Sports club committee roles and responsibilities: who does what
The short answer
A sports club committee usually has three officers, a chair, a secretary and a treasurer, plus members who look after areas such as coaching, juniors, fixtures and volunteers. In Koach Club every committee member gets a club role, and that role decides what they see in the club app.
Sharing out sports club committee roles takes more than putting names on a list. Whoever becomes chair, secretary or treasurer also gets their hands on members' data, and in a volleyball club that often means children's data. Below you'll find the responsibilities of each role, and which role that person gets in the club app so they see exactly what they need.
Which positions does a sports club committee have?
Most clubs have three officers at the heart of the committee: a chair, a secretary and a treasurer. Around them sit committee members who each look after their own area, or sub-committees that report to the committee. How many roles you need depends on the size of your club. With a handful of teams, one person often covers two; a big club has its own sub-committee for juniors and for fixtures. What your constitution or bylaws say, and who can sign on the club's behalf, varies by country and by club; this article doesn't cover that. It's about who does what, and about the question that follows straight away once you use a club app: who needs to see what?
These are the roles you'll often find in a volleyball club:
- Chair: leads the committee and the AGM, keeps the club on course and is its public face.
- Secretary: post, email and minutes, the membership list and messages to members.
- Treasurer: budget, membership fees, arrears and the year-end accounts.
- Coaching lead: coaches, coaching policy and picking the teams, often with a coaching sub-committee.
- Youth coordinator: the junior teams, their coaches and contact with parents.
- Fixtures secretary: the match schedule, the venues, and who referees, keeps score or is on hall duty.
- Volunteer coordinator: who does which duty, from the bar to setting up the hall.
- Welfare officer: appointed by the committee and often given a seat on it, but works independently of it.
Want to see on one page how the committee, the sub-committees and the teams fit together? Put it in a structure chart for your club.
We set up Koach Club with you. There's no trial on Club: tell us how your committee splits the work, and together we'll work out which role fits whom and get your teams and coaches ready. Coach a team yourself? Then you can start with it in the app right away.
Book an intro call Start with your own teamSports club committee roles and responsibilities, and what each person needs
Chair
The chair runs the meetings, holds the club's policy together and speaks for the club to the local council, the governing body and sponsors. They don't have to do everything themselves, but they do need to see how the teams are doing: does every team have a coach, are players turning up, are juniors moving up through the club? For that they need a view of all the teams, not of what each member pays.
Secretary
The secretary is the club's memory. They answer the post and the email, take the minutes of committee meetings and the AGM, and keep track of who is a member. Most messages to members come from them too. For that they need contact details and a way to reach every member at once. Often they're also the one who sets up the club app and gives others access.
Treasurer
The treasurer draws up the budget, keeps an eye on spending, tracks who still owes their membership fees and presents the accounts at the end of the year, often after an independent examiner has checked the books. They need names, contact details and amounts. What they don't need: a coach's notes on a player, or next season's team selection. How to track fees in an app without accounting software is covered in tracking membership fees in your volleyball club.
Coaching lead and youth coordinator
The coaching lead deals with the volleyball itself: which coach gets which team, how the teams are picked and what happens at practice. In a bigger club a coaching sub-committee does the work and one of its members sits on the committee. Juniors often have their own coordinator, who supports the youth coaches and deals with parents; everything that lands on their plate is in the youth coordinator's responsibilities. To follow what happens in the teams, neither of them needs members' contact details. Anyone who also picks the teams or phones parents needs a broader role.
Fixtures secretary and volunteer coordinator
The fixtures secretary matches home games to the venues, sorts out rearranged matches and makes sure the officials the club provides itself are ready for every home game: a scorer, someone on hall duty and, in many leagues, a referee as well. The volunteer coordinator shares out the other duties: the bar, setting up, the club day. Both roles run on rotas and on fairness, because everyone wants to know who has already had their turn. They need the member list and the overview of venues and duties, not the finances.
Welfare officer
The welfare officer is the point of contact for concerns about behaviour. The committee appoints them, and in many clubs they have a seat on it, but they have to stand apart from the people a concern might be about: someone with a complaint about a committee member or a coach needs to be able to go to someone independent. They work confidentially and one to one, so they need no access to coaches' notes or to every member's address. More about the role and who to choose is in the club welfare officer.
Volleyball section lead in a multi-sport club
If volleyball is one section of a club with several sports, a main committee sits above all the sections. It usually handles membership and fees centrally. The volleyball section lead, or a small section committee, does the rest: coaches, teams, venues and matches. For the volleyball players that makes them chair, secretary and coaching coordinator in one, until they share those jobs out.
Which Koach Club role fits which committee role?
In Koach Club you add committee members with one of five roles: Club manager, Treasurer, Board member, Technical manager and Confidential adviser. The role isn't just a label: it decides which parts of the club dashboard someone sees. Here's how to match them to the positions above.
| Committee role | Role in Koach Club | What that role sees |
|---|---|---|
| Secretary, or whoever runs the app | Club manager | Everything, including Admins and the domain for club email |
| Chair | Board member | Everything except Contributions, Admins and the email domain |
| Treasurer | Treasurer | Contributions, the member list with contact details, and sending club announcements |
| Coaching lead, youth coordinator | Technical manager | The Team log and members' names and teams; changes nothing |
| Fixtures secretary | Board member | Match day, Venues and the member list, among others |
| Volunteer coordinator | Board member | Club duties, the bar duties and the member list, among others |
| Welfare officer | Confidential adviser | Names and teams, and sending club announcements; no contact details, no Team log |
| Volleyball section lead | Club manager | Everything for the volleyball section |
Two choices are yours to make. A youth or coaching coordinator who only follows along is a Technical manager; if they also pick the teams, they need the Board member role, because Team selection belongs to that role and not to the technical manager. And everyone has one role per club. If someone is secretary and treasurer at once, choose Club manager: only that role sees both the contributions and the team selection.
Why the role decides what someone sees
In many clubs the whole committee gets the same access to everything: the shared folder, the member list, the password for the club account. That works until someone leaves and keeps their copies, or until the welfare officer can look up the email addresses and parents of every junior member without ever needing them. In a volleyball club this is often data about minors as well. Then who holds what is no formality.
In Koach Club the split isn't only on the screen. A section your role has no right to doesn't appear in the club dashboard's bar, and the server checks every request against your role again. In the Team log a technical manager sees, per team, the attendance, how much of the plan was done, the coach's report and the notes on players. They change nothing and see no contact details. Why the role is cut this way is explained in the technical manager as a club role.
What a committee member needs in Koach
A committee member needs a Koach account, but no team and no subscription of their own: the club role is covered by the club subscription. The club manager adds them under Admins using that account's email address, picks the Role and taps Add manager. If the committee member has no team of their own, the Club dashboard button is right on the first screen after logging in; if they also coach a team, they'll find that button under Profile. The dashboard only shows the sections that belong to their role. The steps, and what happens when someone changes role or leaves, are in adding club managers.
Sub-committees, such as a coaching or a youth sub-committee, go under Organisation in Koach. And everything the committee has to arrange through the year, from coaches to venues, is in the volleyball season checklist.
Shared folder, membership software or club app?
There are three common ways to give the committee the information it needs, and each has its strengths.
- A shared folder with spreadsheets. Free, and anyone can use it. The catch: anyone with access can also download a file and forward it, and after one season your member list exists in a handful of versions.
- Membership management software. Strong at what it's built for: registration, membership and collecting fees. What happens at a team's practices usually isn't in it.
- A club app with roles, such as Koach Club. Committee, coaches, players and parents in one place, with each role seeing what it needs. Koach is for volleyball only and covers the teams and the work around them.
You can also combine them: membership and fee collection in the system your club already uses, the teams and the committee work around them in Koach.
What Koach doesn't do for the committee
- No membership administration. There's no import of member lists: coaches add their players or invite them.
- No payments. Under Contributions you track who owes what and add your own payment link; Koach doesn't send or receive money.
- No constitution, minutes or annual accounts. Keep those wherever you keep them now. Koach doesn't give legal advice either, and Koach sends nothing to your governing body.
- No club dashboard for ordinary members. A member without a club role sees the club announcements, their own duties and their own outstanding contributions.
What does Koach Club cost for the committee?
Club costs €9.99 per month, or €8.33 per month if you pay yearly, for unlimited teams and coaches. Committee members with a club role pay nothing extra, and players and parents use the app for free. There's no trial on Club: use the clubs page to book an intro call, and we'll set up the club with you. Coach a team yourself? Then try the app free for 14 days with that team first. All prices are on the pricing page; in the App Store and on Google Play you pay the store price in your own currency.
Swap the roles on the night of the AGM. Add the new secretary or treasurer first, and only then remove the person stepping down. That way there's no gap between the old and the new officer, and no former committee member is left with access.
Frequently asked questions
What are the main roles on a sports club committee?
Usually three officers: the chair, the secretary and the treasurer. They take the day-to-day decisions between committee meetings. Other committee members look after their own area, such as coaching, juniors, fixtures or volunteers. Exactly how it's set up, and who may sign on the club's behalf, is in your club's constitution and varies by country.
What does a fixtures secretary do?
The fixtures secretary makes sure the match schedule is settled. They match home games to the venues, sort out rearranged matches and make sure the officials the club provides itself are ready for every home game, such as a scorer, someone on hall duty and often a referee. In Koach Club they get the Board member role. Under Match day they assign a referee, a scorer and hall duty for each home game, and with Assign automatically Koach shares the open slots fairly among the officials.
Can one person hold two committee roles?
Often, yes; check whether your constitution says anything about it. In small clubs the secretary is often the fixtures secretary too. In Koach Club each person has one role per club, so pick the role that covers everything they do. Someone who is both secretary and treasurer becomes Club manager, because only that role sees both the contributions and the team selection.
Should the welfare officer sit on the committee?
In many clubs they do, and that's fine as long as they stay independent. Someone with a concern about a committee member or a coach needs to be able to go to a person who isn't part of that relationship, so don't give the role to a coach or to whoever picks the teams. In Koach Club they get their own role, Confidential adviser: they see names and teams and can send club announcements, but they see no contact details and no coaches' notes.
Does a committee member need their own team or subscription in Koach?
No. A committee member only needs a Koach account: their club role is covered by the club's Club subscription. Club costs €9.99 per month, or €8.33 per month billed yearly, for unlimited teams and coaches; players and parents use the app for free. There's no trial on Club: you book an intro call through the clubs page. Without a team of their own, the Club dashboard button is right on the first screen after logging in.
Give every committee member the right role
There's no trial on Club: book an intro call on the clubs page and we'll set up your club with you, so each role sees exactly what it needs. Coaching a team yourself? Start your 14-day free trial below.
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