TWH Club Welfare

News
25th May 2024

Dear Harriers

 

Following my appointment as Club Welfare Officer at the recent AGM, I wanted to provide an update to you all on what’s been happening since that meeting back in March

 

Assistant Club Welfare Officer – I am delighted to announce that Julie McPherson has agreed to become the Assistant Club Welfare Officer. This is one of our newly created non-committee roles and ensures we have male and female welfare officers available should anyone in the club need support.  Julie will be undertaking the Adult Welfare training course with the EA shortly with her appt to be confirmed by the committee when it next meets on 3rd June.  Thank you for stepping up Julie.

 

Committee Email – As you may have seen recently, all committee members now have a club email account. Unfortunately, we cannot send from these but incoming email to these accounts is redirected to our personal accounts. This serves two purposes:

 

  1. Members can contact any committee member without needing to know a personal email address. 
  2. When committee members change, the club email account is simply redirected to the new committee member.

 

All committee position addresses can be found here: https://www.twharriers.org.uk/club-rules/ under ‘Committee’ but the email address for club welfare is welfare@twharriers.org.uk which is also copied on this email. Email to this address will deliver to both Julie and I so that we may then decide who is most appropriate to deal with the matter raised.

 

Adult Safeguarding – At our last meeting in Apr, the committee adopted the Adult Safeguarding Policy and Process on behalf of members as required by the Club Safeguarding Code of Conduct.   These can be found on the club website here: https://www.twharriers.org.uk/safeguarding-policy/ These documents are maintained by UK Athletics Lead Safeguarding Officer and ensure we follow an up to date, standardised and well understood process for everyone’s benefit should it ever become necessary.

 

Safeguarding Club Standard – You may recall at the AGM, we spoke about the Club Standards and that whilst still optional, the committee felt that these may become mandatory for affiliated clubs. Well, on 3rd April England Athletics announced that ‘Club Standard 6 – Safeguarding’ is to become a mandatory requirement for clubs to reaffiliate from April 2025: https://www.englandathletics.org/news/club-standards-obtaining-the-safeguarding-standard-by-2025/ . I am pleased to say that following the AGM, Tunbridge Wells Harriers are fully compliant to this and all the standards and are therefore fully EA Club Standard Accredited.

 

What’s Next – The committee will be reviewing/adopting several more templated UKA/EA policies in the coming months covering but not limited to Inclusion, Privacy, Grievance & Discipline and Anti-Bullying. This will ensure we have clear, well understood policies in place to assist in the running of the club which can be updated by the committee as needed. This will also allow for a proposal from the committee to simplify the Club Constitution & Club Rules at the next AGM.

 

That’s all for now. Please do get in touch with me or Julie if there is anything you would like to discuss or propose we look at.

 

Thanks

Colin

TWH Club Welfare Officer

welfare@twharriers.org