SPOND FOR CLUB COACHES & EVENT ORGANISERS
The following is applicable to Club internal races and training sessions. For events where persons outside of the Club can attend please contact the Club Secretary for support as a Form will be required and this also requires additions to the Website: secretary@suaac.co.uk.
Why it is Important to use Spond
Spond is the Club’s selected tool for managing how coaches interact with athletes. This is for events planning, registering attendances and communications. The platform is both safeguarding and GDPR certified and as such it protects both the participants and coaches. Failure to use the platform can leave you as a Coach exposed in the event a participant makes a claim against you so we strongly encourage all coaches to put written communications to participants on Spond. Other channels such as WhatsApp (and notably so) are highly flexible, but in being so does not meet the required standards. The other key feature is Spond gives you access to participants Emergency Contact details should the worst occur and a quick means to communicate if a session changes.
How to select an Event (aka training session, race etc.)
Most interactions are centered around sessions which are held in Spond as Events. Thus most actions start with selecting an Event as below:
On the Spond APP:
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- Click on the Home icon (bottom left of the screen)
- Click on the Event you wish to access. If it is in the past and you cannot see it, below Polls in the upper right hand side of the screen is Upcoming. Click on this and you can show past events.
How to find Emergency Contact details for a participant
On the Spond APP:
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- Select the Event (see above)
- Scroll down the Event page and below Responses click on the “xx attended line” where xx is a number. This may appear as attending if the Event is in the future.
- You are directed to a “Recipients page” and can now see a list of attendees. Click on the relevant attendee and their details will appear. The Emergency Contact name and number is located down the page. Please note the Mobile number at the top is their number, not the Emergency number!
What is they didn’t register to attend? Their details are still accessible. On the Recipients page you can select “All” at the top of the screen and then find the member. Of course, if they have registered it is much quicker and easier!
How to manually add/remove attendees to/from an event
It is important to have a register of who is attending events (training sessions, races etc.) so that we as a Club can ensure that sessions meet the required standards of England Athletics and British Triathlon. This ensures that insurance provided by these organisations is valid, and protects Coaches and participants. We encourage you to ensure your attendees register prior to events on Spond, but you can manually add or remove people using the app by following these steps:
On the Spond APP:
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- Select the Event (see above)
- Scroll down the Event page and below Responses you have the option to “Edit attendance”. Here you can select members who have attended the event and also deselect as required.
How to add Other Roles to Events e.g. selected Coach, Marshalls
In Spond an Event can be configured to have Tasks which can be defined for each event. You may not have permission to create an Event, this can only be added to new events. You can find out if you have the required permissions by :
On the Spond APP:
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- Click on the Home icon at the bottom of the screen.
- Click on the ‘+’ symbol (top right). If Event appears in the list you have the required permissions. If not please contact : secretary@suaac.co.uk and request permission to setup Events.
If an event is recurring i.e. a Training session, you can add a Task but only by Editing each instance of the Event. To do this follow these steps:
On the Spond APP:
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- Select the Event (see above)
- Click on the three dots in a circle at the top right of the screen and a drop down menu will appear. Select “Edit only this occurrence”.
- You will be able to Add task towards the bottom of the page. When you select this the Task dialogue will appear.
- If the Task is one you have used before you can select from Templates (see below on how to save a Template task) or select New Task.
- For a new task add the Title and Description and select if it is a task you want people to volunteer for (e.g. Marshalls) OR if you are specifying who is assigned to the Task e.g. maybe you are assigning coaches to a rota. TIP! When assigning Coaches will usually appear under Administrators.
- For a new Task an option will appear to Set the Task as a template, saving time in future!
- Remember to Save before completing.
NOTE: If you assign a Task to someone, they will receive a communication from Spond and can confirm or otherwise if they accept the task. This is particularly useful to ensure Coaching Rotas are accepted. This notification will go out with the Event invite, not when they are set!