Your committee
The secret to a successful local deaf children's society is a strong committee. Our resources aim to empower you by helping you understand the responsibilities of being a committee member and encouraging you to work effectively as a team.
Our series of Good Committee Guides are a valuable resource for anyone taking on any of these roles (Chair, Secretary, Treasurer or Designated Person for Safeguarding).
Equally we have some useful advice, gathered from across the network of local deaf children's societies on how to keep your committee healthy, happy and running smoothly.
Whether you’ve recently joined the committee or you’ve been involved for years, our good committee guides are a must-read. These guides outline the key tasks of the committee roles and include hints and tips to help you manage your individual responsibilities and succeed as a team:
- A guide to being the Chair
- A guide to being the Secretary
- A guide to being the Treasurer
- A guide to being the Designated Person for Safeguarding
Make sure you refer back here when roles change or signpost individuals if they're thinking about taking on one of the roles.
And please do let us know when committee membership changes so we can update our records - and support too if needed. Use this form to let us know.
A task shared is a task halved
Running a local deaf children's society (DCS) is rewarding but does involve some work, so it’s important to divide up tasks fairly and sensibly.
You may find the following resource has some helpful suggestions about roles and responsibilities:
Right person for the right job
Make sure your DCS plays to its strengths and has the right people doing the right jobs. Equally identify what skills are needed and see who has the ability to fulfill them, or perhaps the DCS is an opportunity for individuals to develop new skills.
The following resource is a great exercise to help you identify just that:
In addition to the core committee, it’s good idea to get additional help. Getting your members involved in even small tasks will relieve pressure off committee members and also increase the likelihood of members getting involved in more formal positions in the future.
Take a look under Recruiting committee members below for more information.
We had some lovely suggestions from existing local deaf children's societies who attended the annual meetings in 2017, as to what makes a happy and healthy committee for them.
Committee members
If you’re looking for a new committee member, this guidance can help. It is filled with tips and suggestions about how to effectively recruit committee members from your membership, as well as externally:
As part of the recruitment process, it’s important to ensure that new committee members are properly inducted into their roles. Use this checklist to help welcome new members to the team:
Volunteers
In addition to committee members, it’s good practice to have volunteers who can pitch in and help, but on a more informal basis. This can help to prevent committee members from feeling overburdened, and might even result in volunteers becoming a committee member later down the line.
The Volunteers team have shared some tips about how to encourage your members to become more actively involved in running your group:
Remember that volunteers don’t always have to be parents of deaf children, so why not try and find help from outside of your group? Providing that you follow a proper recruitment and vetting process, individuals who are not already part of your membership could potentially have a lot to offer.
The NCVO Knowhow Nonprofit site also has some good information on recruiting volunteers.