Below is a list of some of the important positions we have at the club that are fulfilled by our volunteers:
Coaches
The club is growing and with nearly 300 members we need more coaches to accommodate new and existing members. All coaches will have to be CRB checked and will need to attend a level one athletics coaching course no previous coaching experience is required. The club are happy to cover the cost of the course providing you spend time coaching for the club.
Athletics officials
One of the major requirements at a meeting is officials with out them the event cannot go ahead. Each club has to provide officials or they can lose points. We are looking for volunteers who might want to get involved in helping with officiating. We require track judges timekeepers field judges and marksman/women. The season starts in April and we plan to hold a officials course before the start of the season or make sure you attend a course before the season starts
Club Chair
The chairperson is typically the most senior official role in a club and fulfils a range of duties dealing with overall management of club affairs. The chairperson leads the club to achieve their vision, short term and long-term goals.
Typical responsibilities:
- Provide leadership on all aspects of the club from training to competition, fundraising and social activities.
- Strategic planning and key decision-making duties.
- Form a team so that all the officer and committee positions are filled, taking in consideration skills, experience and diversity.
- Delegating, leading and motivating club volunteers towards club goals/objectives.
- Uphold the club constitution and terms of conditions of England Athletics affiliation.
- Ensuring an understanding of the legal responsibilities of the club to which the Club complies.
- Lead in the enforcement of the club’s code of conduct.
- Assist the club to fulfil its responsibilities towards club welfare and safeguarding.
- Taking responsibility for personal conflicts of interest and declaring, recording and managing these appropriately.
- Chairing regular committee meetings and the Annual General Meetings (AGM).
- Being actively involved in creating and following a Club Development Plan.
- Representing the club at local and regional events.
- Arranging handover or succession planning for the position
Club Secretary
The primary role of the club secretary is to provide administrative support to the role of chairperson. Much of the hands-on administrative effort may be delegated to other club officers and volunteers, but responsibility for ensuring the overall, well-run club administration lies with the Secretary.
Typical responsibilities:
- Plan club meetings with the chairperson and agree an agenda with all club officers
- Circulate details of meetings (time, location, agenda etc.) to club members
- Take minutes and circulate to meeting attendees
- Follow-up with relevant parties on key actions arising from meetings
- Ensure meetings adhere to procedures of the club constitution (e.g. quorums and election procedures)
- Being the first point of contact for club enquiries
- Receive, send and log correspondence on behalf of the Club
- Delegating tasks to club members
- Attending to affiliations
- Ensuring insurance is up to date and relevant
- Maintaining up to date records and reference files
- Arranging handover or succession planning for the position
- Taking responsibility for personal conflicts of interest and declaring, recording and managing these appropriately
- Manage club grievance and disciplinary correspondence.
- Ensure the club applies for and receives its London Marathon club places entitlement
Team Manager
As a team manager, you play a crucial role in the success of the team. It’s up to you to pull together the best team possible and to get the most out of them at competition. It’s not always about the athletes winning – sometimes it’s about them doing their best or even improving on their personal best. The best team managers make all competitions fun and exciting and ensure good team morale, this approach leads to long term success by retaining and developing athletes for longer.
Pre-competition:
- Communicate fixture lists in advance to athletes, parents, and coaches
- Selected the team by;
- Liaising with the committee on club priorities for competition
- reviewing performance using tools such as Power of 10
- liaising with coaches
- liaising with athletes (if over 18) and parents (if athletes are U18)
- Encourages athletes to liaise directly with their coach if they need support deciding on which events they should do.
- Liaise with the competition provider to submitting team details (using the competition preferred method i.e., portal)
- Facilitating change requests and amendments as required pre-event and updating the competition provider
- Ensure all your team are affiliated members of your club and England Athletics
- Build rapport with the athletes
- Reenforce code of conducts and rules of the competition
- Check all athletes have the correct kit and equipment.
- Carry out a Risk Assessment ahead of the competition and ensure that appropriate measures are in place that mitigates risk
- Ensure that the adequate supervision is in place (for athletes u18)
- Keep a list of contact details and medical information for everyone in your team.
- Ensure that all the team receive pre competition information such as competition venue, rules, timetable, meeting points etc..
During competition
- Team Managers are the main point of contact for athletes and parents
- Attend any Team Manager meetings by the meeting manager to ensure you are aware of any changes to the scheduled programme.
- Create a positive and supportive environment for athletes
- Ensure that all under 18s athletes are supervised during competition
- Numbers and timetable are issued to the athletes
- Ensure athletes are warmed up and ready for their event
- Offer emotional and wellbeing support to athletes
- Ensure that athletes get to their event on time
- Help athletes celebrate and reflect on their performance
- Answering any queries as necessary by athletes or parents
- Liaise with competition provider to manage athlete withdrawals and injuries
Post-competition
- Provide feedback to the coaches (if they didn’t attend)
- Sharing the official competition results with the athletes, parents, coaches, and wider club
- Prepare reports on the progress and successes of the team and its members for the local press
- Celebrate successes (Pbs, performance, result, effort) by sharing a highlight report and photos with the volunteer responsibility for club media
- Nominate athletes for recognition and awards.
Welfare Officer
Club Welfare Officers within your club ensures that members have a trained and trusted person to speak to about a concern either within the club or at times outside of Athletics. A Welfare Officer is the lead person who has the right skills and knowledge to manage any concern raised in an appropriate way that would not hamper any investigation and shares information accordingly. By completing the England Athletics online safeguarding and Time to Listen training, Clubs can be confident that their Welfare Officers have the right level of knowledge for the role that is specific to Athletics. This includes how to raise a concern and who to speak to within the sport.
Typical responsibilities:
- implement effective Child Safeguarding Policy and Child Safeguarding Procedures and keep them up to date
- implement effective Adult Safeguarding Policy and Adult Safeguarding Procedures and keep them up to date
- promote safeguarding at the club and encourage good practice
- respond appropriately to safeguarding concerns
- regularly report to the club’s organising committee on safeguarding matters
- ensure that members of the club/volunteers/staff who are working with children and/or adults at risk are recruited safely and in line with legal requirements
- maintain records of safeguarding training attended by club members
- maintain records of club coaches and officials’ licences and criminal record checks
- make sure the sports volunteers/staff, parents/carers, adults and children are aware of:
- how to contact the CWO
- the codes of conduct for working with children/adults at risk
- how to respond to safeguarding concerns
- deal effectively with breaches of the codes of conduct, poor practice, or allegations of abuse
- keep up to date with developments in safeguarding
- attend the relevant safeguarding courses for the role of CWO
- complete a criminal record check through the relevant Home Country procedures
- maintain confidential records of reported safeguarding concerns and action taken
- liaise with the HCAF Welfare Officer and/or statutory agencies if/when required.
Health & Safety Coordinator
The Health and Safety Coordinator is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the Health and Safety Policy and associated risk assessments.
Typical responsibilities:
- Develop with the committee a Health and Safety Policy
- Implement the Health and Safety Policy by;
- Manage hazards and remove/minimise/isolate hazards by carrying out risk assessments
- Ensure all club members and other involved parties are aware of the Health and Safety Policy and how to adhere to the health and safety/emergency procedures.
- Share with the committee any major health and safety issues on a regular basis.
- Report all incident and accident to UK Athletics
- Work with the Treasurer to develop a budget for implementing the Health and Safety Policy
- Oversee the implementation of the strategies in the Health and Safety Policy
- Submit regular reports to the club/group committee.
Membership Secretary
The primary role of the club membership secretary athlete registrations. Athlete registration is a well-established part of the sport. It is essential that competing athletes are registered with the club as well as England Athletics. Club membership secretaries are responsible for making sure that their athletes are registered with England Athletics. This can be done through the club management area of myAthletics portal (which club membership secretaries have access to).
Typical responsibilties:
- Managing the club affiliation renewal
- Managing the athlete registration renewal process
- Progressing athlete registrations for new members
- Maintaining records of all athletes – competitive and social.
- Maintaining records of club members who carry out the role of volunteers, coaches and officials
- Works with the club treasurer to reconcile membership payments, discounts, refunds etc.
- Contacts members in payment arrears to pay club membership dues?
- Updates coaches each week on who has paid their membership and is eligible to train and compete.
- Responsible for managing athlete transfer requests to other clubs.
- Sharing National Governing Body (NGB) registration numbers with members
- Reporting to the club secretary on the progress of memberships (growth/decline) etc.?
- Ensuring data privacy and meeting GDPR obligations as an officer of the club who are a data controller
- Arranging handover or succession planning for the position?
Treasurer
The Club Treasurer is responsible for the managing the flow of money into the club and for allocating and recording how that money is spent to run the club. This is a vital role in a club as the treasurer works to ensure the club is able to meet its day-to-day expenses and prompts the need for increased?club fundraising?where a shortfall in income exists.
The treasurer also works in conjunction with the committee in planning the development of the club e.g. creating annual budgets, estimating funds required for a capital project like a new facility and projecting membership and income for future years to contribute towards prudent planning of the club’s future.
Typical responsibilities:
- Managing the club’s income and expenditure and its assets and liabilities
- Maintain bank account(s) in the name of the Club in accordance with mandate ratified by the Committee
- Producing an end of year financial report
- Identifying a suitable individual to independently review the annual accounts
- Regularly reporting back to the club committee on all financial matters
- Depending on the type of legal structure reporting back to the relevant body as required.
- Efficient payment of invoices and bills
- Proposing amendments to annual and weekly subscriptions as appropriate
- Depositing cash and cheques that the club receives
- Keeping up to date financial records
- Arranging handover or succession planning for the position
- Taking responsibility for personal conflicts of interests and declaring, recording and managing these appropriately
If you wish to know more or would like to contact the club to volunteer your services, contact Noel Mckakly via email makie_2@hotmail.com.
