Running a Booster Club often comes with a major learning curve. The leadership team must research the best practices, get a pulse on the student body, understand advertising, learn how to plan massive events, understand fundraising techniques, and a seemingly endless list of other tasks. By having a booster club leadership transition plan, you can avoid losing the years of club progress and information!
It’s hugely important that organizations have a strategy for booster club leadership transitions. This plan ought to be all-encompassing, and ensure that the next round of booster club leaders are well-informed and set up for success. It will help the next president, vice president, treasurer, and secretary jump the many hurdles that come with a transition of power.
Booster Club Leadership Transitions Include Passing On Club Organizational Documents
Ideally, your Booster Club leadership team has taken thorough notes throughout its time in power. Maybe it’s a series of documents with specifics on event planning, a list of all the log-in information for the social media accounts, a calendar with important dates for financial deadlines or quarterly fundraisers, a drive with past Booster Club photos and the history of the club, or orders from past fundraisers. Whatever documentation you have will be extremely helpful for the next group.
Imagine this scenario: Your Booster Club is planning to sell T-shirts for a fundraiser, but you’re not sure how many you should order. You’re nervous about over-ordering and losing money, or under-ordering and losing the opportunity to make more money.
Having the receipts or documentation of similar orders from previous years can help you gage the amount of students who would be interested in buying shirts this year. It could also help you to know how to price your shirts, when to sell them, and how to advertise the T-shirt sale.
Passing off any and all documents is an excellent way to share knowledge with the next team and should be a part of your booster club leadership transition plan. Further, it’s easier for the next team to add to or edit preexisting documents than to create their own.
One-on-One Booster Club Leadership Transition Meetings
After your Booster Club’s elections, the current and future leader in each position ought to have a one-on-one meeting. It can be initiated by either person, and is a great opportunity for the in-coming leader to ask the out-going leader specific questions about the best ways to complete their tasks. Here are some things each position might want to cover in their power transition meeting.
- President: The current president should prime the future president about how the club operates and how to lead the leadership team. The president-elect should be given resources to learn more about the club’s history, and should have a firm understanding of legalities. Likewise, he or she should be made aware of any in-house Booster Club traditions or annual fundraisers or events.
- Vice President: While the vice president’s role may vary from club to club, he or she may be in charge of recruiting and overseeing the club volunteers. In this case, the past VP can share their best practices for finding volunteers and delegating tasks to them.
- Treasurer: The current treasurer should explain the Booster Club’s accounting system to the new money keeper. Likewise, they ought to relay the dates for tax filings, organizing renewals, and how and when to obtain local permits. The new treasurer should receive all past documents related to fundraiser planning, to inform their future efforts.
- Secretary or Communications: First and foremost, the upcoming secretary (or communications director) should be given log-in access to all of the booster club’s social media accounts, email address, and any other platforms the club uses to advertise or communicate. He or she should be briefed on how to use each. Likewise, the former secretary ought to introduce the new one to any outside correspondence (i.e. local partnering businesses).
Full Team Transitional Meetings
One of the final steps your booster club leadership transition plan can take to ensure a successful transition of power, is a series of three group meetings.
- We’d recommend a meeting between the past year’s leadership team and the upcoming leadership team. This is a great final opportunity to ask specific questions about positions or booster club leadership in general.
- The new leadership team should have at least one meeting together before the semester or year ends. Here, they can further clarify their roles and expectations for the upcoming season. Each leader can also begin to establish him or herself as the new president, VP, treasurer, or secretary.
- Once the new leadership team has met, it’d be great to follow it up with a meeting for the entire booster club: all leaders, members, community partners and volunteers included. This group meeting will reassure everyone that the leadership transition was smooth and successful and garner excitement for the upcoming year.
While three back-to-back meetings may sound tiresome, we’re sure each one will be well worth it and ensure that your booster club leadership transition is as smooth as can be. Meeting with the past leadership team, meeting as the new leadership team, and finally, meeting as the new booster club will inspire confidence that the booster club lives on!
Helpful Resource for Your Booster Club Leadership Transition
Booostr’s Booster Club Team Management tools can help you pass the baton without drama, fuss, or worry. When your club creates a free profile on Booostr, it has access to document storage and contact management resources and profile user management, access and ability to pass off profile management to a new person or team. If your Booster Club is in a season of transition, make create or claim your profile today!
Summary
As students graduate or interests change, new openings emerge for parents in booster club leadership teams. While everyone has new ideas and strategies when in leadership roles, it’s important that traditions, helpful practices, and important tasks aren’t forgotten in the booster club leadership transition process.
Booster Clubs can withstand the test of time (aka make it from one year to the next) if they pass along key club documents, meet with past leaders, and meet as a team. Detailed documents are helpful because they cut back on the research each leadership team must conduct and errors they may make. Meeting with past leaders is also necessary, because it’s a great opportunity to pass down useful information that is specific to each position. Moreover, meeting as teams helps everyone get on the same page and feel excited to begin again.
Finally, if your Booster Club is presently transitioning power or is about to, Booostr can help! Create a profile, by clicking “Submit New Booster Club” in the top right corner, and you’ll be given access to the team management tools built to facilitate seamless transitions!
