The importance of volunteers from board rooms to village greens

As I come to an end of my two terms as a Trustee of the English Federation of Disability Sport, and within the same week commence my role as an elected Director of the Sport and Recreation Alliance, I have had cause to reflect on my own experience and motivations for volunteering in sport.  First of all, I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with EFDS.  However, being a non-executive these days is a significant responsibility and commitment, and given that it is a voluntary role, as most are in sport, it needs to be a mutually beneficial and rewarding experience.  It definitely helps that I have supported a cause that I have a real interest in and am passionate about, but most of all, I wanted to feel that my input is valued and that I am making a difference to that cause or mission.  Given the investment of time, I also wanted to feel that I was learning new skills and developing personally and professionally too.  In short, like many other volunteers, I wanted to be appreciated, involved and developed.   I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Chair, Charles Reed, my colleagues on the Board and the executive team at EFDS for making this such a rewarding experience and I wish them well for the future. 

It is based on this experience that I put myself forward for election to the Alliance Board. As an organisation which has a critical role to play in creating a vibrant future for grassroots sport and recreation across the country, it again has a mission that I feel passionate about and look forward to contributing to.  We are very lucky in sport that so many people feel this way about what we do and it is increasingly bringing fantastic skills into our sector, as we recently found through the recruitment of a new Board for the CSP Network. In our CSPs we have over 600 Board members from numerous other sectors giving their time voluntarily, providing local leadership and advocacy for sport, ensuring good governance and accountability for the CSP, and giving invaluable support, expertise and challenge to the executive teams.  Too often we think about this governance role as an organisational overhead, rather than a key asset that their added value can bring, if appreciated, involved and developed appropriately.  With this in mind, at the CSP Network we have developed a governance support programme to support this key asset and it is a priority for us to engage and support them further in the future.  I would encourage colleagues to make use of the training and support available from Sport and Recreation Alliance to support their Board volunteers.

Of course, it is not just around the Board table where we need this resource, volunteers are the heartbeat of wider grassroots sport in this country and we must treasure this precious asset.  I have volunteered in local sport in a variety of roles over the years, I am currently coaching junior cricket at my village club, and again have always got as much out of it as I have given.  It was therefore great to see this recognised in the recent ‘Sporting Future’ Government strategy for sport, which recognises volunteering as a top tier outcome in its own right for the first time and reinforced in the Sport England ‘Towards an Active Nation’ strategy which highlights the ‘dual benefit’ to both sport and the individual, and positions the volunteer as a second ‘customer’ for the sector.  Volunteers have been at the heart of some of our most successful initiatives within CSPs, including our Community Games and Workplace Challenge, something we intend to build on in the future. With increasing research into the motives, benefits and value of volunteering, such as Join In’s Hidden Diamonds report, which showed that sport volunteering is worth £52bn, enhances wellbeing, strengthens communities and creates essential capacity for people to play sport, we must all continue to prioritise and refine our approach to appreciating, involving and developing our volunteer workforce.

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