How to bring volunteers back to community sport: Webinar

Community Sport’s Recovery: Growing Your Volunteers

Wednesday 10 June

10am-11am

SPORT relies heavily on volunteers, so it is no wonder that there is widespread concern around the sudden halt that COVID-19 has brought to the community sport world in Scotland, and what it means for the future.

Will volunteers be able to return to the schools, clubs and community sport they once led or supported? Will they be frozen out due to social distancing and new, localised ‘bubbles’, or will other priorities take the place of sport for many coaches and helpers leaving clubs without support? Or might we actually see more people signing up to be volunteers, keen to play a greater role in society after forming new bonds during lockdown across communities? In the fifth OSS webinar we turn the spotlight on the volunteer armies that underpin sport in all shapes and forms, for all ages and abilities, across Scotland and seek to provide reassurance and guidance on rebuilding your volunteering base as we re-emerge from the coronavirus lockdown.

We are joined by an expert panel to help us. Ian Sandbrook, formerly of Cricket Scotland and now with ‘Sport for Good Consulting’ in New Zealand, will present on key tips on recruiting and keeping volunteers, and how to think about what people seek from involvement in community sport. CEO of Volunteering Scotland George Thomson and Mark Munro, CEO of Scottish Athletics, will share their insight to good practice in growing volunteer armies and Dr Fiona Reid, of UK Sports Volunteering, Glasgow Caledonian University and the OSS Research Advisory Group will also research on why volunteering matters to all communities in Scotland.

The webinar is free to all to ensure as many people as possible can join and we’ll see if we can beat the last webinar sign-up on school sport and PE, which attracted 920 attendees. But as we are a charity we welcome donations, if you can, to help us to develop research and shape policy for sustainable sport for all ages and abilities across Scotland. Join us and have your say.