The True Value of Volunteering in English Sports

'Valuing volunteers' is a much thrown-around phrase but is the value intrinsic to the person?

I (Simon Kirkland) have volunteered since I started coaching at 17 and have hardly stopped since. Done the whole lot, event support and organisation, refereeing and mostly as a volunteer on committees making things happen. This doesn’t include the joy I gained from coaching. However, I would like to explore the value of an inter-relationship between event-club-officiating volunteering. The diagram shows that volunteering in sports comes in several stages. When you explore these further, they fit into the life of the volunteer and more importantly their motivation and available time.

Gaining Experience through Community Events

I volunteered at community events in and around Birmingham, taking on any and every role that needed filling. What did I learn and how did this help me? With a natural curiosity, I was soaking in the experiences and used many of them to demonstrate not only my understanding of the role but also my willingness to go the extra mile. This was where I found a real benefit - the experience gave me more to relate to at interviews later down the line. I'm confident it helped me stand out from recent graduates who might not have had the same exposure or hands-on experience and had just done a degree. When we are recruiting at Sport Structures we look for what people have done in addition to their job so they are relevant and understand the volunteer environment.

The Overlooked Role of Officiating

 Officiating is a much-overlooked aspect of the sport, often seen as a role held by ex-players. However, my experience refereeing tournaments provided a fantastic opportunity to gain firsthand knowledge and understanding of competition organisations. It wasn't just about the rules; spending a long time officiating or in my case refereeing at tournaments was a great opportunity to cut my teeth in community sport, build friendships, and connect with people who share my passion and values. 

The Unseen Volunteer: Behind the Scenes Roles

Now the big one to commit to is the unseen volunteer. As a teacher, I committed to being the local secretary for football, Cricket, swimming and badminton. Not sure how I got the last one, I must have missed the meeting! All of these voluntary roles gave me a real understanding of competition frameworks, fixture issues with facilities and the English weather! A value I used when I led and supported the competition framework change with AoC Sport. I have had a range of club volunteer roles from fixture secretary, and volunteer coordinator to Chair. A key highlight was when I wrote workshops for a range of national volunteer programmes in areas such as valuing volunteers, volunteer coordination and latterly some of the great Buddle workshops. The principles in these workshops are the same now as they were twenty years ago, but the change in people's social lives has changed particularly post-COVID.

The Intrinsic Satisfaction of Volunteering

The inner satisfaction of planning something at the club, regional, or national level and seeing it come to fruition is wonderful. Sometimes it can be difficult to explain but without that planning the programme would not be on the ground, and people would not be doing that sport. For example, we planned from scratch, as chair of WM Swimming, a Diving programme at the new Sandwell Aquatics Centre based on the Commonwealth Games. However, volunteering doesn’t need public recognition for me, but the joy of seeing people engaged in a programme is wonderfully intrinsically satisfying and makes it all worth it.

We are now seeing more short-term volunteering and less long-term volunteering in one location or organisation. No longer do people need to “serve their time” at different levels, if they can make a positive change on a short-term basis. However, being tackled through 'Buddle' is the need to make the administration of sports clubs and NGB more efficient and less online paperwork. We are also seeing young people making valuable contributions with skills they have developed through social media. We are currently working with BCU and volunteers from their degree courses who want to volunteer outside of their course requirements. We also offer an opportunity to go through an interview process to provide the volunteers with valuable industry experience in interviews and the process of securing a job. These volunteers are given agreed roles that will help our business and will build their skills for their future. One of our previous volunteers has gone on to be a Team Leader at the World Athletics Championships in Hungary! Another benefit of volunteering is that it can take you around the world with someone else paying!

Reflecting on the Impact of Volunteering on My Career

Looking back on my career I am convinced I wouldn’t have had the experiences and jobs I have had without volunteer experiences and now it's my time to give back and share through my experiences, so I will continue to make a volunteer commitment for many years to come, as I simply love it!