About volunteer

Linda Cairns has worked with volunteers for the last 20 years, in sport, publishing and education. She has managed teams of volunteers in the UK and abroad and knows firsthand what it is like to be a volunteer.

It’s a World Champs, we’ll need 100s of volunteers, and it’s 500 miles away….

Posted on 30/11/2015 by volunteer

“Congratulations to the organisers and army of volunteers who helped make this happen” Dougie Vipond, The Adventure Show, BBC2 Scotland.

He was referring to the Event Team of 700 volunteers who have just delivered a Home World Orienteering Championships. A Team that was put together specially for this complex, week-long event that was broadcast live on TV. It was also held in parallel with the biggest ever Scottish 6-days making this the biggest and highest profile orienteering event ever staged in the UK.

It was a good year for Denmark, Ida Bobach World Champion at the finish of the Long Race in Glen Affric. Courtesy Liveblog

The Challenge

In May 2012, British Orienteering’s Dave Peel, recruited me into the post of WOC2015 Volunteer Manager, as a volunteer, because he could see that the team needed experience from other major sports events. My brief: Recruit a workforce to deliver the World Championship and support the Scottish 6 Days in a remote part of the UK using volunteers from outside of Scotland, and ensure that most of the orienteering volunteers can take part in most of the 6-Days.

My induction came at WOC2012 in Switzerland. Here I learnt about silent starts and sponsors, quarantines and TV demands and strict International Federation Protocols that govern a World Championships. The London Olympics came soon after WOC, and my role as a Team Leader in the Aquatic Centre was a welcome inspiration.

Recruit

We started by defining roles, identifying what could be done by people without orienteering experience, and recruiting and selecting the right people for different jobs. We had to develop our own recruitment and communication systems and I am grateful to Paul Frost, the SOA Web Developer, who helped me build a very effective volunteer recruitment website which was integrated with MailChimp for our sign-up and communication systems. I also promoted opportunities on the Volunteer Scotland website which enabled us to attract Commonwealth Games volunteers.

Of the volunteers, 120 came from outside of the sport of orienteering to do roles like sprint control marshalling, minibus driving and arena building. 580 were orienteers from all over the UK and Europe.

Volunteers came from orienteering clubs all over the UK and beyond, from local running clubs and parkrun, Volunteer Scotland, Glasgow 2014 and all of the organisations shown above

Prepare

Everyone needed to understand the scale of the World Champs and the orienteers needed to see how it differed from regular multi-day events. As nothing existed, we developed our own induction and training resources including videos from footage we’d recorded at previous WOCs. We wrote comprehensive briefing instructions for control marshals to make sure they didn’t jeopardise the integrity of a sprint race. We also produced safety and social media guidelines.

My team did some clever stuff with MailChimp to produce team and key contacts lists, and to send tailored, personalized messages to each volunteer, reminding them of their team and role and including relevant inductions. These tailored communications helped us achieve a 100% turnout of volunteers on the day.

Crowds getting ready to watch the Relay in front of Darnaway Castle, Moray

Support

All of the Event Team needed uniforms, photo accreditation passes and lunches – a significant undertaking. We also identified some unexpected obstacles which were extra challenges to overcome. Helping volunteers find affordable accommodation – we organised a homestay system. Overseas volunteers needed help with transport – we organised lift-sharing. Preparing non-orienteers for the vital role of sprint control guarding – we held a marshal training evening for local volunteers and it was a packed house. We worked closely with the 6-days to ensure that orienteers could have start times that were compatible with their WOC jobs. And there was one challenge that defeated us right until the end – providing helpful travel instructions to volunteers without breaking strict embargo rules of orienteering which keep map and location details strictly confidential until days before the event.

Reflections

Minority sports can benefit from volunteers that are not involved in their sport. For orienteering, volunteers such as local runners, D of E students, and increasingly “Event Volunteer Tourists” can help at big events. And there are well established routes to recruiting them – like www.joininuk.org #BigHelpOut. But it takes an investment in time and the right people to recruit and support these volunteers. When working with volunteers who are not normally part of our specific sport’s culture we mustn’t forget to really look after them – tell them what to bring, train them and give them lunch.

A little bit of legacy

We worked with the Scottish Club Development Officers to offer all the local volunteers – many members of running clubs who had been sprint control marshals – a free entry into events organised by local clubs Moravian, INVOC and BASOC following WOC2015. This was both a thank you and a chance for the volunteers to try the sport that they had seen so closely, for themselves.

Acknowledgements

To all of the individuals and clubs who worked hard in the lead up and during WOC2015:

Thank you and we hope that you were proud to be involved in the biggest and highest profile orienteering event ever held in the UK.

To Paul McGreal, Event Director who skilfully and calmly managed a very complex event – it was a pleasure working with you Paul. I believe that we benefited hugely from Paul’s leadership and his experience as ED for Celtman and World Duathlon Champs.

The heart of my volunteer management team

I’d also like to slip in a special thank you to my own team of 12, and in particular David Maliphant – Comms; Ann Haley – Data; Terry Williams – Newsletters; Craig Lowther – training. We Skyped every fortnight in the 18 months leading up to WOC and only met for the first time in Nairn.

Postscript

This post was published in part in “Orienteering Focus, The Official Voice of British Orienteering” in the Autumn/Winter 2015 Edition

Sports event generated £9.4m for local economy

Posted on 13/11/2015 by volunteer

The World Orienteering Championships, together with the Scottish 6-days “spectator races”, were held in Moray and Highlands regions of Scotland this summer with the Event Centred in Inverness. The VisitScotland Economic impact study has just been published and reports that these orienteering events, in which more than 8000 athletes took part, generated £9.4m for the Scottish economy. Guest houses, restaurants and shops among the businesses most to benefit. See BBC News Scotland piece here: Orienteering events ‘boosted Scotland’s economy’

This boost to the economy could not have happened without a massive amount of volunteering. All together around 1500 volunteers were involved in planning and delivering these events. The Scottish 6-days is staged every two years by the members of the orienteering clubs in Scotland. Hence the The World Championships, held concurrently, needed to look further afield to fill its “Event Team” of volunteers. The chart below shows where these people came from to stage this World Class event in Moray and Highlands.

Almost a third of the World Championships volunteers came from Scotland. More than half of these volunteers from Scotland came in the form of local runners, experienced in organising running races, who wanted to help stage a World Class event on their doorstep. Members of the Technical team were also local as they needed to make regular visits to the orienteering areas to plan the courses. The Event Team also included Commonwealth Games Clydesiders who had enjoyed their part in Glasgow 2014 and wanted more – bringing valuable experience of high-profile sports events to WOC2015. The majority, 65%, of the volunteers came from England and Wales, with most, but not all, being club orienteers. We even had volunteers coming from further afield including Scandinavia and Eastern Europe.

The World Orienteering Championships was a successful, high profile event, shown on live TV, that received great feedback from top athletes. We now know that it also had a positive impact on the local economy.

On behalf of British Orienteering, The Scottish Orienteering Association and all the athletes that competed, I would like to say a sincere thank you to all the volunteers that made these events happen. Thank you to the Clydesiders, the locals, the runners, the club orienteers, the Duke of Edinburgh students, and everybody involved. You signed up to support the event because it was local or it was your sport, and maybe becuase it sounded exciting, but we didn’t imagine that collectively us volunteers would contribute so much to the local economy.

All things to all people – just not at once

Posted on 21/05/2015 by volunteer

As the Volunteer Manager of a big sports event, you might imagine that I get quite a few e-mails. Want to know what I do with them?

I give top priority to messages from……

people who are offering to volunteer – they only have me as a point of contact and they deserve to hear from us promptly
my own team who are developing and operating our volunteer management processes – I really want to support them and if I hold them up then everything slows down
those above me – the Event Directors – they have so much going on, they need their reports to jump when they say jump.

If you are none of the above, and you have contacted me, I will come back to you as soon as I can. I’m a volunteer, and I’m fitting all of this into my spare time.

Your challenge should you choose to take it

Posted on 04/05/2015 by volunteer

We want you to find some volunteers to organise an event – running race marshals, that sort of thing. About 600. It will be exciting – it’s for a World Championship. By the way we are going to hold it in the north of Scotland where there is not a huge local population so you’ll need to bring volunteers in from the rest of the UK. We want the athletes and spectators to have the best experience coming to this event, so the races will be in some of the most beautiful places including one of the most remote glens in Scotland. Of course, we need to build a suitable spectator arena in each of these places, with catering, and facilities for 5000 plus big screens, commentary and TV coverage so we’ll need practical people too.

So far so good.

These marshals that you have found. We need to make sure they all go to the right places, but we cannot tell you where these places are. This is a World Orienteering Championships, it is vital that the athletes do not know where the races start, finish or what route they take. So we are closely guarding this information.

OK, systems in place, we can handle that.

The volunteers that you have recruited from within the sport, you know that they also want to take part in the spectator races on at the same time. Do what you can to organise suitable start times so they can fit in their volunteering shifts.

Getting there….

A day in the life of a Volunteer Manager

Posted on 11/03/2015 by volunteer

The World Orienteering Championships start at the end of July 2015. As a minority sport, this event is being delivered by a tiny group of part-time professionals and a large “Event Team” of volunteers. I’m the Volunteer Manager and I’m a volunteer. Our event team currently stands at 400 and I’m pleased to say that all lead posts have been filled. We are still building the delivery team and expect to reach around 600 volunteers in total.

The event is now hitting the local press and volunteers are pouring into my inbox. We are appointing and organising, informing and introducing, nurturing and updating a workforce that is spread all over the UK and Europe. We have sports people specialising in planning and event organisation. And we have volunteers with experience gained at the London Olympics and Glasgow Commonwealth Games. I’d love to be sharing what we are doing as we are doing it. But we are just too busy getting on with it. All I can do for now is share some advice about what I think is helping:

start early – thank goodness I started 3 years ago
plan for scale – we built and refined our opportunities pages, and our sign up system before the rush
build up healthy working relationships – I’m enjoying the strong and trusted relationships that I have with colleagues
build a good team around you – my collaborative and good-humoured team are one of the highlights of this event for me. We Skype’s fortnightly and keep in close touch
talk to people – you can feel like a real human being, achieve good things, and avoid painful misunderstandings by speaking sometimes instead of e-mailing

A typical day in the life of an Event Volunteer Manager starts at 7, ends at 11, includes a run and far too much time at a computer. It has laughs and lists of lists and occasional desk-thumping frustrations. Overall it is pretty damn good. I haven’t got time to write a day in the life. When it is all over I’ll write about how we did it. Let’s get there first!

So, I’m worth £16,000

Posted on 26/10/2014 by volunteer

…..as one of the 3.2 million people who regularly volunteer in sport.

Join in, the volunteering organisation, set out to calculate the true value that a sport volunteer contributes to society. Using information on the “Social Value of Volunteering” from the Bank of England, Join In has released ground-breaking research in it’s report Hidden Diamonds.They evaluated the increase in wellbeing and improvement in mental health for both the volunteer and the sports participants and found that:

A volunteer creates the capacity for at least 8.5 people to participate.

One volunteer in sport creates wellbeing worth £16,000

Join in talks about us volunteers as investing our time, skills and energies in creating opportunities for others to take part in sport. In doing this, we are seen to be creating community assets. Hardly surprising then that a volunteer in sport is significantly more likely to feel good about their community than someone who doesn’t volunteer.

Join in compared the community feel-good factor between volunteers and non-volunteers and demonstrated that volunteering boosts happiness and wellbeing.

Compared to those who have never volunteered in sport, 87% of people who volunteer agreed that their life has meaning.

If you volunteer in sport you are significantly more likely to trust people in your community

We know that sports clubs and volunteer-led events like parkruns bring communities together and we feel happier as a result. I believe that quite a few people go home from volunteering feeling better than they do after competing. But is nice to see the social value of volunteering being recognised and hear the Bank of England’s chief economist describing volunteering as a hidden jewel.

This is my volunteering philosophy, do you agree?

Posted on 15/09/2014 by volunteer

I believe that we volunteer for our own gain AND to make things we believe in happen.

Our volunteering gives us a sense of purpose, camaraderie, and enjoyment. And we benefit by developing our skills, meeting new people and expanding our lives.

The best volunteering situations encourage volunteers to take on only what they can do in the time available ….. and they deliver. The organisation and the individual communicate openly and honestly and the individual can ask for help.

There are some people who take on voluntary roles for other motives, maybe because they want the status associated with the post or because they want to get a “toe in the door”. In my experience, volunteers like this do not fit in well. They don’t support the team as effectively as volunteers who are genuinely interested in what they are doing. And I’m sure they don’t derive the same satisfaction for themselves.

Volunteers are making a serious commitment to do a job – albeit an unpaid one, and should be treated as seriously and professionally as paid employees.

I agree with Matthew Taylor (RSA) in his “A Formula for Volunteering” that the word volunteer encompasses such a wide range from seriously responsible public roles to micro-volunteering that it is time that we developed a more helpful vocabulary. I would love to see a new word that recognises the professional nature of many volunteer posts and one that helps shake off the old, charitable “do goody” image. Please post any ideas.

This is my volunteering philosophy. Do you agree?

Clever infographic on personal benefits of volunteering

Posted on 10/09/2014 by volunteer

Great infographic from @CareerVolnteer based on info from http://helpguide.org/life/volunteer_opportunities_benefits_volunteering.htm

Finding my way around the Commonwealth Games

Posted on 11/08/2014 by volunteer

The mountain biking at Cathkin Braes was spectacular

I’ve just spent two of the most enjoyable weeks of my life as a volunteer at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games. As a sports event organiser and serial volunteer it is no surprise that I applied to be a “Clyde-Sider” but when I made the 800 mile round trip for my interview early in 2013, I had a rough flight, a bumpy landing and a cold wet day. I remember sheltering in the relative warmth of the People’s Palace and wondering if it was such a good idea.

When my shift roster arrived I was delighted to see that my sports were Triathlon, Mountain Biking, Marathon and Road Cycling. The role said “Results Technology Services, Transponder Team” and the cynic in me imagined a back-room job sorting timing devices. Oh no! If you watched the BBC coverage of the Triathlon Relay, you might have seen that I put in nearly as many appearances as Alistair Brownlee. Our team was issuing and collecting timing transponders and that meant fixing them to bikes or athlete’s ankles before the start and removing them at the finish. It was an exciting role with a front row view of the action.

I camped at Lochinch in Pollok Park, in a small tent (2 seconds pop-up: 25 mins not-pop-down!). Camping Ninja ran a good ship – it felt secure and they did their best to provide enough charging points for all the phones. And they supported Project Recamp to reuse and donate camping equipment at the end. The Lochinch Sports Club volunteers and staff worked hard to look after us and battled manfully to keep a supply of hot water to the showers. I only had one cold one. They provided food service, although I had always left before breakfast which started at 7.00am. And there were big screens to watch the sporting action until 11.30pm when they turned them off and sent us out to our tents.

Early morning peace at Camping Ninja

With the help of friends, thank you Debbie and Elizabeth, I arrived by train and was reunited with my tent, bike and uniform. I embraced the Glasgow 2014 ideal of “active transport”, and set out to cycle to all my shifts. The triathlon in Strathclyde Country Park was always going to be a challenge. So I set off extra early with route details and a borrowed OS map (thank you Christine and Malcolm). Three hours later I arrived at the athlete check-in gate of the triathlon venue. The transport and security teams who greeted me were in awe of my determination to battle the (unsigned) diversions around the Glasgow Green venue and the athlete village. I went down in history as the mad cycling volunteer who put in more hours on a bike that the competing athletes! Security kindly looked after my bike and Transport put me on an athlete bus to the other end of the park – which was closed to all other traffic for the event. The staff at Workforce Check-in rallied round to find me a breakfast of a banana and a “Lees Original Macaroon”. Not a macaroon as I know it, but if I ever come across one of these again I will be transported back to Strathclyde Loch. I was inauspiciously late joining the timing team but luckily this was a preparation session. The next day I modified my transport plans and combined cycling with the train to Motherwell.

Our triathlon shifts included a venue and team training day, the individual women’s and men’s races, a relay rehearsal and – the highlight – the Mixed Team Relay. Was I proud to be English? You bet! Surprised at the National Anthem? We all were. Congratulations to:

Jodie Stimpson and Vicky Holland, Gold and Bronze
Alistair and Jonny Brownlee, Gold and Silver
and Holland/ Brownlee/ Stimpson /Brownlee, Gold in the Relay

Proud to be English, puzzled by the National Anthem

It was a pleasure to work with these athletes and they confirmed my belief, formed in my early days with aat events, that triathletes are generally a very reasonable bunch of people. Before the start of the team relay, Jonny Brownlee appeared in the changeover area with a pair of scissors, and asked me if he could shorten the transponder straps to stop them flapping about. He did his, and his brother’s. Impressive race preparation. I later recalled that after the individual event there had been 4 straps that were too short to fit back on the rack they came on. We now know why.

The blistering sunshine in the first week warmed the water above the temperature that wetsuits were optional. Yes, in Glasgow the water was so warm that wetsuits were forbidden by Triathlon rules. I also heard reports of melting tarmac on the bike route. There were industrial sized containers of sun-screen for volunteers to help themselves at breaks.

Results technology team

On the train journey home from the relay, I enjoyed a lively conversation with some David McNamee fans. They could see what a great time I was having, and how passionate I was about organising sport at all levels. (They assumed I must work in a school – irony, Mr Gove). One of the triathlon fans mentioned that he had considered volunteering but ultimately had not because he felt it would be a big anti-climax when it was all over. Yes it really is. But there are solutions – there’s a topic for a future blog post.

The marathon route came right through our camp-site. Handy for spectators but I had to get up at 5.00am to cycle to the event HQ. I was somewhat dismayed to find out, after check-in, venue tour and team brief, that our team was overstaffed and one of us could go home. As I’d had such a great role at the Tri relay I stepped down. But by this time all the roads had been closed. I might have had a lie in and a short stroll to cheer the runners through Pollok Park. Never mind. I understand it’s hard to plan such complex volunteer schedules. Instead I went back to the People’s Palace which was now the workforce rest area. This spectacular greenhouse which had provided some warmth and shelter in the winter was – well, like a greenhouse! I sat down in a comfy chair and fell fast asleep and missed the marathon completely.

Another gastronomic memory of Glasgow 2014 – a volunteer staple

The Mountain Bike venue also presented transport challenges, not least the 400m climb to the top of Cathkin Braes hill. So I settled for the bus – did my research on the way home from the marathon to check the bus stop was not on a closed road. The very helpful bus driver set me down in a random housing estate and told me to head off uphill on a minor track. Better luck than at the triathlon, I arrived straight to Workforce Check-in. It was an awesome venue and the huge wind turbine and buzzing helicopters added to the atmosphere. My job was again working with the Longines timing team and here on the 80% gate where athletes that drop behind are pulled or retire. Some were clearly outclassed. Others were frustrated. But I was surprised at the reaction of the crashed and bloodied Isle of Man rider who punched the air with joy when his team manager told him that his crash had been replayed several times on the big screen. If seems if you are going to crash, you want people to see it. Radio communications presented an unexpected challenge for me as all messages were in German. Most of the numbers came back to me, but who would have thought I’d have needed a European language at the Commonwealth Games in Scotland.

A day off – and someone gave me an athletics ticket. Thank you 🙂 And other priorities were washing clothes and bike repairs.

For the cycling time trial we were asked to meet at Commonwealth House in the City centre, the venue for my distant past interview on that chilly day. We were sorted into sectors, slowly, and bussed out onto the route. 7.30am check-in; 10.01am race start. we were in place and set up with only minutes to spare, a reminder that it takes a long time to organise so many people.

Back up timing for the Cycling Time Trial

We were dropped into the middle of nowhere, in pouring rain. Our uniform rain jackets and umbrellas were good, and our trousers were quick-dry, but I was relieved to see a gazebo at my timing station. My job was to record the cyclist numbers and make sure the back-up info was radioed to Longines timing HQ – this time thankfully in English.

Cycle sculpture on Route 7

Loch Lomond and the Trossachs

I must have been inspired by all that cycling. Next day off I embarked on an excursion to Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park. It was a splendid cycle along Sustrans NCR 7 which followed the Forth & Clyde Canal and the River Leven.

A chance to run in the Pollok parkrun on Saturday – don’t forget your barcode! And then my final shift was the Cycling Road Race where we were removing transponders from some very expensive bikes.

Throughout my two weeks I’d experienced some great team leadership – take a bow Terence from Canada, our Tri results tech team leader. I’d had the satisfaction of of collaborating with some real team players, and a little bit of working with some non-team players too. Just occasionally it felt like we were in an episode of The Apprentice with some jostling and posturing and imagined calls of “Notice me! Give me the best job!”

But what I will remember most is the teamwork, the camaraderie of the campsite and the amazing friendliness of people in the city.

If you were in uniform people wanted to talk to you. I cycled in and out of the city at all times of day and night. They say “People Make Glasgow”.

One of my favourite places to relax was the BBC at the Quay: A hub of entertainment, free bands, big screen and the studio where they recorded “Tonight at the Games”. I’d been lucky enough to see Public Service Broadcasting, Bellowhead, PAWS, Prides and The Radiophonic workshop. On the last night Debbie and I, and several thousand others returned for one last time to The Quay to watch the closing ceremony.

Sun sets on the iconic Finnieston Crane and Glasgow 2014 venues

Sad Glasgow 2014 is over. Will I be finding my way to the Gold Coast in 2018, I wonder.

It’s an honour to volunteer for parkrun

Posted on 20/06/2014 by volunteer

More than 1 million people are registered with parkrun Photo courtesy Simon Hart

On Saturday 14th June, 2014, Paul Sinton-Hewitt was awarded the CBE in the Queen’s Birthday honours list for “services to Grass-roots Sport Participation”. Paul started parkrun in 2004. And now these free, 5k, timed,Saturday runs are happening all over the UK and in a growing number of other countries. The statistics are so phenomenal that I will not include them here as they will be out of date tomorrow! Instead I’ll refer you to the foot of the parkrunUK home page where you can find the latest stats and here for the worldwide numbers.

Even more amazing than the numbers of people running, are the numbers of people volunteering. Every week at least 3000 people in the UK help put on their local parkrun and a grand total of 60,055 different people have volunteered for parkrun in some way or another. I have been fortunate to see the inner workings of parkrun and experience the dedication of the most committed volunteers at the recent Ambassador’s conference. Ambassadors are instrumental in helping parkrun continue to grow.

The success of parkrun lies in having practical systems that can be taken on by volunteers. But I believe a far bigger contributor to the meteoric rise in new parkruns is the ethos that inspires ordinary people to step forward and volunteer. parkruns are organised by local people with the support of the ambassadors, a tiny staff of parkrun and sponsors.

parkrun is bringing communities together to make grass-roots sport happen; and as a consequence parkrun is bringing communities together.

Paul and parkrun deserve this Birthday Honour. And as one of the local volunteer Event Directors I can say that I feel very honoured to be part of parkrun.

You can read more about this story in the parkrun weekly news.

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