by Laura Ferguson, Volunteering England's Strategic Development Manager for Sport
From Volunteering Magazine, October 2005, Issue 111
www.volunteering.org.uk/magazine
Laura imagines what life in England will be like eight years after the Olympics and Paralympics come to London in 2012.
You were one of the 70,000 volunteers who helped at the London Olympics. You are working in cyberbia along with most of the population who choose to work from home.
Along with many other people you choose to run your own business and have your hand in a number of different pies, all on a part-time basis.
You still volunteer in sport and have found that all of the friends you made during those exciting weeks, a number of them have now moved into paid work in the still rapidly growing world of sport.
Others have moved into other areas following the boom in volunteering raised the numbers of people who formally volunteers across all areas to 65% of the population.
Volunteering sprints up agenda
Today's figures are 5.8m sports volunteers in England, and the London Olympics in seven years time needs around 70,000 volunteers. Volunteering in sport is sprinting up the agenda for many organisations and individuals.
Are you a sports organisation looking for more volunteers, or wondering how best to keep your current volunteers happy?
Or are you a volunteer infrastructure organisation wondering who on earth to contact in the world of sport to start making those links locally?
Forging stronger links
Sports organisations and volunteering infrastructure organisations in England are starting to ask how they can work more closely together.
This is a question that Volunteering England and Sport England have raised and invested in, partly through my new post, and partly via the Sport's Strategic Partnership for Volunteering - a group of sports organisations with an interest in volunteering development, and volunteering organisations with an interest in working with sport.
A recent initial investigation looked to start to answer the big question - how to bring sports organisations and volunteering organisations together?
An initial meeting was held on 17 August to hammer out some principles that need to lie behind the drafting of a framework for sports volunteering. Political and other context was given by an external consultant, Celia Brackenridge, who explained the policy landscape that currently impacts on sports volunteering.
As one of the partners at the Sport's Strategic Partnership for Volunteering, the volunteering infrastructure was represented from local Volunteer Development Agency, to Volunteering England's Regional staff, myself and our Deputy Chief Executive.
Framework benefits
After the event, another SSPV partner, Sport's England's Lisa Wainwright, Senior Development Manager - Volunteers, stated the future benefits of the framework:
"Over 5.8m people currently volunteer in sport in England, but we need more, with better support, clear management and less bureaucracy. If Sport England is to achieve our aim of making England an active and successful sporting nation we need to ensure we are working strategically across the wider Voluntary and Community Sector as well as coordinating our efforts within the sports sector.
The Framework for sports volunteers will give the whole sector a vision for the future, from local to national, North and South, young and old. This is a very exciting time for sport in the UK with the success of London 2012 and it is crucial that we plan now to ensure we can best develop individuals, our communities and sport in England."
Progress gathers pace
From VE's viewpoint, this framework is vital to give a clear viewpoint for the volunteering infrastructure into the world of sport. There are many organisations out there who want to speak to each other and don't know where to start. There are other cases where organisations have already started to talk to sports/volunteering worlds and would like to share the great work they are doing, and to develop it further. Progress on the framework is gathering pace, and the aim is to see its arrival by 2006 - so keep your eyes peeled!
If you are interested in this work or have a great case study you would like to be included, please have a look at the further information on our web pages for Volunteering in Sport.
Useful web links:
http://www.sportengland.org/
