The first week of June 2013 is officially Volunteer Week, organised by Volunteering England and supported by the ASA, and it’s a good opportunity for us as a Club to officially say THANK YOU to everyone who gives up their time to the Club. We recently calculated that our volunteers give up over 5,000 hours per annum which is amazing.
To find out what some of our current volunteers get out of it and why they do it, click on the video link: http://youtu.be/-WgME6kmTIg
If you are interested in getting involved in coaching, talk to Alan in the first instance. You’ll be given a trial period followed by a more formal induction and training (e.g. child protection, lifesaving, team manager). Training and qualifications improve the quality of coaching and, as a result, the performance of our swimmers. We are proud to have around a dozen of our older swimmers coaching and working towards formal qualifications.
If you’d like to help out at galas as an official, talk to Carryl Baughan, who is responsible for our officials. You will usually start as an unqualified timekeeper but courses are run regularly and you’ll be encouraged to progress – to chief timekeeping, judging, starting, possibly all the way through to refereeing.
There are many other non-official roles needed to help us run galas and our events co-ordinator, Louise Farrow, is the key person to contact here. It is Louise who posts up the list on the Club notice board and asks people to sign up to particular roles – medals, ‘whipping’, runner, refreshments, the door/raffle, announcing and so forth. It was interesting at the Spring Development Meet recently that, since many of our more experienced volunteers were not involved, many new parents stepped up to fill the gaps and really enjoyed the event. We simply cannot run meetings without such support. Louise is recruiting volunteers NOW for the next round of Club Championships, on 30th June, 7th and 14th July. There are other roles such as raising sponsorship or helping with our 100 Year Anniversary events you could help with – for example, the Fun Day at the end of June.
The other half of ‘Team Farrow’, Andrew, organises the events technical support team which starts with setting up entries and the meet in the ‘Meet Manager’ software and ensuring the AOE (electronic timing system) works on the night, displaying times on the score board and processing the results on the night. A calm approach and some understanding of IT and software systems/printers helps here. If you’d like to get involved, talk to Andrew in the first instance.
Last but not least, we have a strong management committee which works together to ensure the Club is well run and finances are tightly managed. In addition to the 3 executive officers (Chair, Treasurer and Secretary) we can have up to 8 people on the committee and at present have only 5, so we are looking to recruit new committee members. We meet once a month, on a Monday evening to review membership and admin issues, events, finances and swimming performance, plus other issues as required, such as swim21. You don’t need any particular qualifications and must be over 18. It would be great to have parents from the younger end of the Club or anyone with a particular skill to offer. Talk to Joan Keevill or Annette Reed if you’d like to find out more.
HHSC is a great Club – made great by our volunteers so THANK YOU!