Policy on Transactions with Club Members

[alanbrett]

Has any club done some work on a related party transaction policy (ie sales or purchases of services/assets etc to club (including committee) members on terms other than those available to all club members.
e.g. relating to the provision of mapping, coaching services by club members to the club for a fee, event organisation services provided to the club by companies linked to members, sales of second hand equipment etc

Could anyone point me to an example of good practice? I've started working on a policy for our club and would be interested in hearing of tips/potential pitfalls.

[andypat]

I suspect there'll be a few deep intakes of breath around the country reading your query Alan. But I reckon the way things are going (cf BOF considering the possibility of outsourcing some orienteering) its not a bad idea to have a policy in place.

Our club has a number of volunteer coaches and mappers (urban) who do a fair bit of work in their spare time for the club. I cant speak for everyone but I tend to view this as doing my bit, and I get a lot of satisfaction from it. I'm not sure I'm good enough to charge anyway.

My main concern if our club started paying members to do this type of thing would be conflict of interest. The majority of regular volunteers are also committee members (or their other halfs) and so have a say in where the money goes. We've also recently applied for external funding for some coaching activities, the crux of which was that we are giving the opportunity for our "volunteer" coaches to perform. So I guess it might be relevant to getting funding from the likes of BOF too.

Also orienteers can be queer beasts too. If you end up having to price up your events to reflect the additional income you need to pay your coaches, when other clubs are getting this for free, I wouldnt be surprised if you saw some sort of kickback in terms of entries.

[alanbrett]

We have been lucky enough to secure funding for a club night with paid coaching time and separately under the Sportivate programme; other clubs in the SE pay their mappers (we do to an extent, although it is not at commercial rates), a number of clubs in the SE have paid for coaching outside of club nights.

For the southern champs in September (next month!) we have outsourced SI to a third party (no related party but the potential is there).

But given the relatively small pool of orienteers, most of those involved in orienteering businesses will be involved in a club somewhere.

The absence of a policy at the moment is causing a bigger headache than drafting one would, so it seems to be a no brainer to me!

[Oldman]

I think an interesting issue has been raised. A suggestion I can offer is that transparency should be an essential element of any policy adopted, i.e. possibilities to do paid work should be bid for on an open basis, and who is paid to do work should also be openly known.

[roadrunner]

I agree with Oldman's suggestion; the other fairly standard thing is that any Committee member with an interest (e.g. they or their partner is the person who may get paid) declares that interest to the Committee and then takes no part in any discussion or decision. Does BOF not have a similar policy that could be adopted?