What Lies Beneath
As many of you would be aware, one of the key factors that motivate people to join or stay at a particular club is
the quality of the facilities. Most people automatically think this refers to built or "hard" infrastructure such as
buildings and courts, but it also applies to quality grassed field surfaces.
Most people understand the basics to preparing and maintaining a good quality grass surface, but what grass loves
at one field may actually be detrimental to the green stuff at another. The only way to be absolutely sure that your
turf maintenance regime is right for your facility is to get the sub surface soil tested. Fortunately this is really quite
a simple process. By taking a sample of your soil up to six inches below the surface in several places across the
fields and sending it away for testing, you will receive a report outlining the makeup of your soil from which you
can develop a fertilising and maintenance program custom made to your grounds. Usually this should cost less
than $150.00 per test.
The not-so-simple part is deciphering the results returned to you from the lab - for many of us it may as well be in
Chinese. This is where GRC can help. Council has qualified staff who can assess your soil report and make simple,
plain-english recommendations based on the results. Council's parks and recreation department are able to help
coordinate this process. For more information contact the Parks and Recreation office on 4977 6899.
Are Your Volunteers Sufficiently Covered?
It is an organisation's responsibility to ensure that appropriate insurance cover is provided to protect all volunteer staff,
including members of the management committees.
As volunteers do not receive wages, they are not covered by Workers Compensation Insurance. This being the case
associations should seek to protect their volunteers from injuries that may occur whilst helping out, this can be
done through Volunteer Personal Accident Insurance. Considering the benefits of volunteers to associations, the
policies are quite inexpensive and depending on the options selected can provide cover for accidental death,
disablement and incapacity to carry out normal duties. Depending on insurer and options selected, Volunteer
Personal Accident Insurance can be as low as one tenth the cost of Public Liability Insurance.
All associations that have volunteers and/or a non paid committee of management should strongly consider taking out
Volunteer Personal Accident Insurance. It is important to understand that is quite different from Public Liability
Insurance where volunteers working in registered not-for-profit community groups engaged in voluntary activities
defined by the organisation are protected from legal action provided they are not acting outside the law. Details can be
found on www.legislation.qld.gov.au/Bills/50PDF/2003/CivilLiabB03.pdf
Leases - FAQ
Q: Our Lease expired at the end of June and we only just recently got our new one signed. It says it started on July
1 but shouldn't it start from when it was signed?
A: Usually No. As a rule new leases are back dated to commence from the day after the last one expired, and the
main reason for this is to do with public liability risk. By back dating the lease it leaves no un-leased or "uncovered"
period. If this didn't happen and an incident or injury did occur during this uncovered period (and no one may know
yet whether it has or not) then the lessee's insurances may not provide any cover for a time when the organisation
had no legal right to occupy the premises.