The Branch Coordinator Role
The role of Branch Coordinator is a vital one for Reach members, you are often the first point of face to face contact with new and existing members, how you interact and communicate has a massive bearing on the way Reach is perceived.
- Arrange family get together’s, two or three a year, one of which is a Christmas party. Getting the children together regularly whilst they are young is what members tell us is most beneficial to the children and parents (funding dependent).
- Communicate with your local members this is done via Head Office because of data regulations. You simply write your email send it through to reach@reach.org.uk and we will send out to you members via the official REACH customer relationship system.
- Follow the main Reach social media platforms and share news to spread the word about Reach (please avoid sharing images of our Reach children).
- You can create your own branch closed Facebook group, this is a very useful way of keeping in contact and allows frank and open support conversation and celebration of Reach children activities in your area.
- We ask that members of the Facebook group are members or are know personally by the branch coordinator (for safety reasons).
- Sign up to the Reach Closed Facebook group and feel free to share things on this group. We will have to ‘approve’ it for you, but we check Facebook regularly, so it won’t take too long.
- Share branch news with us for our quarterly newsletter ‘withReach’ at reach@reach.org.uk, encourage your local members to write into us also.
- Join the Branch Coordinators ‘What’s App’ group to make communicating easier with another Branch Coordinators and Head Office. Contact debs or Kate to organise this for you on reach@reach.org.uk
- Fundraise, this helps support the running costs of Reach Charity. A percentage of funds raised can be allocated to your branch to use. There is no upper limit on the amount of money you can raise and have ring fenced however at the end of each financial year HQ transfer over all balances over £500 for central funds.
- Use the template we have created to help you and us gather all the information we need to promote it and for you to tell us if you need any merchandise/T-shirts etc. to help raise awareness. This can be downloaded from our website here.
- Don’t ever feel isolated, Reach is a family, we are all here to help.
- Branch events – contact head office to discuss the cost of each event individually reach@reach.org.uk
- Please let us know the names of all the people signed up for your events 2 weeks/10 days before so that we are able to check membership details.
- Head Office may refer a member to a Branch Coordinator when they need to find local families to share issues with etc. Branch Coordinators are encouraged to refer a member to Head Office if they need support.
- Whenever a new member joins in your area, their details will be sent to you by Head Office. Every new member is given the details of their local Branch Coordinator. We would expect the local Branch Coordinator to contact the new member introducing themselves, with details of upcoming branch events.
Your National Coordinator
Debs Bond joined Reach in June 2019 having previously worked for other charities and most recently the University of Cumbria. She moved to Devon from the Lake District to be closer to family. Her main skills are relationship building, relationships are the most important element of any good working environment. Building trust enables an honest and open culture for dialogue. If you need to contact Debs, her email is: debb@reach.org.uk
Head Office
We are a small team of two at Head Office in Tavistock, Deborah Bond and Kate Hoare share the work for: Events, Finance, Marketing and Membership. They do an amazing job, the term ‘punching above their weight’ comes to mind, what they achieve for Reach with so little resource should be saluted. If you want to get in touch with them please email reach@reach.org.uk
Keep head office Up-To-Date on your plans for the year, email over your ideas to reach@reach.org.uk, we will help promote them on our social media sites, it will also give us an opportunity to suggest buddying up with other branches if you are doing similar things.
Branch Coordinator Skills
Let us know your top skills so that it be can added it to our Branch Coordinator skills and talents, it may help in the future if we’re looking for advice in certain areas.
Expenses
Branch Coordinators can claim back their travel expenses. Please get in touch with reach@reach.org.uk for an expenses form.
Branch Coordinators are allocated an official Branch Reach email. We will organise this for you reach@reach.org.uk
We hope you have found this information useful and that it has encouraged you to give the role of Branch Coordinator a go! If you would like to speak to a current Branch Coordinator to get an idea of how it all works email reach@reach.org.uk and we can put you in touch.
Tracey – Branch Coordinator West Midlands
Steph – Joint Branch Coordinator Scotland