Membership of the Samman Society

This page sets out:

In short, membership is offered to competent technical coaches who existing members recommend and who are able to contribute to the society’s mission. Benefits to the member are the chance to influence what Samman Coaching is and develops to be, as well as access to the society’s resources. These include a website, brand, funds and contact list. The executive board of the society is elected from among the members and decides how to use the society’s resources.

Benefits that the society provides to all, not only members

The mission of the society is to support all technical coaches, not only members. You don’t need to be a member to:

Note there is a code of conduct for public forums and events hosted by the society, which applies to both members and non-members.

Benefits available only to members

The Samman Technical Coaching Society has a mission and would like to gain members who are able to support this mission. Members can for example:

The primary benefit of joining the society is to get a say in how the practice of Samman coaching develops in the future. You can use the name “Samman Coaching” to describe your work and help define what that means in practice. You can influence the kinds of materials and activities that we invest in, and the sponsorship that we accept. You can publish materials to the website and have your name listed on the website as a member.

The Samman society owns the brand “Samman Coaching” and all members can use the brand to describe their work. People outside the society may also use the brand in this way, but it’s a risk for them. If we feel they are not using it appropriately, we can ask them to stop, and if necessary the society can use legal means to do so. Only members actually have rights to the name.

There are members-only channels on the Discord discussion forum, and members have additional rights and privileges in Discord. Members can organise and host events in the name of the society and advertise them on the website and newsletter.

In future the society may decide to make other benefits available to members only. The society has money, sponsors and a contact list of people who have signed up for a newsletter and/or events. If members want to take advantage of these things and have concrete proposals, the board will of course consider them.

Requirements on prospective members

The society’s statutes set out who is eligible, and membership is by invitation only. In practice, before membership will be offered to someone they will need to demonstrate they can:

The usual way to demonstrate these skills is through pair-coaching with existing members.

In addition, the kind of people we will invite to join are the kind of people who will also contribute to the mission of the society by sharing their coaching materials. Prospective members are expected to contribute learning hours or similar materials to the website, in collaboration with an existing member.

New members should have the recommendation of at least two existing members. Those members should agree that the prospective member:

The executive board will make the final decision whether to offer membership to an individual, although they may delegate this power to a committee.

Other roles within the society

The society’s statutes set out these roles: member of the executive board and member of the nomination committee. The executive board is elected from among members, and the position as chair of the board is also elected by the members. This happens at the Annual General Meeting. The nomination committee decides who will be put forward for election at this meeting. It is up to the executive board to decide on any other roles.

Board members have these responsibilities according to the statutes:

In practice the biggest job is deciding how to use the society’s funds and other resources. These decisions are made at board meetings.