In over my head?

[dukedog1]

I was approached by my pastor at my church and asked if I would consider starting a youth karate program in an attempt to draw in more families to our church. I'm a police officer by trade and have studied martial arts most of my life. I've never ranked higher then my current rank of brown belt. I was a military brat growing up moved a lot and as an adult I was in the military before starting law enforcement about 12 years ago.

I told the pastor I would need to talk it over with my instructor before I would commit to anything.

When I discussed it with my instructor he was beyond supportive. Even agreed to help with some of the classes administer any belt testing free of charge send over our demo team to preform for the church. Allow me to borrow pads and equipment for the class. Start private lessons for me to help make sure I'm comfortable with teaching.

The teaching part I'm OK with at my dojo I often teach or assist in the beginners classes. Here is my concerns when this was brought up it was going to be free classes for a small groups of kids and maybe a few adults if interested. No big deal I was OK with that. Well we started taking in applications for students and there is a lot of interest. So far over 30 kids and 12 adults.

With that amount of people I'm concerned about liability. My instructor said he would be willing to put it on his insurance but I'm not comfortable doing that he's done enough already. So I looked into insurance and its not too bad price wise but more then I want to pay out of pocket. So the pastor suggested charging a monthly fee ofof $20 per month pay insurance with and use the rest to buy equipment or donate to charity or keep as pay for my time. After suggesting the fees to the already committed students they all still are OK with coming and paying.

Here is my problem I don't fee comfortable keeping the money and its now starting to be way more involved then helping a bunch of kids. My instructor is willing to help but were over 2 hours away from my church to his dojo I would never expect him to travel that far.

I'm in the position now I don't want to let the people and church down. I don't want to let my instructor down. I think once up and running everything will be OK. I'm just stressing that if I'm charging money I'm now going to need licenses, deal with taxes sect. I've never ran a business before. I guess I'm really just venting here more then anything.

Anyone else run a church based classes have any insight am I making to much out of this is there an easier way?

[Evil Dave]

First, congratulations! You have your own school. For your financial concerns talk with the Treasurer and/or the Accountant of the Church. If it's a church group a lot of the financials may fall under their bigger umbrella. The churches accountant will know your local laws regarding this area. This also may take some of the burden off you as well. Sit back, take a deep breath and take a look at the resources around you, it sounds like you have a lot of support.