The Quality Club Programme provides affiliated clubs with the opportunity to demonstrate and measure best practice in running and managing their club. It has replaced the previous ‘Quality Mark’ and Sport England ‘Club Mark’ programmes.
The programme is open for all affiliated clubs. It is a voluntary programme, but recommended for those clubs that want to improve and recognise their work and to use it as a means of recruiting, retaining and celebrating the work of their volunteer members.
It will help you assess the current management and operations of your club, check that you have no gaps in delivery, and help you identify areas for improvement as necessary.
We have produced an online assessment to help you assess your club’s current practices, as well as identify areas for development to ensure that your club has a good foundation to become as safe and well-run as possible.
Good governance, safety and safeguarding are the bedrock for any successful club. They provide a solid foundation for, amongst other things, recruiting, retaining and developing members, improving the volunteer workforce, developing high quality paddling activities, improving facilities and general fund-raising. It is equally important to consider issues around Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) at your club and being reflective of the community in which your club is based.
Evidence of good governance is also something that is becoming increasingly import for clubs seeking funding to support their club activities and Quality Club is a great way for you to evidence that you have appropriate levels of governance in place. Sport England have provided a framework for this with their Code for Sports Governance and we have aligned Quality Club with their Tier 1 recommendations.
The Quality Club programme provides a framework for clubs to assess and, if required, put into place actions to improve their governance, safety, safeguarding and EDI practices.
Your club representatives will be given access to an online assessment and asked to work through the following three stages:
- Complete the assessment – the questions about your club will highlight the areas that you need to focus on to assess your club’s strengths and weaknesses. The answers to your questions will generate a bespoke report with percentage scores and a series of actions that you can work towards to improve governance, safety and safeguarding and EDI practices at your club. The report will also provide you with links to where you can access online support to help you with this process.
- Carry out improvements – The report will allow you to compare your club against best practice and decide whether you are operating at the level that is right for your club or whether there are any areas for improvement.
- Revisit the assessment – As you make improvements in the areas that you have identified you can then revisit the assessment and amend your answers as necessary. This process will increase the percentage scores until you reach the level that you are ready to be approved as a ‘Quality Club’.
Successfully achieving Quality Club will lead to the club being awarded ‘Quality Club’ status. Branding and logos will be made available for you to use at your club, on your website, letterheads or other marketing materials. You will also be awarded with a ‘Quality Club’ plaque to display at your club base.