Branch & SIG Committee Support

Branch & Special Interest Group committee information

Welcome to our dedicated page for our Branch and SIG committee members. First of all, thank you for being one of our valued volunteers! We hope the information provided will help with the running of your committee and activities. Of course, BABCP staff are always available to help with any queries. Our telephone number is included at the bottom of this page as well as individuals email addresses.

Running the committee

Once your committee is in place, you should hold regular committee meetings to discuss the following –

Generating ideas for future activities of the group
Future CPD events
The workings of the committee: how it will function, membership, succession planning, frequency and style of meetings
A feedback opportunity – discussing a recent event, the progress of the Branch/SIG against its plans for the year and the committee roles

Any meeting that you hold should be well organised. Some tips:

Give attendees sufficient notice
To help with engagement, meetings can be held online, rather than face-to-face
If you are arranging a face-to-face meeting, it should be somewhere that is in easy reach and accessible for everyone. Free of charge venues should be sourced. If there is a charge, or any planned costs, our Accounts team must be notified in advance so this can be approved.
Make sure that everyone who attends the meeting has an opportunity to be involved and have their say
Create an agenda
Summarise the discussions at the event and make sure that everyone is clear about the actions required following the meeting.

Committee positions

Committees should always include a Chair, Secretary, Treasurer and a Liaison Officer. A branch or SIG cannot continue if these positions are not in place.

Your committee can include other members as well – these are called Ordinary Members. While there is no stipulation for the number of Ordinary Members to include in your committee, bear in mind the logistics of managing too many members on your committee, while making sure there are enough members to spread the work around.

You can see more about the role descriptions of each committee position here.

Holding an Annual General Meeting

Every Branch and SIG should hold an Annual General Meeting (AGM) each year, and no later than 15 months after the previous meeting. The AGM is a formal meeting to report on the previous year’s activities and to review and confirm the roles of the committee for the next year.

The AGM can be held either online or in-person. Notify us of the details when these have been confirmed by your committee. We will then confirm these and check on any information we may need to finalise the meeting. The details we need to know are –

Date & time
Venue (if in-person)
Any committee positions to be elected

We will send an email to members advising of the AGM. As well as giving them the opportunity to attend, they can also send you motions to be added to your agenda.

The timetable for arranging your AGM should aim to provide adequate opportunity for members to know about the meeting, consider nominating themselves for a committee position if applicable.

Please provide no less than four weeks’ notice to the BABCP office of your intention to hold an AGM. If you are unable to meet by 15 months after your last AGM, please let us know, and we can provide support.

You can watch this short video which explains how to set up your AGM each year.

Setting up a CPD event

Please refer to the ‘Delivering CPD events‘ document for full information to guide your Branch or SIG. Click on the image to download the guide.

If the Branch or SIG would like to set up a CPD event, an Online Event Proposal Form needs to be submitted at least three months prior to the planned event date. We can then ensure Head Office staff can provide full support for the administration of the event.

For face-to-face events, please submit an online In-person CPD Event Proposal Form

Key considerations for event planning

All CPD events should have –

CBT at their core
qualified and/or experienced CBT trainers as event speakers
concise and measurable learning outcomes.
consideration for equality, diversity and inclusion
consideration of and an opportunity for lived experience voices
a mix of theory and skills provision within the training

Event finances

There are cost implications for all events. The Proposal Form allows us to ensure that financial costs are covered by the event fees to be charged.

Publicising your event

The event will only be promoted once the event proposal has been agreed. The event will be available to book by members direct from our website. The information you provide in the proposal will form the basis of the information we use to promote the event, so it is good to have as much detail as you can provide about the event synopsis, aims and objectives, its intended audience, as well as speaker biographies.

We will email members with details of the event, as well as share it on our social media channels and where publication and deadline timing allows, in CBT Today magazine.

Public engagement for members

We are keen to support members to involve people with experience of CBT in events and projects. We have developed a document: BABCP Public Engagement Review and Strategy – produced in consultation with people with experience of CBT – which outlines our key public engagement priorities and principles. More information on Public Engagement can be found here.

Communicating with members

We encourage all our branches and SIGs to keep in touch with their members. Newsletters sent by email are a good opportunity to reach out to your members and let them know of any future activities, resources or current events that would be of interest to them. Quarterly newsletters would be an ideal frequency. Note that for data protection purposes, all emails to your members must go via the office, as this is where member data is held. To arrange any email communications with members, please contact the Communications team (contact details at the bottom of this page).

We recognise that social media plays a big part in everyday life, and can be a good medium for engaging with both members and non-members. Branches and SIGs can have a Twitter or Facebook account set up. Please see the Communications Officer for more information.