Policies and procedures (written and un-written) are used in an organisation to guide decision making and provide transparency. Irrespective of size, all bowls clubs should adopt a series of basic policies and procedures.
Your club should have a set of these base line documents that all participants can refer to and usually would contain policies such as:
- Member protection
- Codes of conduct for players, committee, officials, coaches and volunteers
- Judicial process and Dispute resolution
- Other policies relating to your club (Alcohol, smoking, transportation, etc.)
The combination of these policies applied to activities at your club will also assist in dealing with certain risk management issues as many policies outline preventative measures to the issues addressed.
Once policies are in place it is important that they are regularly reviewed and updated where needed. If the policy is an adopted one, then this review will include ensuring that the policy is the most recent one.
Policies are only as good as the people who use them; the most common mistake made by clubs is not actively referring to their policy to guide decisions. The club should ensure that all committee members and club members are aware of the relevant policies that impact on their participation.
Below is a collection of sample club policies:
Below is a collection of real world club policies