Top Tips - Recruiting Committee Members for your sports club

Recruiting members on to a committee is often a challenge as it can be difficult to attract people to do the non-sports-related roles within the sports club.

 

However, people are the club�s greatest asset and committee members have helped clubs achieve so much already; they help to structure and set the strategy for your club and, therefore, it is vital that you find, recruit, induct and keep your committee members. What inspires them to join your club needs to be reality.

 

�Recruiting committee members� can refer to the recruitment of members of the board, management committee members, council members, executive committee members, non-executives, directors or trustees. They are often called different things depending on how your organisation is set up and have specific legal meanings.

 

Why is recruitment so important?

Committee members are responsible for your club; without them your club would not be able to exist. But it�s more than that. When problems arise in sports clubs they often stem from poor governance. Remember: success starts in the way your club is governed and led. Having the right committee is key to this success.

 

Things to consider:  

• refer to your governing document dictating the recruitment process for your committee (e.g. your club constitution).
• do a skills audit and look at where development may be needed for existing members
• identify new positions that need to be filled
• advertise the vacancies with your national governing body, Sport Across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent and your local authority sports development unit � contact details can be found here - http://www.sportacrossstaffordshire.co.uk/Contacts

The Sport and Recreation Alliance (SaRA) and the National Council for Voluntary Organisation (NCVO) have worked in partnership to create an online resource which helps to guide sports clubs through the process of recruiting committee members:

 

The resource is split into six sections. These sections can be used independently but work well as a whole process:

1. Are you ready to recruit?

2. Who are you looking for?

3. Attracting new board members

4. Selection and appointment of new board members

5. How to welcome your new board members

6. What next?

 

How to use this resource

Read through the whole resource before getting started. It is designed for you to tailor and use to suit your needs and circumstances. A range of activities and templates have been included to provide practical help. These range from plans to model policy documents. They are easy to use and editable; you simply download and save them. Not all of the activities may be necessary for your club; feel free to pick and choose the approach that best suits you. Where you have an elected committee, you may want to adapt some of the activities to suit your needs; for example, Activity 2 Skills and Experience Table could still be useful in helping you identify where to direct people�s nominations.

 

Help and support

At the end of each section you will be signposted to other help and support related to that specific topic. These are from a variety of places including support that may not be specifically for sports organisations.

As an online resource, it is hoped that the toolkit will evolve and develop over time.

 

This resource and the examples contained within are given for information only and this process needs to be developed and adapted to suit your club�s circumstances. This should not be taken as legal advice in anyway, especially in relation to information regarding your governing document.

 

Further information

The runningsports website (http://www.runningsports.org/) has useful resources including other Top Tips, Role Outlines and information on training, including workshops and workbooks.

 

Check out the Things to Think About resource on the Sport England website for more on this issue. Click on the link and choose option 2.3 for some useful prompts to think about the skills needed by your committee members.

 

Chris Turner
Club Development Manager
T: 01785 619681
E: cturner@staffordbc.gov.uk