David Stiles
Newport (Salop) RUFC
The timing of the leadership academy could not have come at a better time for our club.
Our chairman who had been in the position for 13 years was suffering from poor health and it would be fair to say was not confident about letting go of the reigns to the next generation. Whilst he has run the club with fantastic efficiency his style has been one of total control, which has had the effect of terrifying any prospective volunteers because they have assumed that they would have to continue to run the club in the same vein.
We first heard about the academy through a flier that was sent round to all the clubs and passed to me at one of our executive meetings. As I was fulfilling the role of vice chairman at the time, I was keen to get involved and also persuaded David Turner to come along as well, as he is very involved with the junior section of the club and is someone who I see as a future chairman of our club.
The Academy and resulting workshop that were held at Broad Street Rugby Club gave both David Turner and myself an opportunity to put a plan in place that has resulted in a complete change in the way we see the club being run. One of the key areas to come out of our session with Sue Stockdale was the absolute need for us to create a strategic plan and have the vision to implement and carry through our intentions. The workshop was particularly helpful in making us realise that there were in fact plenty of members, ex players, vice presidents and supporters who wanted to buy into our vision for the club. They just needed to see that we had a plan.
Once I had sat down with a number of key people within the club and expressed how I saw the club going forward it has amazed me how many volunteers have come out of the woodwork. I have tried really hard to understand my strengths and weaknesses and adapt accordingly when communicating with different people. The role play on the day and subsequent meetings with our partner clubs (Droitwich and Teflord) have helped in this area. It has resulted in a particular success in bringing a father and son back to our club after an absence of three years. At the weekend they could be found in 90 degrees temperature weeding and tidying up the front of the clubhouse and on Tuesday the son was back training.
The club mentor has also proved an invaluable source of information and one that has given me a lot of guidance in our plan to take our club down the limited constitution route.
On June 19 2006 I was elected Chairman of Newport (Salop) RUFC, I suspect the first of your students to successfully achieve their goal. On the Tuesday our coach resigned which was not quite the start I had envisaged. He is now back with us and completely on board and I can put down the result of this to a bit of people management that I took from the workshop. I found the right guy to deal with the situation and have given him all the credit for turning the situation round. I1m not sure I would have dealt with the situation quite in the same way before the leadership academy.
The hard work starts now but for the first time in the clubs history (Well as long as I have been involved) we have a full compliment of executive officers, all positions filled and volunteers aplenty.
The future will throw up all sorts of obstacles and problems and I personally would welcome a periodic workshop that not only helps with the way we lead a team of unpaid volunteers but also concentrates on the actual day to day aspects of running a rugby club, liaison with the constituent bodies and perhaps an overview of what the RFU wants from its club chairmen.
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