Build your team

Once you've decided that a Foróige Club would be of benefit to your local community, the first thing you'll need to do is build your team. The Club needs both adult volunteers and young people to make it work. You'll need a team of at least 4 volunteers to help you. They should all be passionate about the development and empowerment of young people. Ideally, they should also work very well in a team, have strong relationship skills, leadership skills, organisation and communication skills.

You can start with people you know, maybe friends or people already involved in community initiatives. At least one volunteer needs to be over 21 and all volunteers will get full training and support from the team at Foróige. The team at Foróige will help you with recruitment of volunteers. Once you get one or two involved, the good word will spread and more will come on board.

Tips

What do volunteers do?

• Get to know each member.
• Support the members to manage the club together.
• Create an atmosphere of respect, fun and trust.
• Constantly empower members Join in and have fun!

 

You'll also need to figure out whether there are young people interested and what they would like from the club, the only way to find this out is to talk to as many young people as possible and have them involved in shaping the club from the very start. Clubs generally have a minimum of 8 and a maximum of 30 members.

Here are some tips from our blog on building a team of volunteers in your community

Find your premises

Tips

You could visit a local club to learn how they work and see their premises. Find your nearest one here: Existing locations

You'll need a premises to meet in once a week for 2 hours. Ideally this should be somewhere easily accessible in the community with enough space for a group of approximately 30. Importantly, there shouldn't be any cost for the premises as this won't be sustainable in the long term. Most clubs meet in community centres, existing youth clubs or resource centres.

Complete training

As a leader you'll need to complete a 6 hour training programme: "Starting Out in Foroige" and the 4 hour Child Protection Awareness programme. All the adult volunteers will also need to complete this training. This will be provided by your local Foróige leader and takes place regularly. Once you've signed up to get started you can schedule training sessions. As a Foróige leader, you'll become part of a large network and get the chance to connect to the national buzz that is Foróige!

What Foróige will do:

1. We’ll provide information and assistance in getting the club started.
2. We’ll provide training for the volunteers and young people.
3. We’re here to give ongoing support to you and the club.
4. We’ll provide insurance cover.
5. We will facilitate child protection, good youth work practices and other policies to help everyone enjoy the club safely.

 

Set a date

Once your team is in place, you've secured a premises and you've completed training all that's left to do is set a date to get started and have your first meeting. It's good to set a date as soon as possible so that you have something to work towards and aim for. There are a few decisions that will need to be made before doing this:

 

1. What night best suits Leaders/Members/ Premises?
2. How will we recruit Members and advertise the opening of the Club and who will organise this?
3. Who will book the premises, collect key, etc?
4. What will be the starting and finishing time?
5. How will we inform parents about the Club? (Parent information sheet, posters, local announcements, local papers, through schools, Facebook, etc).

 

Plan the first 6 weeks (with Foróige's help)

You're very nearly ready to hold your first meeting! All that's left now is to plan the first 6 weeks of the club and Foróige have created a very handy guide for you to do this. Getting off to a strong start will be key to the long term success of your club.

Here's some practical tips to plan your first 6 weeks