Blog: 'Volunteering can potentially change your life'
Volunteers' Week 2015 runs from 1-7 June. It is a celebration recognising the contribution of the 23 million people across the UK who volunteer in their communities.
The English Federation of Disability Sport (EFDS) website features a blog post every Friday through the year.
June's theme is volunteering. This week, Jannine Walker, National Events Manager at EFDS, discusses working with dedicated volunteers and the power of giving up your time in sport.
Jannine’s blog:
Rarely have I ever had a volunteer who doesn’t want to be there. It is a workforce who are committed and really interested.
Within EFDS, at the national events we manage, we are very, very lucky. We have a committed team of volunteers who come back for us year in, year out. They get a lot out of it – they make friendships and I think we’ve even had a few marriages!
They are a group who want to be there and who will generally do anything, right down to sweeping the floor if that’s what has to be done. Everyone is there and working together to make the event happen. They’re a great bunch of people.
Regional and even national events run by us would not happen without volunteers. Everything from my tournament directors and officials, all of whom are qualified and registered but are all volunteering. I rely on them heavily to deliver the event.
Volunteers in sport and physical activity come from all walks of life – lecturers, engineers, people who work in a supermarket, officer workers, bankers. People are motivated for lots of different reasons, from giving back to the community to pursuing an interest in PE teaching or working in sport.
Sport across this country at a grassroots level is all about the volunteers. A high-paid, high-level athletics event might even be on television, but all the officials on the field will still be volunteers.
My husband has just become an Assistant Coach at Boothstown FC in Worsley. He has volunteered a lot in sports before, and the stark reality was that if he didn’t volunteer then the young footballers would miss out. There wouldn’t have been any more football. Someone needed to step in.
I worked for EFDS for 13 years, and I volunteered in disability swimming as a teenager, looking after children and other young disabled people at swimming clubs.
I love our volunteers, I think they’re great. And if I didn’t do the job I do then I would definitely volunteer, without a doubt.
"Volunteering gives you an opportunity to do something you otherwise wouldn’t do"
I enjoy helping to make a difference. In co-ordinating volunteers, I too am enabling athletes to take part. It’s making sure they get opportunities. If enough people volunteer, it will happen.
If someone contacted me at EFDS wanting to volunteer I would first and foremost find out where they’re from and what sort of things they want to get involved in. We have direct links with volunteers who work with us at national or regional events, but we also pass contact details onto others, such as Engagement Advisors at County Sports Partnerships.
It all depends what you want to do – swimming, athletics, football. We should be able to pass you onto the right people to enable them to do local volunteering, if that’s what you want. Some people want to get involved at a national level, whereas others just want to volunteer doing something locally once every week.
Volunteering gives you an opportunity to do something you otherwise wouldn’t get the chance to do in your daily life. It allows you to experience lots of different environments and get to work with lots of different people.
Some people have volunteered and it has inspired them to completely change their career and pursue something in that field. It is about you feeling good for doing it, and you’re helping people to achieve what they want in their own lives. It can potentially change your life.
Volunteers' Week is an annual celebration of the fantastic contribution millions of volunteers make across the UK.
