D1- Critically evaluate the impact and success of voluntary sector sports clubs in the UK.
Voluntary sports clubs have a big impact on the local community. There are about 150,000 voluntary sports clubs in the UK, 46% of which have been in existence for 30+ years. Between 12.5-14% of the population are members of a voluntary sports club. Voluntary sports clubs like Croygas make a substantial contribution to the community by providing the opportunities for social interaction both for volunteers and participants. They allow people in the local area to get together and socialize with each other which can have a successful impact on the community because people can make new friends and go out and enjoy themselves. This creates a friendly atmosphere within the voluntary clubs which is important because it will attract more people to come and play sports at the club.
Croygas Sports Club has a massive impact on the community in that they believe in having the correct ethics and values that will allow everyone from all age, sex, and race to join the club. Voluntary sports clubs encourage members to show respect for each other, fair play, equal opportunity and they encourage members to enjoy themselves. This will have a positive impact on the community because people will be more encouraged to come and join these clubs that have equal opportunity for everyone. This could have a successful impact on the children that get bullied because of their race, religion etc. Croygas will give them the same opportunity as anyone else because they believe that it is important to give everyone equal opportunity to enjoy playing the sport that they love.
Croygas is a very successful club and it has a very high reputation for the level of football that is played. There are around about 40-50 adult members at the club, all of which play for the football and cricket teams at the club. Of these adult, a large majority of them use the bar area after matches to have a drink and socialise with other team members of the squads, and some of the squads arrange meals after the matches where they invite the players and their wives to come and dine with each other. More than half of these players have good access to the facility because they all live in the local area. Therefore they can get to the facility easily and they can use the facility as often as possible. Also because of the clubs friendly environment, they will come more often than not to meet new people and socialise. The club benefit financially from the amount of people using the bar. They will take in a lot of money from the public using the bar especially on match days when the bar area will be more packed out with players and their families. Also the amount of money that they receive from sponsorship and membership fees all adds up. This money believe it or not is of great benefit to the community, because with this money the club can refurbish parts of the club and improve the clubs grounds, changing rooms etc. The community will benefit from using a highly developed club and they will enjoy a club that is better decorated and looked after.
Croygas is a very successful club, the football teams are doing very well in the top leagues at all age groups. And due to this success, parents have recognised this and feel that they should send their child to this club and therefore the Croygas now has a big youth setup. The improvement in the grounds and equipment and qualified coaches has been beneficial to the club, because it has seen an increase in the amount of players in the youth teams wanting to develop at the club. There are around 80-90 junior players currently playing football, cricket and badminton at this club. That’s about 160 parents that will some time visit the club and socialise. The fact that the parents come to the club and take their children is beneficial because it gives the parents an opportunity to meet the other parents of the squad. Also the children will develop new friends also and they too can learn to socialise as well as playing football.
Part 2
P2- Identify the funding, procedures and systems that are successfully used in voluntary sector sports clubs.
Voluntary sports clubs are funded in a number of ways. They receive annual subscription fees from players from the teams which help massively with the teams buying the equipment that they need. When I was a member at the club, because the pitches at Croygas aren’t not a good standard we had to hire pitches else where. Also we had to rent out the training facilities, pitches, buy corner flags and linesmen flags, and goal nets, kit and tracksuits.
Match fees- People that play in the team matches have to pay a match fees, this is usually £5-£10 depending on the importance of the match or the club. The club will make a lot of money through this because they might have a lot of teams in the club like cricket teams, football teams etc and these teams are usually about a 15 man squad.
Grants from governing body such as F.A. will give money to these voluntary sports clubs in order to help the clubs with the funding. Because the government believes in giving opportunity to these clubs, they want to help them create the right conditions for people to use and enjoy using the clubs so the government is giving there full trust to these clubs to use the money wisely.
The clubs will get sponsorship deals and the sponsorship companies in return will get advertisement from these clubs. Also lottery funding will help a club with major projects such as flood lighting on pitches, refurbish changing rooms etc. Also clubs set up fund raising events to help the club to raise money e.g. race nights, dinner dance, BBQs, quiz nights, fete, and club days such as 5-a-side football tournaments. These are to help out for projects that the club wants to do.
The government gives money to these voluntary sports clubs e.g. loans, grants. A club might decide to take out a loan from the government in order to cover for the costs of running the club, buying all the equipment, keeping the place neat and tidy etc. the club however will have to pay the government back and they can do this by paying it monthly or annually.
Part 3
Croygas Sports club has many roles and responsibilities that people have to fill. Here is a list of these roles and responsibilities of the personnel involved in the club:
The most important member of the club is the president. He is the founder of the club and has the biggest responsibility of looking after Croygas and making sure that everyone is doing their jobs properly. He also chooses to hire and fire staff, it is his decision how to use the money that the club raises and what to spend it on. He has a big impact on the club, because he has helped it to develop the club into a family orientated club that is currently highly successful in the football and cricket leagues.
The chairman of Croygas has a more hands on role at the club. He has a big influence on the club and is always ever present in meetings and committees. He will be informed and up-to-date on all the information that is happening at the club and it his job to keep the president informed with this information. He will work with the president, deciding on future plans together and ways of improving the club.
The secretary is just as important to the club as the president or the chairman. She has to sort out all the paper wok into files making sure that it is all organised and easy to access. A lot of the work the secretary does doesn’t get seen, they do things like answering the phones, writing and sending out letters, organise things such as quiz nights and fixtures etc. The secretary is the main organiser at the club and plays a vital role in making the club successful, without the secretary, there would be nobody to organise paper work and keep files etc.
The treasurer deals with the financial side of the business. They have a lot of control over the money and how the money is pumped into the club. The treasurer has a lot of work to do with things like organising fund raising activities, sponsorship, match and sub fees etc. There is a lot of organising to do and the president relies on the treasurer’s advice to decide what to spend the clubs money on.
The social secretary and the publicity officer both play similar roles as the secretary; they deal more with organising events to help raise money, and not so much paper work as the secretary.
Part 4
There are a number of problems that a club faces, and they would have to devise an action plan to improve the operation of the club. These problems include relegation. If a team is relegated from the Premier League to the Championship, then they will lose money in a number of different ways. Firstly the stadium won’t have as many fans coming to watch the games because they are of lower standard and they want to see the best teams play, therefore they will lose money because they aren’t getting the same gate receipts as the previous season. Some of the best players in the relegated team might attract interest from bigger teams, and the chances are that these players will want a move away from the relegated team because they want to play at the highest standard possible. Also teams will find it hard to reject a respectable offer for their best player, because they need the money to help with the finances, and because of the loss of money due to relegation, the club might not be able to afford the wages that these players are earning, so they might be forced to leave the club that can pay the wages of the players. Relegation can give clubs a problem regarding money from television companies such as Sky Sports and the BBC, the teams won’t be shown on the television and will lose money because of this. Teams that are in the Premier League receive a lot of money from these companies so that they can go television.
D3- Critically evaluate the constitution, methods of finance, structure, procedures and systems for a selected voluntary sector sports club, drawing valid conclusions.
Croygas is funded in many ways including lottery funding, national grants, sponsorship, membership fees, match fees, fund raising nights etc. We can see the effectiveness of the clubs finance just by taking a look at the club. Croygas is obviously financially successful because the club has recently refurbished the changing rooms and bar area. The club now looks smarter and cleaner it obviously a project like that would’ve cost the club quite a lot of money. The club relied on many resources of finances including money from donations given by parents which was £2000. This helped a lot and the donations were an effective way of making money, and it shows that the parents were willing to help out to improve their club for their child to use.
As well as the donations, the club set up fund raising events such as the quiz nights and fun days where the club managed to receive £300. The club charges £12 a ticket to the quiz event and about 150 people turned up to this dinner and dance quiz night. As well as the money from the tickets, the bar area would be able to raise at least £200 from the people wanting to buy drinks and snacks. Other events such as Saturday Night Dance Fever would raise money from people wanting to go to the event, there are BBQ days during the summer that appeal to many of the parents because they can chill out with all the other parents and enjoy themselves in the lovely weather. The club would again raise about £300 through tickets being sold for parents etc. Another good fun raising event is the Fantasy Football League, where every summer there would be a 5-a-side tournament where teams can enter a team but they have to pay and entry fee to play. The competition and the chance of winning a prize appeals to many people and the club raises a lot of money through this aswell.
When I was playing for Croyags, we had to pay a yearly membership fee that would enable each player to get registered and be allowed to play. We had to pay £120 each season and the club would therefore raise about £3000-£4000 because there are many different football teams at the club.