Ineffective booster club management is a situation that affects many booster clubs all over the world. While we all hope and strive for a perfectly run organization, unfortunately, bad apples do try and ruin things here and there. While not every poor situation leads to legal issues, court fees, and bad press, having ineffective booster club management teams in place can still be catastrophic for the group.
This can include things like:
- Zero or negative revenue growth
- Volunteer disenfranchisement
- Community disenfranchisement
- Lack of motivation
- And disruption in the school and club relationships
If you find that your booster club management members are doing any of these things and causing your booster club to fail and suffer as a result, you may need to consider the option to remove poor booster club managers.
How to Handle Bad Booster Club Managers
Handling bad booster club management teams or individuals is something that should be covered in your booster club Bylaws to some extent. There should be a section dedicated to the grounds for removal from office and the steps to do so. If you find that your current situation is one that warrants such measures, then make sure that you follow along with the booster club Bylaws and rules.
If police or legal actions are necessary, make sure to follow along with those in accordance to the booster club, school, local and federal laws so that your booster club can handle the situation correctly and efficiently.
This includes gathering the proper amount of written documentation and proof to substantiate your claims. Simply saying someone did something is one thing, but being able to prove it is a much stronger case.
In most cases, the issues should be pretty minor and you should be capable of solving them without resorting to such dramatic and drastic measures. In these cases, you can handle ineffective booster club management teams with words and understanding.
How to Resolve Ineffective Booster Club Management Team Issues
If you’re lucky enough to catch an issue while it’s young you can keep it from escalating by simply talking with the team or members involved. Here are a few steps that you can take before getting the police involved and to help settle disputes before they become worse.
Gather evidence of Ineffective Booster Club Management
Make sure that your issue is actually an issue and find evidence that proves it exists. It’s easy for an outsider to see a situation and not understand it from their perspective. By looking at the situation harder and finding undeniable evidence that it exists, you can make sure that it’s a legit claim instead of just a conspiracy theory.
Talk with the booster club
Talk to other members of the booster club and make sure that they see it too. Figure out how they think the situation is affecting them and the booster club in general.
Talk with the people directly involved
Speak with the ineffective booster club management team to figure out what is going on. Share with them any evidence you have and mention some details from other booster club members about how the situation is affecting the group as a whole.
Be discrete about names, and give the information as a general thing to keep name’s from popping up and creating any rifts between members. You may find that the situation is actually a misunderstanding, or that it was purely accidental.
Plan a course of correction
Whether it was purely accidental or not, chances are high that there is a way to correct the situation. In many cases, there may even be many different routes that you can take to correct the problem.
Work with the ineffective booster club management team and the booster club to brainstorm ways to correct and better the situation. Not only that, but you can work with them and the group to make sure that these issues don’t repeat themselves and may even find that your group is in a better place in the end as a result.
Take action and follow up
Now that you’ve decided on a course of action that makes sense for the booster club, take action. Have the ineffective booster club management team join forces with other volunteers or do it on their own, depending on what the case may be. Make sure to give them the chance to fix the wrong as that is both a learning experience as well as a sign of trust.
After some time has passed, go back and do a follow up. Whether the follow up happens a week or month later should be determined by whatever the original issue was as some are more time sensitive than others.
Make sure that the proper plan and steps were being taken to avoid the original issues and if they are, great. If they weren’t you may need to escalate the situation.
Know when to escalate the situation
Not every situation needs to be escalated but if after the issue was addressed and a plan of action was put into place, nothing changes or it gets worse, you may need to escalate. If ineffective booster club management teams continue to make poor decisions, you need to look at solutions for removing bad booster club management teams so that the situation can be resolved by a new group of trusted people.
Your solutions can be as simple as removing them from the team and replacing them with new volunteers or if the situation warrants police or legal intervention then those actions may be sought as well.
For any problem that you are unsure of the proper procedure for, make sure to check your booster club Bylaws. If a situation or proper course of action isn’t covered in the Bylaws, make a point to bring that up at the next meeting so that an amendment can happen and new situations can be added so that future booster club members will know what to do.
While not every booster club will have to seek extreme measures and most days things will run smoothly, having a plan of action in place for situations ranging from minimal to extreme can be a great asset to the booster club. With that, situations can be diffused and the booster club can continue running with minimal disruption.
