8.1 Communicating with Members

12 May 2009


Communication is the art of successfully sharing meaningful information with people by means of an interchange of experience. It involves not only verbal communication but many other means such as body language, eye contact or the use of writing.

Communication is essential in our lives because it facilitates interaction, co-operation and collaboration with those that we want to have dealings with.

Good and effective communication should contain the following six elements:

  • Clear
  • Concise
  • Correct
  • Complete
  • Courteous
  • Constructive

 

 

Communicating with Your Members

Attracting and recruiting members is one half of a National Governing Body's job. The other is retaining their interest and developing their sport. Of course, the primary route by which you retain members is ensuring that they have access to good facilities and plenty of opportunities to enjoy the sport at their own level. However, many members do not have as much opportunity to participate as they might wish, so it's vital that you keep in regular contact with them. This way, they stay informed about the organisation, and you keep tempting them with more sport.

 

 

Newsletters

Most National Governing Bodies publish a regular newsletter with a round-up of activities, results, plans, announcements and other business. These can range from simple one-page flyers with text to elaborate multi-coloured magazines with photos and advertising. It all depends on your resources and expertise.

At the basic level, it's very easy to create a simple newsletter using word-processing software. Many such programmes include one or more newsletter templates when they are installed on your computer. Check your Templates folder for examples. You can also ask around your membership to see whether anyone has more sophisticated desk-top publishing software that they would be willing to use. For small numbers, you can print off copies using a domestic printer, but for larger numbers you will probably prefer to use a local printer.

In order to maximise the distribution of your newsletter, you should arrange for the newsletter to be distributed to each member's home address. In terms of managing costs while maximising distribution, many organisations create e-zines which may be downloaded or emailed. Plus, the e-zine concept is environmentally friendly.

 

 

Web

Most National Governing Bodies have established themselves on the Internet. Many people use the search engines to find information on the Internet and this can bring your organisation to the attention of a whole new audience. It's also a great way to regularly update information for your members. This is very easy to do today at minimum cost.

You can also dedicate a place on your website where member clubs can publish their own pages.

Use the free space offered by most Internet Service Providers to create and host your own pages or approach a local computer company to host your website for a modest fee, and recruit a computer-literate member to create and build the pages.

The secret of a good website is that you keep it regularly updated. You might want to consider publishing different pages with the following information:

  • Introduction to the governing body - who you are, what you do
  • Key documents such as constitution, child protection guidelines, rules etc.
  • The range of activities offered by your Association, and location of facilities
  • Calendar of events such as coaching sessions, matches, tournaments
  • Results and reports from recent matches, competitions and events
  • Membership information - how to apply, eligibility, criteria
  • Contact information for key officers

If you have the time and know-how, you can provide a much wider range of online facilities including member discussion forums, team lists, coaching information, committee papers, and so on.

More and more organisations are now publishing an electronic newsletter by email. If you collect the email addresses of your members you can either send them all a simply formatted email using your email software or use any of the various commercial solutions to run an automated email bulk distribution system.

 

 

Online Results

Another excellent use of the web is to publish your league and competition results online for all your members to see. These services enable you to create an area for your competitions and to upload the results after each event; many of them automatically recalculate the rankings.

Both Newsletters and the Web can be good mediums for your NGB to promote itself in a fun way to its members by use of such things as the following: Check wording with Marie.

 

 

Forthcoming Events

  • Date of event
  • Time of event
  • Location
  • Brief information about the event

 

 

The Soapbox

The public will be encouraged to write into the notice board with comments, ideas and suggestions about the NGB. A local sponsor could be brought on board to reward the best letter each month with a prize (100 words)

 

 

The Month in Review

A short narrative summing up the NGB activity for the month (200 words)

 

 

Sports Person of the Month

This could be anyone from a player on the Under 10 panel to an experienced senior or even a new recreational player. This section would include:

  • An action shot of the sports person
  • A profile of the sports person - their sporting achievement, age, occupation, how they got interested in sport, what they hope to achieve in the future, etc. Follow with a question and answer format based interview (100 words)

 

 

Feature - Club of the Month

Each month, there would be a section focusing in a different club - e.g. Moylagh, Ballinrobe, Fermoy, Wicklow etc. Look at any new developments available in the latter club and plans for the future (200 words)

 

 

Contact Details

- Email
- Website address
- Telephone number
- Address

 

 

Customer Relationship Management

Internal communications are vital to every organisation. Good communications within organisations improve their performance. Well-informed employees, and in the case of NGBs, volunteers, are happier and work more productively, but getting it right needs careful attention.

The people at the very top must provide visible leadership and vision, and articulate their organisation's purpose, and CEOs/ Line Managers must be involved to interpret the mission for their teams/ committees. There need to be systems in place to allow this to happen regularly.

There should also be processes for distributing accurate information and meaningful feedback systems. This means that communication is as important from the ground up as from the top down. All these varied elements, and others, should be integrated to achieve effective, enlivening communications serving the organisation's aims.