TidyClub Musings

deantv: Excellence is a habit that success depends uponHave you...

Sun, 19 May 2013 15:15:51 +0800

Excellence is a habit that success depends upon
Have you ever wondered how someone can go from fat to fit?

How a lazy person can become a proactive…
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f0lie-adeux: Such a brilliant photo. Seems weird to think...

Sun, 19 May 2013 15:08:15 +0800

f0lie-adeux:

Such a brilliant photo. Seems weird to think #DavidBeckham won’t be playing #football next season.

8bitfuture: Instabeat monitors and displays real-time...

Fri, 10 May 2013 18:06:36 +0800

8bitfuture:

Instabeat monitors and displays real-time information on your goggles.

The creators of Instabeat say it can fit on any pair of normal swimming goggles, tracking information such as heart rate, calories, number of laps, and flip turns. Heart rate information is displayed through the goggles as a series of different colors indicating how close the swimmer is to their target, and the other information can be downloaded and tracked via a PC.

The device has no buttons, and automatically turns on when placed on your head. It’s currently approaching its Indiegogo goal, with 42 days to go, check out the campaign here.

sportsinstilettos: Very interesting chart. I already thought...

Fri, 10 May 2013 18:05:06 +0800

sportsinstilettos:

Very interesting chart.

I already thought coaches made too much money, but my goodness, football and basketball coaches really make too much money.

I was almost really annoyed because this chart suggests that Maryland football coach Randy Edsall makes more $$ than Maryland basketball coach Mark Turgeon, and that ain’t right, but I looked it up and Maryland should actually be stripey.

According to The Baltimore Sun’s Maryland public employee salary database, Edsall and Turgeon make the same base salary ($400,000) per year. (Whew.)

(The Washington Post broke down the salaries, incentives, and other potential payments of all the ACC football and basketball coaches back in 2011 when Turgeon was hired. Slightly outdated now but still interesting for context.)

(via Infographic: Is Your State’s Highest-Paid Employee A Coach? (Probably))

"You can’t buy passion, and we won with passion today boys."

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 12:16:51 +0800

““You can’t buy passion, and we won with passion today boys.””

- Coach Ayres, Amateur Football Coach

fysurf: by Chris Padfield

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 07:13:35 +0800

fysurf:

by Chris Padfield

Dan Pallotta on changing your mind about your not-for-profit

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 22:39:27 +0800

This talk by Dan Pallotta has a whole lot of relevance to all not-for-profit groups including sporting clubs.

Train yourself

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 10:54:11 +0800

The way a club is usually managed is that the committee shoots from the hip talking about what is required. It may be further discussed and could perhaps be recorded in some meeting minutes but rarely followed up formally.

Create a Task list. Delegate committee members and have a date to have items completed by. Create a date for it to be completed by, make it achievable but stick with it.

Knowing what is actually required to get done. Allowing everyone at the club to see what is required to make the wheels go ‘round will make for better governance, and will get more things done.

It’s a new way of managing the club…but it shouldn’t be.

P.S. …and Yes TidyClub does this all for you… including sending automatic reminders :)

Meeting Issues

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 11:56:00 +0800

Yesterday I met someone from a club who held a committee meeting that went 4.5 hours… the only reason they finished was because it was midnight and people were falling asleep…but they still hadn’t finished the meeting.

Let’s get serious about this. You will never attract or retain committee members if their commitment is 4.5 hour meetings and equally time sapping tasks.

If you’re using TidyClub you’re in luck as we have allowed for these types of things with our meetings. Here is how you will solve it.

Print out list of outstanding tasks.
Ensure Meeting Agenda and outstanding tasks has been circulated before hand - so people can prepare.
Ensure Minute Taker is following our Meetings format where things can only be one of the following. This ensures that an action item has been achieved for each discussion point. Move on as soon as it has been described.

Task Item
To-Do Item
General Information
A Decision

Schedule 5 minutes for each item. If items go beyond 4x this (this should be a rare occurrence) schedule a time for another discussion outside of the meeting.
Delegate a time-keeper. They are responsible for ensuring that time limits are not broken. They need to be bold, brash and unforgiving of abuse of time.
A meeting goes for as long as it has to… do not publish an end time on a meeting.
Minute Taker can instantly send well formatted minutes to all participants and apologies at the conclusion of the meeting.
Don’t invite everyone on the committee if everyone on the committee isn’t required.

Your committee will be happier as they know why they are there, they can see the progress skip along quickly and they are more likely to attend again as they know if people are prepared they don’t get bogged down on issues.

Try it. You’ll see.

Have you hugged your tribe today?

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 11:34:46 +0800

We ran across this image today by @gapingvoid (you can buy it here) but made us think about clubs and how the interact with their tribe (community). Most clubs seem to react to their members and supporters rather than getting pro-active and seeing some hug upside.

Clubs already have a massive advantage of having the tribe based on what they do. They’re not like a business who has to work hard to build a tribe. A clubs group of like-minded people is sitting waiting for you.

So give them a hug, send them an SMS, tell them you are looking forward to seeing them, interacting with them and more.

Good things happen when communities and tribes start talking more.

Volunteer strategy matters

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 12:01:08 +0800

Yesterday I attended a workshop run by our clubs parent association. In truth it wasn’t so much of a workshop but a briefing as to what added administration clubs will have to undertake over the coming 12 months.

With ever increasing administration comes more pressure on volunteers, making for a more unattractive proposition to present to potential volunteers and as a result the less likely volunteers are to carry on with these further burdens on them.

With this in mind execution of these administrative tasks becomes critical. Of course leadership and peoples kindness will mean that things will get eventually get done, but with the revolution of the web, with everyone having a smart phone in their pocket means that the way you approach your volunteers, the way you structure and frequency of your communication, and the model of your organisation needs to change.

Running your club with the wrong strategy, the strategy focused on the 5 committee members will put you in an uphill battle. The alternative is to think hard about your structure, your resources and the benefits your club could gain from having less pressure on more people through resources and platforms like TIdyClub.com.

Your committee should stretch from 5 to 18. The roles and responsibilities of these people should be well articulated and defined. Through increased transparency everyone know what needs to get done and why they are doing it.

However talking to clubs at the workshop presented what I feel is the predominant issue in clubs. Through clubs not changing their strategy merely because they’re used to the one they have been relying on for the last 20 years is lousy strategy, and must change.

Achieving things with clubs

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 14:49:03 +0800

When you and your committee set out to achieve things for the club, important work, work that is going to make a difference, it will never work out that you will find complete approval from all parties.

Trying to please everyone will end in frustration, stymieing your momentum and ultimately failing.

The solution is to please precisely the right people, those that will get it and no more. This will give you enough to get the work out the door.

There are always those that actively discourage. Choose what to hear wisely.

Despite

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 10:01:12 +0800

Many clubs achieve great things off the field (which usually result in great on-field things). Finding a great sponsor, recruiting an excellent coach, attracting better players, finding more volunteers.

My question for you and the club is does this happen in a club because of the structures, tools and methods your club has put in place or despite it? It’s probably a bit of both, but imagine what would happen if you amplify the positive side of things!

Paying for help.

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 11:14:54 +0800

Typically clubs pay for the things that they consider matter (and they do), things like more footballs, coaching talent, training equipment or more drink bottles. Unfortunately there seems to be no desire to get better at the administration things that matter. A long day at work usually sours our desire for administration at the club. We tend to avoid another meeting, reading more notes and dealing with other overheads.

Now consider how much better it would be to get better at:

Recording the numbers
How to hold a meeting
Giving a presentation
Recording minutes
Short-cutting membership registration
Merchandise
Canteen management
How to attract and retain volunteers
How to raise money
Recruiting sponsors

But for most of us we need to wing it. We stumble over the same hurdles as the person before us. Paying for tools to make your job, and the job of the person that comes after you is something worth doing and will allow you to recruit and retain volunteers around you.

Coaching Passion

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 12:44:41 +0800

I’m not a coach, I tried it once a long time ago and maybe I’ll do it again some day. But there are many similarities between a good manager and a good coach. Both are trying to get the most out of their recruits, both are trying to achieve a common team goal.

Some choose to find the passionate and teach them competence. Others try to find the most competent and teach them to be passionate.

One theory is that once someone becomes competent at something they will automatically become passionate. Or maybe after someone finds something they’re passionate about, they will stop at nothing to become more competent within their chosen field.

Maybe if we’re just a little harder, a little stricter, they’ll get better?

Obedience + Competence ≠ Passion

The formula doesn’t work. It never has. You can’t gather up a group of kids and add some footballs, a sprinkling of discipline, a dash of technique and then passion arrives.

Some say that it arrives with success. But if there are 10 other teams all vying for the premiership and they all have equally skilled squads there is a 10% chance of winning. If you have 4 teams in your club, there is a .0001 of a chance of everyone winning. Obviously a rare occurrence, so you as a club, as a coach need to bigger than just a premiership. You need to drive passion as well as competence side by side. Success will come albeit perhaps by different measures.

Recruiting

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 08:57:10 +0800

Our football club has a problem. We have less younger people in our area and wanting to join our club. With ever increasing social networking they’re finding other things to do with their time.

As a football club we need to go beyond simply being able to provide a football to kick around.

We need to show prospective new members that we have something of value, something to offer that they can’t get everywhere else. It could be better parties, functions, and other good times. It could be better facilities, or better people to guide them.

If we’re merely just another football club they’re not going to pick us.

Surfs up for Indigenous Communities

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 10:01:08 +0800

I love this story from the Ausport.gov.au site. Surfing was considered a family and communal event and has a strong alignment with Indigenous culture.

http://www.ausport.gov.au/participating/indigenous/resources/research

Ausport Commission making some huge announcements. Fantastic to...

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 19:53:00 +0800

Ausport Commission making some huge announcements. Fantastic to see!

Club Stagnation

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 15:10:46 +0800

Stagnation is common in business, clubs, and any organisation which has a manager or someone giving directions. They’ll produce a winning formula and more than likely then fall into a routine, and stick with it. This is good for the immediate future of a club, and it may well build the foundation for the long term benefit of the club. But unless they step away, no one will understand what is required and how to do it.

Stepping away doesn’t meaning leaving altogether. It may mean you sit on an advisory board to the club, it may mean that you sit in on committee meetings to lend advice when asked, or be there when others fall into potholes, either way you’re still available.

This is important for those that secede you. Those that participate in the club will get the message that this place is so good, that even the ex-President wants to stick around. It facilitates the sort of message you want your club to broadcast in the loudest possible terms.

Convincing persuasion...

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 15:06:53 +0800

Getting your volunteers on board, to help your club achieve things can be tough. Taking a moment to reflect on how you do this can be overly beneficial.

At TidyClub we are strong believers in increasing the level of transparency within your committee and broader member base. Firstly so everyone knows that things are happening in a legitimate fashion, but secondly and just as importantly is to help with on-boarding your members to the mission the club has before it.

Now the question is do you persuade or do you convince…and there is a difference.

Engineers convince. Marketers persuade. Persuasion appeals to the emotions and to fear and to the imagination. Convincing requires a spreadsheet or some other rational device. Now what if you have both?

It is far easier to persuade someone after they are already convinced, when they have the facts before them. But you must have both to make wonderful things happen.

Luckily you have TidyClub!