Thank you for volunteering (for many of you, once again), to serve as officers of the RBL. As many of you know, with that volunteering comes a responsibility to operate in accordance with the charity laws and RBL rules. This requires that you take the training to remain current and effective in your role. To those that have already accepted and embraced that responsibility - thank you for the example you set. To the rest, we want to encourage and assist you to become compliant.
Sadly, of the 175 designated Branch Officers in the County, only 70 (40%) have registered on the training platform, which is a poor reflection on the County and on your Branches. Leadership and example should come from the Branch Chairman and yet, only 20 of our 54 chairmen have registered on 'Discover', 5 of whom have not completed the Branch Management training.
Below is an extract from the RBL Policy:
9. Essential learning
Where the Legion identifies training as essential/mandatory, either for a specific role or a given population
due to legal or compliance requirements, members must attend such training within the agreed time scale.
It is the responsibility of CTOs to ensure that identified members attend mandatory training identified for
their role. If training is not attended, it may lead to an inability to perform in the role at an acceptable
standard and the Legion reserves the right to revoke the branch/county appointment.
The list of training which is considered essential:
• Branch and County Treasurers must attend the Treasurer course within three months of taking up
the role.
• Branch Chairmen must attend the Branch Management course within three months of taking up the
role. (Note that this applies to Vice Chairmen too)
• Branch Secretaries should attend the full Branch Management course but within three months of
taking up the role, they must complete the Data Protection module of it, available as a standalone
training on the Learning Management System.
We recommend that Branch Chairmen and their deputies complete the online treasurers course and the in-person secretaries and, informal resolution courses too. Understanding what is required of your colleagues helps the management of your Branch. It also enables you to ensure that you protect your Officers by ensuring that they are not over-burdened with unnecessary tasks.
We also recommend that all Branch committee members register and attend Branch Mngt trg. Any member can register and take most of the courses on offer. Indeed several members have done so already! This increases efficiency but also helps with succession planning.
If any Branch Chairman wishes to know the training status of his/her team, that can be provided.
I know that some of you are unable to complete the in-person training which tends to be at weekends because of work, family and other reasons. If that applies to you then we can find a work around that better suits your needs but the first thing that you need to do is register on Discover and complete the appropriate on-line modules.
To assist, the QR code or the link will take you to the registration page. Please use your personal e-mail to register rather than your rbl.community email. this is to ensure that your records can be properly managed, especially if you change roles.
For your information / action, the next in-person Branch Mngt course will be at Old Basing RBL Club, Basingstoke on Saturday 21st Feb from 10am - 3pm. Lunch is provided by County. I expect the enrollment link to be available on Discover in the next 24 hours.
If you have any questions or we can help in any way, please do not hesitate to contact me.
If you have received this and you are no longer a Branch Officer, please ensure that you advise both myself and the MEO (Kate Parkinson / Holly Church (in copy)) so that we can update the distribution lists.
Kind Regards
John Davies
Hampshire County Vice-Chairman
Tel: 07717 897971
