One Page Parent Pack: Your tool to superbly communicate with parents the key parts of your team culture.

Most club Parent packs are way too long to effectively communicate anything. They land up on a shelf or an inbox collecting dust or virtual dust!

• One page only.  So often club packs for parents are huge. No-one remembers huge. Even a single page like this has lots and lots of info.  Keep it to one page. One page is more likely to be remembered and therefore more helpful.
• Use it as a coaching team. A number of parts of this page will come from your discussions as a coaching team and what you are trying to do. By using this document it will help you have clarity as a coaching unit about what you are trying to do and how you will do it.
• Have a coaches training session on how to best work with parents. Having an information sheet like this helps, but it’s people working together which produces a great club. Don’t just assume because coaches can coach that they can also work with parents. That’s just not fair on the coaches. Working with parents is a different skill.
• Share it. Share this on your social media, on your WhatsApp group and on your emails. Don’t let it gather dust. Reference it regularly to the parents.
• Wee before it. Yep you read that right. Put this up where parents will see it. In the clubhouse loos, next to the bar or where you serve tea and coffee on game day.
• Get the players to act it! Use your team in the first couple of weeks to turn this into a film. Most smartphones have an app to help you do this. Parents love to see their kids on film. They will share it. Your message will get out. (Just make sure you have permission to film and share images of the players)
• End of season questionnaire (Example here)  At the end of the season send the parents a questionnaire asking for their feedback on the season. It will help you as you start to plan for next year and can inform where you can improve on your communication and coaching.
• Richard Shorter ‘Non-perfect Dad’ can deliver parents sessions, coaches CPD on working with parents and support you in creating excellent parent communication. Communication which helps you and your parents go in the same direction together.  Contact him here to talk about your needs. 

Finally, if you use this outline, can you send me a copy of what you produce? I’d love to see what you’ve done as it will help me learn too.