Running a GAA club

donfers

Hi guys,


I have just been kind of forced into an admin role at a smallish GAA club. I am happy to do the work but we need to increase revenue and membership. Have any of you experience in this area and any kind of tips or advice on fundraising, specific software to use etc.?

All help and tips gratefully received.

The first thing I am going to do is try to get an active board in place, update the website and really start getting the lotto going again - any other ideas?

rebel girl 15

I got into a similar situation as yours except much higher up the ladder of power!

Active board is the very first thing, five or six people willing to drive things forward with a number of others that you can rope it. PRO should be the one updating the website for the majority of the time and that would take that from your shoulders.

Is it a GAA club within a town or village?? What is your underage section like?

nice_guy80

Best of luck.

Delegation and sub committees is the way to go.

Get a board of good people in place - if possible.
Establish 3/4 sub committees to run various aspects. 1/2 board members on each to take notes and give direction with other club members or outsiders - eg business people.

Finance committee - all fundraising and budgetting. Budgeting is crucial in a club.
Parks committee - facilities + maintenance
Coaching + Games - all playing and coaching aspects of club
Communications + social - how the club connects to the community and social events for members and locals.
You could have more sub committees depending on the need.
All these have their own mini meetings and report back to the main board meetings.

This is only a suggestion. There are resources on the GAA site to help you.

Main club board have meeting once a month or 5 weeks.
Club has full meetings 3/4 times a year + AGM.
Setting up ways to communicate within the club is crucial. Everyone needs to know things up for discussion and decisions made. Agendas and decisions emailed out, texts to remind about meetings and events.
Website and Facebook to give members and public news about the club.

Put this in place before the playing season kicks in.
As I said, best of luck.

donfers

Thanks for the feedback guys, some good info there.

Exisiting board members are relatively active - it's a village club. Underage section is large so things looking good on that front. I am not sure if we need several sub-committees as our club isn't that large. However I am finding it quite difficult to begin with to source various bits of information relating to membership, email addresses, phone numbers etc. as there was no real consolidated reporting procedure in place previously and I am tracking down lots of former board members to get bits and pieces here and there. My first task is to get a thorough report on all of our members and then build from that base - I suppose in certain clubs that admin/reporting side of things is already in place but our club needs a major kick in the backside in terms of adopting new technology. Wondering how you guys are storing membership info and how you collated it in the first place? After that is done I'll move on to other things but need to sort out our admin tasks first

Hesh's Umpire

All your membership should be on the GAA's management platform, in fact this is compulsory to have your players/members coverd by insurance schemes.
It's at people.gaa.ie and your County Board should be able to arrange access for you.

donfers

Hesh's Umpire wrote: »

All your membership should be on the GAA's management platform, in fact this is compulsory to have your players/members coverd by insurance schemes.
It's at people.gaa.ie and your County Board should be able to arrange access for you.

Yes I have that info, it is very limited however, just names and numbers - I am looking to get a lot more detailed reports on our membership and send them newsletters, sell them lotto tickets etc. - in the process of setting this up but it's proving difficult. How do you guys cope with all this admin work - is there any specific tool or software that makes this easier?

nice_guy80

donfers wrote: »

Yes I have that info, it is very limited however, just names and numbers - I am looking to get a lot more detailed reports on our membership and send them newsletters, sell them lotto tickets etc. - in the process of setting this up but it's proving difficult. How do you guys cope with all this admin work - is there any specific tool or software that makes this easier?

Usually the best run clubs are also the most successful and have the best facilities.
If you want to get that members' info it will require getting to meet them face to face.
Make sure email contacts are taken on the next membership form. Have a registration night for all members.

Santa Cruz

donfers wrote: »

Yes I have that info, it is very limited however, just names and numbers - I am looking to get a lot more detailed reports on our membership and send them newsletters, sell them lotto tickets etc. - in the process of setting this up but it's proving difficult. How do you guys cope with all this admin work - is there any specific tool or software that makes this easier?

Delegation.

It's all about selecting a good admin team.
Contact details. Depending on the number of teams for a start nominate one person on each panel to get all contact details for the panel. If you know your club you will know who can be relied on to do the job properly.

Non Playing members. Again pick your man/woman to round up contact details of the non playing support

Forget about posting out newsletters. All club info should be available on the club website. The Club PRO should do this or if he/she is not I.T. friendly provide him with an assistant who can do the website. A lot of parishes have local lads who might have given up playing but will contribute in the I.T. area.
Have good links with the local provincial paper P.R.O. who always welcomes stuff to put in the parish news section. This will cover the older members who are not I.T. familiar.
A newsletter could also be produced and displayed in the local shop/petrol station advert board. This will raise the profile of the club and give fixtures, Lotto results etc. If running a lotto have the draw in a different pub in the parish each week to spread the bit of goodwill around.

If you have a female section identify some lady who might be able to organise the club shop stuff e.g Polo shirts, caps, jerseys etc. There are loads of women who would love to take on admin jobs in the clubs but are too reluctant to volunteer. Maybe a young women who has a few boys/girls coming on to the playing stage would be ideal.
This can be a fund raiser too as locals like to have some items linking them to the club and you can add a few Euro per item for fundraising.

Needless to say proper financial accountancy must be in place for handling of registration fees, insurance, proceeds from sale of club gear etc .

nice_guy80

Santa Cruz wrote: »

Delegation.

It's all about selecting a good admin team.
Contact details. Depending on the number of teams for a start nominate one person on each panel to get all contact details for the panel. If you know your club you will know who can be relied on to do the job properly.

Non Playing members. Again pick your man/woman to round up contact details of the non playing support

Forget about posting out newsletters. All club info should be available on the club website. The Club PRO should do this or if he/she is not I.T. friendly provide him with an assistant who can do the website. A lot of parishes have local lads who might have given up playing but will contribute in the I.T. area.
Have good links with the local provincial paper P.R.O. who always welcomes stuff to put in the parish news section. This will cover the older members who are not I.T. familiar.
A newsletter could also be produced and displayed in the local shop/petrol station advert board. This will raise the profile of the club and give fixtures, Lotto results etc. If running a lotto have the draw in a different pub in the parish each week to spread the bit of goodwill around.

If you have a female section identify some lady who might be able to organise the club shop stuff e.g Polo shirts, caps, jerseys etc. There are loads of women who would love to take on admin jobs in the clubs but are too reluctant to volunteer. Maybe a young women who has a few boys/girls coming on to the playing stage would be ideal.
This can be a fund raiser too as locals like to have some items linking them to the club and you can add a few Euro per item for fundraising.

Needless to say proper financial accountancy must be in place for handling of registration fees, insurance, proceeds from sale of club gear etc .

More good advice.

donfers

Thanks for all the advice - things are starting to pick up. We had some good results over the weekend and I have set up a few committees in certain areas where I thought we were lacking.

Since implementing a new online system we have increased our lotto revenue by 14% in our first two weeks of using it and as we push the lotto more, that revenue will climb even further, the online system also helped greatly with our membership, admin and communication issues (PM me if interested, I don't want to advertise the system here but it has worked really well for us so far, saved a lot of time and money).

I have also made great strides in terms of getting the right people involved at the club - active participants who really want to get out there and make an impact. I would like to ask you guys once again how you went about dealing with committee men or board members who weren't really contributing anything and just seemed to want the "status" of a position - we have a few of these around, and to be honest their constant negativity can hinder progress but at the same time I don't want to alienate them.

We have also all agreed on a kind of roadmap plan with set milestones laid out for the next 6 months, 12 months, 18 months and beyond. So far, so good - appreciate all feedback thus far and I'll keep you updated

rebel girl 15

I've had plenty of that, negative people involved just to hold a title. Prior to your next AGM, I'd circulate role descriptors for the different positions within the committees, and the goals that are there for each committee. "Its an information email and is in line with GAA Best practise within clubs that each member knows their responsibilities when going for roles in 2014"

You need to be able to put things in such a way that if they speak negatively about it, it looks like they don't have the best interests of the club when speaking about things. The email above is a way of reminding those people that the title comes with a responsibility, but without doing it directly.

It sounds like fantastic work that you are doing, can you PM me the details of the online system, need to radically change things where I am at the moment and getting a list of registrations and contacts would help!

donfers

rebel girl 15 wrote: »

I've had plenty of that, negative people involved just to hold a title. Prior to your next AGM, I'd circulate role descriptors for the different positions within the committees, and the goals that are there for each committee. "Its an information email and is in line with GAA Best practise within clubs that each member knows their responsibilities when going for roles in 2014"

You need to be able to put things in such a way that if they speak negatively about it, it looks like they don't have the best interests of the club when speaking about things. The email above is a way of reminding those people that the title comes with a responsibility, but without doing it directly.

It sounds like fantastic work that you are doing, can you PM me the details of the online system, need to radically change things where I am at the moment and getting a list of registrations and contacts would help!

I have written out a few information sheets detailing what I expect from each of the committee people and board members but I'm already a bit reluctant to show this as I guarantee a few of them will be annoyed about it, they're already suggesting I am changing things too fast and showing and think I know it all - I am just trying out a few new things, that's all, I appreciate these members and am friendly with them, I hope I don't destroy these friendships by asking them to do a bit more

any other fundraising ideas apart from lotto lads? dinners and quizzes - are they worth organizing? Do they generally bring in a decent ROI?

nice_guy80

donfers wrote: »

I have written out a few information sheets detailing what I expect from each of the committee people and board members but I'm already a bit reluctant to show this as I guarantee a few of them will be annoyed about it, they're already suggesting I am changing things too fast and showing and think I know it all - I am just trying out a few new things, that's all, I appreciate these members and am friendly with them, I hope I don't destroy these friendships by asking them to do a bit more

any other fundraising ideas apart from lotto lads? dinners and quizzes - are they worth organizing? Do they generally bring in a decent ROI?

Lotto is the best way to bring in money consistently.
Table quizzes make some money but are more of a social outlet if you ask me.
Lot of money can be made from a well organised and publicised 5k run in spring or early summer.

No point raising money if there isn't strict budgeting in the club.
I'd get that in place asap.
All the roles of committee members are summarised in the club manual on the GAA website

celticbest

My Club cleared a good amount with a Race Night last, fair bit of organising involved, PM me if you want some more details.

rebel girl 15

I thought I posted about a race night last night?? We ran a smallish one in college, cost us €20 because we did everything ourselves except get the DVD of the races, and we made over €1000, so for a ROI, it is one of the better ones. We sold the horses at €5 a horse, had three or four advertisers and I designed the booklet for it. Ideally, you'd have businesses sponsoring races as well as others taking out half or full page ads, horses could be sold for whatever you think you'd get for them. We didn't really do any gambling on the night, as we had to cancel it and rearrange it for a different night due to circumstances beyond our control.

donfers

I'm hearing good things about last club standing too and also who wants to be a thousandaire? I think the key is to vary these fundraising ideas to keep the novelty of them. Some great ideas here - thanks a lot guys, will be testing some of these out in future

donfers

OK a quick progress report and a few more questions.

We are increasing our revenues through lotto and we also had a very successful race night as suggested here just last weekend. It's incredible really that after doing a bit of basic marketing using social media we managed to attract a good few lotto players based in Dublin, a few in the Uk and one even in Dubai so revenues are increasing a little.

However I have had a few setbacks two, the coach of our senior hurling team is quite ill and has said he can't continue, everyone loves the guy so it'll be tough finding a replacement. We also are having terrible trouble with a waterlogged pitch and even though our pitch maintenance people are trying their best it's just not in very good condition at all - so that's it, some revenue increases but possibly extra expenses on the pitch.

My questions specifically are

- Have any of you ever tried to source a talented coach from outside your club? How did you go about this?

- Best, and if possible cost-efficient way, to deal with pitch issues.

Thanks again

angelfire9

Our club hire an Astros turf pitch and a school hall for training this time of year
Kids give €2 a night