Committee duties and responsibilities

The Management Committee of any incorporated non-profit organisation (e.g. a club or association) is required by law to convene a meeting on a regular basis, usually once a month. These meetings are FORMAL, that is they must follow rules. These rules are set down in writing in the association's constitution.

At such meetings, members of the Club Committee consider a wide range of issues and collectively make decisions as to what actions must be taken to ensure that the organisation is being appropriately managed. Read more about Fiduciary Duty.

Information about the individual duties and responsibilities of office bearers is found separate to this page - President, Secretary, Treasurer.

Typical Work of Committees

The most common tasks that require the collective action and decision making of the Board / Committee are:

The planning of programs, events and services as desired/ expected by the ordinary members of the organisation.
The raising of funds to ensure the organisation has sufficient money to provide the level of service expected by the ordinary members of the organisation.
The allocation and expenditure of funds raised to provide services to members
The quality control of programs and services to meet the expectations of members. The board can affect quality control by developing policies and procedures with respect to programs, events and services.
The recruitment of volunteers to deliver services e.g. coaches, referees, event helpers

The development of a policy framework is a very important part of the committee duties and responsibilties. Policies are the mechanism for controlling the behaviour of individuals, and thus the organisation itself. Policies are a guide to individuals so that they can do their job in an appropriate way. The table below shows how policies guide individuals:

Policy	Controlling effect
Financial management	Guides the Treasurer and others on how funds should be managed and safeguarded.
Selection of athletes	Provides selectors with guidelines on how to make selection processes fair.
Communicable diseases	Guides coaches and players about the prevention of communicable diseases such as Hepatitis from the sharing of water bottles, and/or exposure to contaminated blood from injured players.

If an organisation is critically lacking in policies, the organisation is in danger of being out of control, and this becomes an unacceptable legal, financial and ethical risk.

Differences in large and small organisations

Committee duties and responsibilities remain the same irrespective of the size of the organisation. However there may be some differences in the way that committee / board members carry out their responsibilities (see table below). In particular, small organisations often have no employees and therefore committee/board members must undertake tasks themselves. Whereas in a larger organisations, committee/board members set the direction of the organisation but the implementation of decisions is delegated to employees.

Small Organisations	Large Organisations
Committee members usually come from within the membership of the organisation	Board members may be “head-hunted” or gained by public announcement of the positions to be filled.
Work is usually entirely voluntary	Membership of the board may earn a “Director’s Fee”
Often have no professional administrators	Often have one or more professional administrators
Committee tend to take on a day-to-day running (management) of the organisation	Board tends to leave the day-to-day running of the organisation to professional administrators