Posts Tagged: leadership

Training and Leadership of 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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Sport Club Leadership — Do They Get the ‘Point’?

February 05, 2013

How a Point System Can Assist with Club Compliance

James Wayne, M.S.
Coordinator-Sport Clubs
Illinois State University

Do you have difficulty with Sport Clubs not attending meetings or submitting paperwork by established deadlines? Who doesn’t, right? Whether it is forgetfulness, busyness or complete disregard for the program; some groups just find a way to not get it done.

As part of our Sport Club program assessment and benchmarking project with state, peer and national institutions completed this past spring and summer 2012 at Illinois State University, two of the many new items we completed and implemented this fall were our:

– Points-Based Funding Model
– Compliance Program

The two processes work hand-in-hand to celebrate club successes and reward clubs for compliance with department expectations. We have tried to focus on the carrot…and not just the stick (which is still necessary sometimes)!

The points-based funding model was developed from a format utilized by the University of Central Florida (thank you Catherine Garland). Clubs earn points for submission of documents by established deadlines and attendance at meetings as outlined by our Sport Club Handbook and annual calendar, amongst other items. At the conclusion of the academic year, those “points” are converted to student-fee allocation dollars for the clubs. Two-thirds of our regular season funding budget is allocated based on the points their club has earned in the current year toward their upcoming academic year’s budget. It is a bit of delayed gratification at work, but it encourages our clubs to have strong, committed leadership each and every year. We utilize 10 total categories including club travel, registration, trainings, meetings and club sanctions in which clubs can earn points.
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Classifying Sport Clubs through Leadership, Education and Service

January 17, 2012

Eric Ascher
Competitive Sports Coordinator
Department of Recreational Sports
University of Florida

There are a many ways to classify Sport Clubs. Some programs organize clubs based on characteristics of that sport/activity itself with the following criteria as a guide:

  • level of risk
  • frequency of travel
  • presence of a coach
  • type of sport (team, individual/dual, martial arts, performance sport)
  • organization purpose (competitive, recreational, social, instructional)

About four years ago we decided to create a Classification System based on criteria related to merit or achievement. It would also serve as a means of providing an incentive to clubs in the budget allocation process.

After doing some research with other schools to see what kind of ideas were out there, but not finding exactly what we were looking for, we decided to align our Classification System with our tenets of Leadership, Education and Service. More specifically we wanted to be intentional about fostering an environment of learning, development and involvement for our students.

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