V4V Good Practice Case Studies: England Netball

Pillar 1 – Volunteer strategy and planning

Pillar 2 – Volunteer recruitment and deployment

Pillar 3 – Volunteer management and retention

Pillar 4 – Volunteer development and training

Focus of volunteer intervention: Assessing volunteer needs – good governance in Netball

When all Netball Counties and Regions completed the governance health check for the first time every committee found they had gaps in their governance that they needed support to address. This was important as volunteers elected by England Netball members to lead the sport locally become responsible for the effective running of local netball organisations. This means each county and regional committee is jointly responsible for ensuring that they have the right structure, people, communication, standards and conduct and policies and procedures to make netball happen locally.

England Netball’s Governance toolkit; how they guide netball organisations around good governance and where they host the volunteer involvement principles.

Creation of England Netball’s Governance Toolkit designed to assist Counties and Regions in achieving Tier 1 of A Code for Sports Governance by meeting the eight mandatory requirements of the code. The toolkit contains guidance on volunteer involvement principles and other topics including reviewing committee governance, developing constitutions, running meetings, supporting diversity within organisations, evaluating volunteer skills, sharing information with stakeholders, managing conflict, financial procedures and decision making, and managing risk.

Every resource in the governance toolkit was co-produced and tested by volunteers from a wide range of committees across netball to ensure it was practical and simple to use. Where possible real volunteers shared their tips for success across each element of good governance. England Netball also provides a ‘Care Package’ of tools and videos for sports clubs and leagues that volunteers running these organisations can access.

Navigating the toolkit was problematic for some users, so a ‘how to’ guide was created which helped to address this issue.

Committee volunteers in regions and counties have greater understanding of the requirements of tier 1 of A Code for Sports Governance. The toolkit is used to train and increase the knowledge of committee members in meeting the requirements of the code and to support the achievement of tier 1 of the code.