is going. We are also exploring ways to maximise coverage and awareness of our services.

Apart from what we have already mentioned, the activities under this section also include:

• Messages to users from time to time
• “Blogging” and other network-type interaction
• Continuous testing and improving “user-friendliness” of site
• Loading of articles and handling small errors etc.
• Ad hoc correspondence to users on complex enquiries

Directors and General Management

The directors of the organisation play various roles in addition to those mentioned above. Such roles and ‘portfolios’ includes:

• Supervision of the work of the theologians and the reformed character of the organization (together with the respective church councils)
• Organizing, investigating and evaluating current and new services for effectiveness, need and relevance
• Technical research and ensuring systems are the latest as well as compatible with current and future trends
• Obtaining and adhering to all legal aspects regarding an Article 21 company
• Introducing the services to new users, volunteers and donors
• Fundraising and financial maintenance and management of the organization in general
• General public relationships

The directors are all from South Africa, but there are also specific foundations and groups in Canada, Australia and Netherlands for the help and support of these projects.

The directors of the Reformational Study Centre are:

Renata de Haan

Renata has been working full-time in the RSC from the start of the organization, and is director since 2012. She knows the organization inside out.

Koos van der Linden

Koos was Managing Director of Finewood Veneers (a subsidiary of Anglo American Corporation). He retired in 2009 and is now chairman of the Reformational Study Centre.

Addij de Mooij

Addij has years of experience as a sales manager, and is presently a director of Finewood Veneers (a subsidiary of Anglo American Corporation).

Johann Struwig

Johann has had the position of Business Design Consultant & Integrator at a major bank in South Africa, and is currently working as Operations Manager of the Home Loans division.