As a fairly new club, set up in 2016 as a Community Interest Company (CIC), Chelsea Handball Club created a vision and mission statement committing to:
This vision was underpinned by the desire to be a family club providing both competitive opportunities and a safe, positive environment where people could just be active.
The club have experienced lots of benefits to rethinking their approach and identifying shared values to support their vision. These include:
The club realised that whilst their vision and mission formed part of its governing documents, they were sometimes not fully reflected in practice or supported by the club’s day-to-day culture.
The club were aware that the policies and procedures they introduced were only part of the solution and recognised that an organisation’s behaviours, values and culture were just as important to achieving its mission.
The club also became aware that it was progressively operating more and more on an individual team basis which, although this originally appeared to simplify administration and support the club’s competitive objectives in the short-term, it was soon realised that it was limiting and not necessarily delivering what the club stood for the mid- and long-term.
In addition, the club realised that there was a consistent significant turnover in members and a difficulty in attracting junior members, despite their ambition to be a family club.
As a result, the club recognised the need to create positive change through its values and culture as it worked to become an inclusive, family-oriented organisation.
The club recognised that the only way to really change their values and culture was to consider the views, opinions and experiences of everyone, not just the club’s committee, which would also help to create buy-in to the journey.
Regular surveys were distributed to find out what Chelsea Handball Club members and volunteers thought the values and culture should be in order to realise its vision and mission.
They used the Club Matters Club Views tool to capture people’s thoughts, how they perceived the club and what they expected from the club.
Approximately half of the responses aligned with the club management team’s views, whilst the other half prompted wider picture thinking and ensured that different perspectives were considered.
The club realised it was important not to treat this as a ‘tick box exercise’.
They ensured that, once their direction of travel had been determined from surveys and other consultation exercises, the required actions were taken and promoted so that everyone within and outside the club could see that they were working towards positive change.
From their consultation across the club, it became clear that there were a lot of different definitions of family and how the club could accommodate a family offer.
The club made a point of working with people who disagreed with the direction of travel to understand their viewpoint and bring them along on the journey.