Club Aims and Objectives

The aim of the Club is to promote the pursuit of athletic competition in Track and Field, Cross Country, Road Running and Race Walking; to provide the best in both coaching and facilities for its members and to enable them to reach their athletic potential within competitive structures, at all standards and age groups regardless of race, sex or religion.

However, a note of caution, whilst Swindon Harriers is committed under our aims and policies to welcome all into the Club we must recognise that as a volunteer led organisation, on occasions, we may not have the necessary technical skills to support all individual needs. The Club is committed to an on-going development programme to minimise any such gaps.

In delivering these objectives Swindon Harriers adhere to a number of policies, procedures and codes of conduct as defined by British Athletics or Sport England – as follows;

Inclusion Policy Statement

The club is committed to ensuring that equity is incorporated across all aspects of its development. In doing so it acknowledges and adopts the Sport England definition of sports equity:

• Sports equity is about fairness in sport, equality of access, recognising inequalities and taking steps to address them. It is about changing the culture and structure of sport to ensure it becomes equally accessible to everyone in society.

The full policy statement can be found via this link – Club Inclusion Policy Statement

Safeguarding Policy (formerly the Welfare Policy) and Guidelines and the role of the Welfare Officer

Swindon Harriers acknowledges the duty of care to safeguard and promote the welfare of everyone involved with the Club and athletics generally and is committed to ensuring safeguarding practice reflects statutory responsibilities, government guidance and complies with best practice and British Athletics/England Athletics requirements.

Swindon Harriers believe that everyone involved in athletics should enjoy their participation and development in safety and security and with protection from abuse, maltreatment or misconduct. Every individual involved in athletics events and programmes is responsible for upholding this belief.

To this end the Club accepts the legal and moral responsibility to provide a duty of care for all people (including children and vulnerable adults) within the sport and to safeguard their welfare, irrespective of age, impairment, gender, racial origin, religious belief and sexual identity.

The full club policy, including the roles and responsibilities of the Welfare Officer can be found here – Club Welfare Policy and Welfare Officer Role – and the associated Child Protection policy here – Swindon Harriers Safeguarding Policy Statement.

The full UKA policies relating to Safeguarding Children and Adults in athletics can be found at: -

• Safeguarding Children
• Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults

Further information can be found on the NSPCC Child Protection in Sport website.

Codes of Conduct

We believe that all athletes at the club should be treated equally and fairly and should know what is expected of you and what to expect from both the club, coaches and everyone associated with the Club.

To support and promote these aims the Club has adopted a numbers of codes of conduct which will apply across all club activities including training sessions, matches, race meetings, social events and in any public social media channels (Facebook, Twitter etc) or via digital communications such as email.

Follow the links below for the full codes of conduct in use within the club (these all follow guidance from UKA/EA) –

Club
Athletes (incl Junior Athletes)
Coaches
Team Managers
Officials
Volunteers
Parents and Carers

Mental Health

Swindon Harriers fully supports the England Athletics Mental Health initiatives to: -

• Create a welcoming, inclusive and positive environment for everyone to participate in athletics
• Encourage people to talk about mental health and
• Support people to seek help and support when needed.

As part of this programme the Club has signed up to the EA Mental Health Charter, full details of which can be found by following here

Full details of the EA Mental Wellbeing and Running programme can be found here.

Anti–Bullying Policy

We are committed to providing a caring, friendly and safe environment for all of our members, so they can participate in a relaxed and secure atmosphere. Bullying of any kind is unacceptable at our club. If bullying does occur, all athletes or parents should be able to tell and know that incidents will be dealt with promptly and effectively. We are a TELLING club. This means that anyone who knows that bullying is happening is expected to tell the club welfare officer or any committee member.

The full UKA policy can be found here.

Social Media Policy

Social media (including personal and professional websites, blogs, chat rooms and bulletin boards; social networks, such as Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and My Space; video-sharing sites such as YouTube; and email) are a common means of communication and self-expression.

It's essential that volunteers, members and players make informed decisions about how they use the internet, mobile phone and email communications to protect our club and our people.

The full Club policy, which follows NSPCC Child Protection in Sport Unit guidance, can be found here.

Photographic and Video Policy

Swindon Harriers is committed to providing a safe environment for children/young people under the age of 18 to participate in athletics. Essential to this commitment, is to ensure that all necessary steps are taken to protect children/young people from the inappropriate use of photographic images.

Swindon Harriers has adopted the good practice guidelines issued by UK Athletics, see the full policy guidelines here.

More details of the UKA policy and practices can be found here.

Privacy Policy

Swindon Harriers are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. For any personal data you provide for the purposes of your membership, Swindon Harriers is the Data Controller and is responsible for storing and otherwise processing that data in a fair, lawful, secure and transparent way.

The full privacy policy can be found here.

Grievance/Disciplinary Procedure

The codes of conduct set out the standards of behaviour expected from everyone associated with the Club.

All complaints about anyone falling below these standards should be made to any committee member, all such complaints will be investigated and if a breach of behaviour is found to have occurred there is a process of verbal and written warnings.

The full disciplinary policy can be found here.

The UKA Grievance Procedure can be found here.

Club Constitution

The Swindon Harriers Club Constitution can be viewed here.