how to start a club?

[hedgerow pete]

myself and few friends want to start a club, you know the usual night time monthly set up but we have no idea how or what is needed to set it up does anyone here know how or has the web links we need to start

we realise that we would need a bank account in the clubs name and then we would need some form of rules or articales ect but dont know what they should say,

insurances are next which ones and how much should it be ?

also what are the laws and how do we find them out before we break them?

the general sort of stuff is all we are looking at, can any one point us towards a website or some such thing to find this lot out

 

[Polyanwood]

Are you thinking you want to be members of the BBKA?? There are rules about that.

 

[psafloyd]

It depends what you want to do, Pete.

Do you need to do anything, or can you use someone else's premises, eg a pub or church hall and ride theirs?

Do you want something fairly formal like an unicorporated organisation, such as an allotment society? You could probably get some model rules, etc from them>

Otherwise, check here first.

http://www.ehow.com/how_2273331_start-social-club.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charitable_organization

 

[Queens59]

Just make sure money isn't an issue - a budget for a meeting in someones home, petty cash etc. We were in a lovely 'charity' based group which fell apart because people were expected to host numerous meetings - with refreshments and no costs allowed.

 

[BKF Admin]

If its for Beekeeping and you want to be affiliated to the BBKA then contact the county association in your area.

If not then public imdemnity insurance can be purchased online from any specialist insurance company,normaly 5 million pound of cover.

 

[hedgerow pete]

thanks for the ideas and starting points.

heres the ideas so far.
UNDER NO CERCOMSTANCES IS IT IN ANY WAY TO BE CONNECTED WITH THE BBKA, EVER!!

we were told to get the club name listed as a limited company to protect it from abuse by others, this would also allow it to be run with a bank account from a bussines point of view as same for the insurances and lastly it would protect those that are apart of it, dont know if its legal or do able but it sounded great when she explained it to me.

club house is the local pub who have a sesion room upstair they charge £20 per 3hours as long as some one buys a drink or six too

every thing commitee wise was going to be sorted out but heres a question how many do you need to make a committee ?? and what roles are there to be filled??

is £5m insurance normal for a club etc it sounds like a lot but we have to have more than that at times at work but we dont also want to be paying for to much insurance.

subs and fees.

we were looking at basicly the 12 month running costs devided by 30 people making the fees and there fore if more than 30 jion fees can go down or the extra monies invested in club equipments, so far we are looking at around £40 a year membership fees and £3 for the pub which will include a drink, tea coffee or half a beer.

i dont know what normal club fees are or what other clubs charge but the 12 of us so far all seam to find the costs exceptable, but i would like to know what others think

 

[picton farm]

You only need 3 commitee members. I have just been through all this with setting up our association. I will get some info together for you and email it if you pm me your email address

 

[psafloyd]

Pete,

You'll need a chair, possibly deputy chair, secretary (takes all minutes, is admin god/goddess in terms of dealing with outside agencies), treasurer or financial secretary who will be a co-signatory of any chequebook, membership secretary (another co-signatory as they will need to at least deposit cash and you don't want to give signatory status to the guys running the show as its about checks and balances).
These are the main officers, but you will need more to run the committee. So, you could have an equipment/apiary officer/secretary or steward in time once you had kit belongin to yourselves.
You'll need a current account for cashflow (chequebook, but would be better if deposit to attract interest) and at least another deposit account. Our allotment society has a fighting fund and an investment fund. The investment fudn doesn't get touched normally, but is essentially raindy day money and there for major Investment. You might invest in equipment. We on our allotments are investing more than £20k this year in water and fencing, for instance.
You must also have rules. Without rules you cannot reward or punish people. In fact, they control how you conduct all your business.
Given your use of technology, I would set up a closed (invitation only) Facebook site, Yahoo group or use kit like this to have your own private forum in which to conduct business but also communicate to the membership from the committee. Regular and open comms keeps problems at bay, I can promise you. You can also put up the minutes of committee meetings so everyone can feel involved even if they only make the teas one a quarter.
Not sure you need to be a limited company, see that wikipedioa link I sent on charitable organisations. If limited,you may not attract certain monies from local authorities, etc, so check the legal status. Citizen's Advice might be able to help, or I am sure one of us can point you in the right direction.
AGMs, EGMs, summer events, regular talks, etc, all come into it, so best of luck.
£20 for 3 hours is not cheap, but if you regularly get more than 10 people buying a couple of drinks each and it isn't a **** night, you should get that waived, as someone will give you space for free.
For instance, many churches have space they will give for almost nothing (you might need to bring some tea and biscuits) or local authorities/schools might have spaces they can hire out for buttons, just covering the janitor to lock up. Which is why a pub would waive a score if it could guarantee a dozen people, even if they only drink orange juice, because the margin on the post mix is far heavier than anything they got from the drey.

 

[hedgerow pete]

psafloyd, what about protecting the clubs name with the limited company suggestion and al so using it to protect the members as i under stand it if we were not to be limited then we alll including all the members would or could equaly be held liable, or is that just scare mongering and if so how do we protect a name

 

[psafloyd]

I dunno, Pete, just saying to check out ALL the possibilities to see which structure suits you best.

 

[Hombre]

FWIW

Here is a model constitution for an Amateur Radio Club. Bear that in mind and adapt it accordingly. Mostly it's just a minor change of wording, but there may be other items that you need to add that are perhaps unique to beekeeping and the way the club wishes to operate.

Have al meeting of all your prospective members and have someone take minutes/notes of who is present, what is discussed and more importantly what is agreed. You need to turn up with a draft constitution to discuss what should be included, excluded or changed to make it acceptable to the members of your new club.

Having decided on the rules, it would be good for inaugural members to stump up a token amount of cash, so that you all know who is becoming a member and who is just talking about wishing to form a club, after which the uncommitted can be thanked for their interest and invited to leave. Members will need to decide on a Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer as an absolute minimum. Other officer posts and committee members can be defined later and elected as needs dictate. This constitution is the legal contract that governs the formation, working and ultimately the winding up of the club.

At this point, you have formed a club.

Armed with the minutes/notes from this first meeting, some cash and the agreed constitution, take it along to a sensible bank and see an advisor, stating that you wish to open a bank current account for your new club. I suggest that you need three unrelated signatories to the account, with any two of three signatures required on cheques. This keeps things honest and as long as two people don't die on the same day gives you a bit of resilience.

There is no need to open a savings account until the club has a sufficient surplus. and without funds you will find it difficult to do. Lodging the master copy of the constitution with the bank is more than sufficient to make the arrangement as formal as you like. Ideally this should be signed by the elected officers, but why not have the name of everyone at the inaugural meeting sign it, the same way that opening a business bank account normally requires a copy of your letterhead, for reference is a good idea although not required. It will give you and possibly the bank a fuzzy feeling.

Do make sure that legal documents are not riddled with spelling errors.

Making a club into a limited company would be a disaster, requiring reports and accounts and a lot of complications that you will never need and could cause you real grief.

Why do you need a constitution?
The Partnership Act 1890 defines a partnership as two or more individuals 'carrying on a business in common with a view to profit'.

= = The example that I can cite is related to the music industry and can be a bit of an eye opener.

"Protecting the Club's name". Hmmmmm can you really see that this is likely to be a problem. Earn a good reputation, that's the best way to make a club's name of any interest, never mind value?
.

 

[hedgerow pete]

thanks for the ideas hombre, we were looking at the companies house websites and we found this , so yes we do understand on the extra works but for what it is the costs of time extra are very small

This starter package is quick & easy and will give you all the necessary documentation to setup your Not for Profit Company.

A Not for Profit Companies Limited by guarantee does not have a share capital and therefore does not have shareholders. Instead, it has members who contribute an amount, as specified in the Memorandum and Articles of Association, upon cessation of business.
It cannot distribute its earnings to members and must use them for defined objectives or aims
Organisations that may require incorporation as a Companies Limited by guarantee such as clubs, trade association, societies & educational establishment

 

[hedgerow pete]

here is a classic example of what we are worried about, did any one know that the name British Bee Keepers Association is one not limited in any way of its liabilities and secondly the name British Bee Keepers Association ltd is not registerd so whats stopping me doing that today and then asking them to stop using my name. I dought very much if you would win the court case but the solicitors would keep the bbka busy for weeks lol

 

[Hombre]

Hi Pete, Your constitution needs to make it clear that you are a not for profit club in order to ensure that HMRC doesn't take an interest in the interest (joke) from bank savings account when you begin to have a rainy day surplus and decide that you need one.

The rules regarding limited companies are very strict regarding auditing and reporting and although I have no experience there, defaulting on the reporting can, I believe, sting you with fines.

My feelings on the matter is that you would be unwise to go down that particular route as it merely applies a straight jacket to your organisation with insufficient benefits to warrant it. Various insurances should look after the risks quite adequately.

Of course if you intend to call yourself the Birmingham Bee Keepers Association then you might be well advised to buy a hard hat. LoL But just a look at BBKA.xxx website registrations list a variety of registrants from China, Korea, USA and UK. None of them apparently belonging to the BBKA as we recognise it per se. There is a Taunton and a Cornwall one that probably belong to aspiring URL sitters that might be hoping to get bought out with pesticide residue cash sometime soon . . . ha ha.

Needless to say I'm the long standing secretary of a local radio club.

The best thing that you can really do, is find yourself some very cheap accommodation. Pubs used to be OK, but in the last few years we have had to move a number of times as the pubs have had to shut up shop. If you can claim to be community based, then try to get recognised as part of a local community centre user group or see about a church hall. Beer can't be that important, can it? Tea, coffee and biscuits will have to do.

Keep your costs down as far as possible, it makes for a much easier life. If you have high costs and your membership drops below a critical number, you could find yourself having to wind up the whole empire because of expenses that can be difficult to meet.

If you have equipment that needs to be stored, that is also a possible extra ongoing expense. Believe me, the easy option is to get someone else to form a club, then join up once they have got all the officers sorted out, It allows you to have a whinge about the establishment without being on the receiving end and lets you have time for other things. . . . cynical or what!.

 

[hedgerow pete]

many thanks for ideas, its back to the drawing board for a few weeks to see what the others think

 

[Hombre]

No problems, but try not to make it too much unnecessary work as you might find yourself doing a lot of it. Everyone has good ideas about how it should be run until you ask for members to step up and take a post, even at vice chairman level who only does anything if the chairman happens not to be there to do what little he has to do. President, secretary and treasurer are the busy bees.

 

[RoofTops]

I would speak with an accountant about the idea of making it a limited company. There are statutory reports and returns limited companies have to submit which cost money to submit even if you can produce them yourself. There are also potential fines for late submission of these returns.

The requirements for the sort of company you are proposing may be different but my instinct is that if this is just a club for a few friends with a budget in the tens or possible a few hundreds of pounds a year then a limited company is not the way to go. If you are setting up something larger then it might be different but if the BBKA can get away without being a limited company then that might be a clue. However, the BBKA is a charity and that is perhaps another route to look at but I think there is a minimum size requirement for charities.

I also suggest not calling yourselves the BBKA - it wouldn't even get to court as the BBKA has been using the name for decades and can prove it very easily. It would just involve you in expensive bills from solicitors and potentially further costs in compensation if the use of the name hurt the BBKA financially.

 

[psafloyd]

http://bbka.co.uk/ is available if you want it.

So is http://wmbk.org.uk (West Midlands)

Or how about www.brumbee.org.uk?