KTH Chairman Matt Brown has, due to personal reasons, made the decision to step down from his current role as KTH Chair with immediate effect.
Matt had been in the role of KTH Chairman for almost 7 years and prior to that was assisting with coaching the Middle-Distance squad where his three daughters Daisy, Jennifer & Amy all trained. All three of his girls competing for the Harriers regularly and representing their County at National events.
Matt started his assistant coaching pathway in 2013/14 to assist the coaching team of Shane Smith & John Cairns with a rapidly expanding Middle Distance group. It was during this time that he stepped forward to take on the role as KTH Chair, following the sudden resignation of both the Chairman and the Committee in December 2014.
This was a critical period for the club and Matt stepping forward in this key leadership role led to the formation of a new committee from the beginning of 2015, many of whom are still active in the club today. During Matt’s tenure as Chairman the club was quickly transformed, building a fantastic reputation as the “friendly club” and perhaps his most memorable highlight was the installation of the new floodlights in February 2016. This was transformational for the club allowing athletes to train in greater numbers, during the dark winter nights, and importantly for KTH to set up one of the region’s most successful open events, the “KTH Floodlit open”.
Of course, being the Chair of a large and growing athletics club has both its successes and challenges. However, the true test of a successful tenure is if the club is in better shape at the end, and this is certainly the case for the Harriers who have progressed over the past 7 years in a hugely positive direction and the Club, as a whole, is in undeniably far better shape than when Matt took the helm.
A true test of a volunteer’s commitment is, perhaps, their continued involvement after their initial reason for becoming involved, usually their children’s participation, subsides. Matt has certainly stood the test of time staying in his volunteer role well past the point where his daughters moved away from competitive sport.
This development will, of course, open up opportunities for other individuals to step forward as volunteers.
There are, currently, a number of roles within the club which we are looking for volunteers to step forward to help with and leave their mark on one of the leading athletics clubs in the region and one of the oldest running clubs in the country with a very rich history.
We would be very pleased to hear from anyone with even the smallest amount of free time to offer and no previous experience is necessary.
A list of the roles is included at the end of this note, but we would like to emphasise that grassroots sport does not exist without the great work done through volunteering so we would urge you to give this a go. Many of the roles only take up a small amount of time and even then each of these positions could be split between different people.
In the interim we are delighted to announce that the committee have agreed that existing volunteer Terry Maywood be appointed as interim Chairman to steer the club through the process of finding a permanent replacement for Matt.
Please speak to any member of the committee, your coach or drop a line to the club secretary Katie Bates ([email protected]) to get more details.
We would like to thank Matt, most sincerely, for everything he has done for KTH especially during his tenure as Chairman for the club, he will be greatly missed.
Current KTH volunteer roles
Permanent Chairman
Vice Chairman
Club Captain (Track & XC)
Events Co-ordinator
Facilities Officer
Athlete Representative
Membership Secretary