Starting Your Club

Incorporated societies

Establishing the type of structure for your club is a bit like getting the financial management of the club underway – it sounds daunting but really isn’t if you have the right checklist and process to follow.

To start with, you’ll need to have a clear idea of the kind of structure your club will have.

Your club’s structure will be determined by:

• The amount of flexibility you’ll need as your club grows and matures.
• The size of club and any potential growth.
• The culture and values that you want your club to have.
• The extent of your clubs activities (fundraising, tournaments etc).
• The type of management structure your club is governed by.
• Funding (how much, where from and for what).
• Responsibility and accountability (who’s in charge, who’s liable if things go wrong).
• Financial monitoring and accountability.

Most large sport and recreational clubs choose to have ‘formal’ organisational structures and register their organisations as such. The most popular structures are incorporated societies and charitable trusts.

You don’t need to have a formal structure but these structures can protect individual members in certain situations and give your organisation the right to sign contracts, lease premises, operate bank accounts and apply for government grants.

However, please remember that incorporation does not prevent actions for negligence against individual members in all circumstances.

Incorporation of an association or club means that it becomes a legal identity in its own right, separate from the individual members. Put another way, the association is considered by law to have distinct identity that continues regardless of membership.

The benefits of an incorporated society’s structure include:

• The ability to create documents in your club’s name.
• The ability to enter into contracts in your club’s name.
• The ability to buy, sell, own, lease and rent property subject to your club’s own rules.
• The ability to borrow money and give securities subject to your club’s own rules.
• The ability to sue and be sued in its own name.

To set up your sporting club as an incorporated society you’ll need to register it with The Companies Office which is part of the Ministry of Economic Development.

We have provided a guide for the process of setting up a club as an incorporated society in the resources section.