Posts Tagged: sport club officers
February 05, 2013
Christopher Schmoldt
Assistant Director, Sport Clubs
Florida State University
Sport Clubs at Florida State University (FSU) are registered student organizations that have been formed for the purpose of competing and or participating in a particular sport. Each club’s level of competition or activity is unique and is dependent on club leadership. Sport Clubs at FSU are student initiated, student-led and student-managed, providing an opportunity for the development of leadership and other transferable skills, and to contribute to the overall college experience.
Florida State has 45 instructional, recreational, and competitive Sport Clubs for the 2012-2013 school years ranging from Lacrosse to Rugby to Bass Fishing. Sport Clubs at FSU are required to travel or host annual seminars in order to remain an active club within Sport Club Program. This helps to differentiate them from the 600 other organizations on campus. So for example, in the case of Martial Arts groups who may not travel as a group to competitions, they will host a seminar each week with an instructor from their discipline to provide demonstrations to students.
FSU employees 6 student club program assistants who are supervised by a full time professional Sport Club Program Director, who in turn is supervised by the Assistant Director of Intramural Sports and Sport Clubs within the Campus Recreation Department. Due to the number, size and diversity or our Sport Clubs, each club is required to have a minimum of three active officers or leaders of their organization who go through training each year. We require a President, Treasurer, and Safety/Travel Officer while also encouraging the use of a Vice-President, and Secretary.
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July 16, 2011
Benjamin B. Stubbs
Assistant Director, Programs
University of Tennessee
It is a beautiful evening on the river. The water is smooth under the rowing shell, the air is crisp, and the white clouds in the sky are starting to turn pink and orange. But Wallace isn’t admiring the sunset. Instead, he cranes his neck to see into the coach’s boat, trying to count the number of personal floatation devices. The other club members listen to the coxswain, focus on their form, and maybe think about how fun it is to row at night. Wallace, a junior in engineering and the Crew Club president, is thinking about safety.
When it comes to the risk associated with sport club activity, student officers are the last line of defense. Recreation managers devise policies that limit the risks inherent in club activity. And yet, club practices, travel, and social activities are often beyond the scrutiny of sport club administrators. Many risk management decisions and responsibilities are left to the student leaders. However, risk management is only one of the many responsibilities of sport club officers. Officers organize practices and events, communicate with members, staff, and other teams, complete paperwork, manage inventories, and more. Each of these responsibilities is influenced by their specific roles as club leaders, and by their attitudes about their club.
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May 12, 2011
Bob Gough
Aquatics & Sport Club Coordinator
Campus Recreation
University of North Carolina Wilmington
Sport Club professionals spend hours developing and writing policy manuals with the hope that club members read and understand each concept. We know through experience that this is seldom the case. What can we do to help reinforce the messages our club officers need to know? Member training can be part of the solution to this problem.
The Sport Club program at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) has experienced growth each of the last seven years. The Sport Club Council (SCC) meeting was a great opportunity to include training topics – when the total number of clubs were smaller. When we reached the 20 Sport Clubs mark, the Sport Club Council meetings were taking 2 hours, and we realized that the Sport Club Council meeting was no longer the best place to train our club officers.
We began researching training programs from other sport club programs, new member orientation programs for fraternity and sorority programs, and the employee training program from the UNCW Discover Outdoor program. The process lead to the development of a weekly one-hour sport club member training program we named the ‘Sport Club Management Series’.
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