Getting people to take over running a club

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Wartortullian
Rikku
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Getting people to take over running a club

Post by Wartortullian »

So, our club in a period of leadership transition, and due to the many non-quizbowl commitments in my life, I really don't have any time to devote to quizbowl logistics and administration anymore. This semester has been kind of a mess, and things like funding applications are already falling through the cracks. Unfortunately, no one has stepped up to be president, and the number of tasks I have that can't be delegated are still too much. I've tried everything from begging, to offering to pay people, to outright handing in my resignation to trigger a new leadership election, but no one has volunteered.

Does anyone have any advice on encouraging/forcing people to take on administrative roles? I'm kinda losing it here.
Matt
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cchiego
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Re: Getting people to take over running a club

Post by cchiego »

Some assorted thoughts that, while they won't necessarily ensure as orderly of a leadership transition as you'd ideally like, might help keep the club alive in the future if you don't find someone willing to take over as the club leader:

You want to "seed" the club before you leave with all the club documents, logistics information, contacts for local teams, etc. that you have so that even if 2-3 people disappear, the collective knowledge won't go away (access to a Google Drive File might be a good way to do this). Figuring out where the team's buzzer(s) will go is also important; you don't want it to disappear.

If you have a faculty sponsor, be sure to notify them and ask for their assistance with the transition. If you don't have one, now might be a good time to try to advertise widely to find a trivia-lover/quizbowl alumni faculty member. If you don't have a faculty sponsor, are there any alumni or even a local HS coach in the area who might be willing to check on the team in the future?

Get in touch with every existing nearby college team and let them know about the situation, pass on names and contact info of people who might be interested in being contacts next year, and request the other teams' assistance in helping the club in future years by trying hard to make contact with the team and offering help as needed. This is where having a denser regional network of teams (at all levels) could help, but that's going to be tough on the quizbowl frontier.

Figure out what it will take to make sure that the club gets re-recognized next year by the university and do everything that you can to make sure that this is set up to happen. If this hurdle isn't passed, it's going to be very easy for the team to just fall apart.

Take extra care to identify high schoolers who are going to matriculate next year (perhaps by emailing local HS coaches to ask if they know of any right now) and encourage any of them that are interested to look into taking up a leadership role quickly (though be warned, this could rub any returning members the wrong way).

Best of luck, this is an all-too-common situation and is one of the major reasons why I'd love to see more of a focus on teambuilding and leadership in collegiate quizbowl in the future.
Chris C.
Past: UGA/UCSD/Penn
Present: Solano County, CA
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