Starting a new sports club can be an exciting, inspiring and daunting experience. For many people, setting up a club is a legacy that they can leave their community for generations to come.
What volunteers need to do:
- Have an interest in volleyball and be willing to spend time running sessions. You’ll need to look after registrations on the night for example.
- Be positive, organised and encouraging, creating a welcome environment for all to join!
- Be on the lookout for and recruit more potential volunteers to assist.
Here following we have covered all the main points you will go through when organizing a social activity.
Associate Clubs
Associate Club is the simplest form of club and the best way to start. The emphasis is on fun, socialising, keeping fit and making friends. Social volley is a great starting point for a new volleyball activity, as it brings people together playing volleyball and grows the interest in the activity, while building the club structure with no rush.
Associate Clubs clubs can participate in some VLY competitions such as Recreational tournaments.
League clubs
League clubs are entitled to participate in VLY National League. They are required to follow specific regulations in order to be eligible to play. This includes a set club structure and club documentation to run the club, and licenced coaches and referee.
These clubs can participate in any VLY competitions.
Beach Volley Clubs
At the moment, beach volleyball in Ireland is not connected to clubs. As in the last few years beach volleyball in Ireland has grown massively in popularity, Volleyball Ireland is working to foster beach volleyball activities in becoming clubs or club connected.
As no Beach Volleyball Club is registered with VLY yet, beach volley competitions are open to all individuals who register.
Find a hall
Investigate halls locally and find out what times are available for you to train in, the hall hire costs, and what volleyball net equipment is available. You could get in contact with schools or other local associations that may run a hall (e.g. Local Sports Partnerships), or directly with VLY, as we can use our contacts to reach out to possible venues.
Most halls will require the group to have Public Liability Insurance. Check this when you are investigating halls. If you need public liability, contact VLY. directly, we can help you out with it.
Activator
Activators are in charge of running volleyball sessions in their community. They will receive administration support from our staff members, training resources and equipment to aid them in delivering sessions.
Activators are the point of contact of associate clubs. They are in charge of requesting benefits from the Social Volley Support Pack.
Activators don’t need to be licenced coaches, but good organisers and administrators. If you would like to have a licensed coach, VLY can put you in contact with one of the coaches in our network, and provide Foundation Level Coaching Courses for all those interested in becoming a volleyball coach.
Promotion Tips
Advertise locally to find people interested in playing Volleyball:
- Put up posters in local shops and companies, schools and gyms
- Send an article to the local newspapers or newsletters,
- Advertise in Free Add Papers
- Share the activity on social media and websites
- Simply spread the word.
Include your own contact to gather responses.
Contact Local Sports Partnerships and VLY to promote your new activity
Keep promoting the activity even after it started.
First Meeting
Whether you are on your own or with a group of friends to organize this activity, there are details you need to decide: hall times and costs, day and time to play, payment per training or fixed fee for a given period of time, equipment and volleyballs needed. You could discuss these at the first meeting, and in case changing your approach.
Also, find out a bit more about the people that respond with interest to your call, most of all what experience they have in volleyball, and who is up for taking an organizational position as tutor or coach.
At this point, the very early stages of the activity are set in motion and you are meeting and playing. Generally, most groups start out with all skill levels playing at the same session. Depending on the number of people attending on a weekly basis, their skill level and even the breakdown of male to female you might as a group decide early on to run different sessions according to the age, level or gender. Just make sure you have people from the group willing to run these sessions and that you can meet the hall hire costs.
