Events:
The MHS capacity building program
For a couple of years now the Mutare-Haarlem Sport leaders are assisted in their work by Dutch volunteers and professionals. The assistance program, managed by ICCO/Psa and the city-link office in Haarlem comes to an end in March 2007. This will of course not be the end of cooperation. But MHS has to work more independent and professional.
With the end-date in mind, people in Haarlem as well as in Mutare started thinking how to optimally use this short time left for knowledge exchange. In the past the focus has been on recruiting people with a background in sport. Many sportsman and women from both ALO and CIOS have left their footprints in Mutare. And the results are there!
The Sport leaders grew in their ability to teach and practice sports. Also they have made big improvements in sports administration and on how to organize clubs, leagues, events and tournaments.
As the number of activities increased and grew bigger, the organization got more responsibilities. It had to become better organized, become more professional. Therefore from the end of 2004 these aspects of MHS got extra attention. Building the capacity of the organization and individuals to enable the organization to proceed with its work in a professional manner after the Dutch assistance has been finished.
The concept of ‘capacity building’ MHS on an organizational level was born.
The first recruited with this idea in mind were junior expert Miriam and volunteers Tobias and Bianca. They started with streamlining the existing procedures, adding knowledge on specific organizational issues and with training various board members, also targeting aspects not directly related to sport activities.
Good progress has been made. But there was not a final plan, a framework which placed each and everyone in the ‘bigger picture’.
This bigger picture is what we have tried to come to starting in October 2005. ‘We’ are the MHS board members and I. The use of a capacity building workplan has lead to twelve focus area’s which will be addressed the coming year.
We have started with a baseline study. Trying not to miss any valuable information, observations, interviews and desk research, using the multi stakeholders approach, has been done. This baseline study resulted in a list of 42 issues for improvement of the functioning of MHS to become a more professional organization. Some issues are more important than others, some can be clustered and we had to prioritize.
During a ‘prioritization’ workshop we concluded to 18 items which really needed to be addressed. For the really interested amongst you I would like to refer you to the MHS secretary to provide you with full details on these 18 items.
To give you an idea, some of the issues have to do with streamlining or developing internal processes and regulations, how to act as an advanced sport leader. Other issues are related to improving management and office skills or to organization policy. For addressing and improving these issues we have set a timeframe just over a year. All eight board members plus the sport coordinator have taken the responsibility for 2 items each. At this moment, mid February 2006, we are busy making an activity plan which will be send to ICCO and the City Link Foundation. The plans can consist of various interventions which help MHS to improve, like training, coaching. We hope that ICCO will assist in financing these activities.
Jeroen Stol
Sunday, February 19, 2006