Volunteer and Leadership Development in the United Kingdom - Literature review Example

Heading: Volunteer & Leadership Development Your name: Course name: Professors’ name: Date Introduction Studies demonstrate that many people in the United Kingdom volunteer in sport clubs. Volunteering is important because several clubs cannot afford paid taskforce, especially at their formative stages. Volunteers are crucial for any club to run successfully. Usually, several volunteers may feel that their commitment and dedication go unappreciated. Lack of recognition is a major consideration for clubs for clubs that intend to employ and keep excellent volunteers. In addition to poor reputation, current busy lifestyles recommend that people are always unaware of volunteer chances in their local community or club, and the benefits that their roles offer if the clubs manage them well. This paper, therefore, intends to explore the background of volunteering in sports club; volunteer management in sport clubs; volunteer roles; benefits of volunteers; challenges of volunteering; advantages and disadvantages of volunteering; and how to help volunteers in sport clubs. Background As per GHK (2012), volunteering refers to an activity in which people offer their effort and time, freely without any monetary gain, sharing their expertise, knowledge, and skills for the good of the community or others. In the UK, organized sporting activities first started in the 19th century via voluntary sports clubs and the development of the National Governing Bodies (NGBs). With time, volunteer work in sports greatly developed. There are many reasons for this, with the major one as position of the volunteers in the growth of UK sports. Historically, the country left the provision of physical recreation and sport to the duty of the committed, passionate voluntary amateurs. Some individuals with common passion for, and interest in sports provided sports for the society further than that given in professional clubs and schools. In 1970s and 1980s, there was a substantial expansion in local control sport provision. The support of the voluntary sector as well as volunteers remained vital in spite of its comparatively low profile. With the allocation of more money in sport provision and the establishment of new leisure centers, volunteers consistently supplied the administrators, coaches, secretaries, and treasures without which many clubs and official sport provision would diminish (GHK 2012). In the 1980s, the government established many initiatives that depended largely on the aid of the voluntary sector known as Champion Coaching. Here, the initiative provided volunteers with support to obtain coaching qualifications, and consequently raised volunteers expectations regarding appreciation of their roles and the difference between unpaid volunteers and paid personnel (GHK 2012). As Nichols, Taylor, James, King, Holmes, and Garrett (2005) report, the establishment of the Sports coach UK, initially known as the National Coaching Foundation, occurred in 1983, and started an inclusive coach-education plan across the UK. This marked a unique position in the history of the sport volunteering professionalization. Because of financial pressures and budgetary constraints put on local authorities in 1990s, sport providers financed by local authorities needed to reevaluate the responsibility of the unpaid sector and the assistance of volunteers. Over time, there is a notable growth in sport volunteering in the country. The current sports sector makes 26% of volunteering, and volunteers remain crucial to the effectiveness of UK’s national sports. For instance, the London Marathon depends on 6,000 volunteers, the Open Golf depend on 1200, the wimble Tennis Championship on 5000, Manchester Commonwealth Games rely on 10,000 volunteers. In fact, in the 2012 London Olympics, volunteers’ role is highly indispensable. Factors motivating sport volunteering Before the Manchester 2000 XVII Commonwealth Games, Manchester Metropolitan University conducted a research to evaluate the motivational factors for volunteering in sports. As per the research findings, some of the factors include a desire for a thrilling experience; as a lifetime opportunity; fulfillment of helping others; need to serve the society; need to enhance their skills; as well as the desire for personal development. In other studies like the one conducted by Sport England (2000), the most widely identified motivators for the present volunteering among adults are intrinsic and extrinsic factors. For instance, there is a desire achieve volunteerism benefits; and the need to put something valuable in the club. In terms of extrinsic factors, there are motivators including desire to help others as parents. Regarding the young people, motivational factors include altruistic and personal factors, such as desire to meet club’s needs. There are also material motivations for young people including future work, and social motives including making friendships (Downward 2009). Benefits of sport voluntarism Volunteers are critical strategic resource for sport plans that need active mobilization. Across the world, sport depends on volunteers, be it international events or community-based competitions. For instance, the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games depended on 47,000 volunteers. Sport volunteers are crucial in the dedication of their resources like time and money to sport and other activities. Sport voluntarism provides many advantages to the people involved including self-fulfillment, enhanced understanding, skill acquisition, and social integration. Volunteering in sports helps an individual to develop his skills like leadership, communication, and organization, which are useful in other aspects of life. Moreover, volunteering in sports is crucial in the building of one’s confidence levels. It also helps in development of friendships and social circles. In addition, volunteering helps in the development of Curriculum Vitae and get improved access employment chances. More so, involvement of sport activities is beneficial in that it allows one to have fun and sense of accomplishment. Most importantly, sport voluntarism benefits an individual through health improvement (UNV 2001). In terms of the society, sport voluntarism is beneficial through economic growth community participation, social welfare, generation of reciprocity and trust, and widening of social interaction vial new networks. As a result, voluntarism forms social capital, assisting in the building and consolidation of social stability and cohesion. Sport is a major way of motivating volunteerism in societies and achievement of the consequential social advantages. In summary, sport volunteer is advantageous in the UK in terms of safe sustainable, strong communities; healthy communities; workforce and economic development; and ability to meet young people and children’s needs (UNV 2001; Stebbins & Graham 2004). Stebbins and Graham (2004) also say that in the UK, the aid from sport volunteers is approximately to be more than the lottery and government funding combined. Volunteers are the major resource in sport for development plans, including the VSOs (UK); UNVs; Peace Corps (US); and White Helmets (Argentina), and volunteer coaches by NGOS like Right to Play and SCORE (South Africa). Apart from cultural and social benefits of volunteering in sports, there are economic advantages. In England, time values offered by sport volunteers is almost more than £14 billion, based on the average income per hour for all sectors for 2002 of £11 billion. Nearly 1 billion sports volunteering hours in the years are equivalent to 720,000 extra full-time corresponding, paid employees in sports (Downward 2009; GHK 2012). Challenges of sport volunteering Based on the study carried out by the Sport England (2002), there are three major challenges identified by sports club volunteers and NGBs including volunteer shortage, problem regarding new volunteers’ recruitment; and overloading of the few available volunteers. Moreover, volunteer the research demonstrated that volunteer needs specialist skills. Additionally, sport volunteerism also has inadequate time allocated to the paid work. There is also a clash regarding family commitments resulting from sport volunteerism. In addition, sport volunteerism has a challenge of competition for people and time. Sports firms are in a tight competition for expenditure, time, and enthusiasm in a more competitive market. The need for volunteers to offer a professional service is becoming more evident (Sport England 2002; Downward 2009). Likewise to the Sport England study results, there is a challenge relating to added pressures on people’s time, which influence both volunteers and participants. The individuals engaged in sport volunteerism are those affected by increased time in childcare and work. The study also suggests that young people experience time pressures, which directly affect voluntary sports firms in relation to recruitment difficulties and volunteer shortages (Sport England 2007; Hoye 2009). Opportunities of sport volunteerism According to GHK (2012), sport volunteerism has various opportunities. To start with, sport volunteerism helps in the enhancement of training and education provision opportunism for volunteers, as well as the chances to notice the skills that volunteers attain due to sport volunteerism. Secondly, sport volunteerism helps in the improvement of opportunities and structures for volunteer management with emphasis on supporting volunteers, enhancing communications, retention, employment, and retention of volunteers. It also helps in ensuring that the constitution does not cause involuntary effect sport volunteering on or in organizations and clubs. For instance, reducing administrative work and ensuring that legislation does not form unconscious obstacles to volunteering. Besides, sport volunteer helps in the promotion and celebration of sport voluntarism. Role of volunteers As per Lancashire Sport Partnership (2012), volunteers have various roles in the organization of club, such as, training, coaching, leadership, administration, officiating, marketing, publicity, and organizing events. In the assignment of roles to volunteers, it is crucial to prepare position descriptions in order to help in the assessment of all the volunteer roles. Position description is crucial in the management of volunteer expectations. Besides, it helps in the recruitment strategy and responding to chances that emerge when groups and individuals desire to volunteer in the firm. It is also critical to ensure that the role is suitable and philosophically appropriate for a volunteer. Volunteer management in sport clubs According to Clubs Online (2012), volunteer management entails bringing volunteers in the club, caring for them as they accomplish their responsibilities and then arranging for the time they will leave the club. Volunteer management consists of six stages including recruitment, screening or selection, orientation, development or training, recognition, and replacement or retention. To start with, recruitment refers to a process of encouraging new volunteers to the club. Here, it is imperative to promote the club as a positive and exciting organization with which to associate. Some of the ways of attracting volunteers include producing volunteer information kits; checking the present and the past membership lists for prospective volunteers; producing posters, flyers, or pamphlets; organization community announcements on radio; advertising for volunteers; and using personal approach. Second, Clubs Online (2012) says that selection and screening involves selecting the appropriate people for the volunteer positions. Some of the ways of selecting and screening include interviews, position descriptions, application forms, declaration forms, referee checks, and forms of code of conduct. Third, orientation entails helping the volunteers to feel involved in the club through showing them around the firm. This is crucial in that it helps them settle quickly; make valued; and well informed about the club activities. This occurs in various ways including orientation or information kits, PowerPoint and Video presentations, individual or group orientations, and hand-over with the past volunteer. Vital areas to consider during orientation include financial procedures, rules and procedures, facilities, volunteer policies, and occupational safety and health issues. Fourth, Clubs Online (2012) asserts that training and development in volunteer management is essential. This stage is important in the development of comfortable, efficient, and confident volunteers. This happens through pre-placement training courses, and seminars. Fifth, recognition is imperative in volunteer management. Here, volunteers do not require much, but real appreciation, and to feel recognized and valued. Some vital ways of recognition including use of polite words and gestures, discounts, letters and postcards, identification badges, caps, pins, or shirts, special awards, and profiling and acknowledging volunteers on websites and newsletters. Lastly, retention and replacement are crucial in volunteer management as it maintains a stable group of lasting volunteers. Stable volunteers help in the reduction of recruitment costs and time, reduction of education and training costs, and provision of vital sense of consistency in the club. Volunteer replacement is also inevitable in the club. Nevertheless, the approach taken should enhance the management of the retained volunteers, enhance the volunteer management plan, reduce negative effect of volunteer transition, and make the leaving volunteers feel like returning to the club if situation changes (Clubs Online 2012). Conclusion Volunteering in sports club is very essential to an individual, community, and the club or organization. Some of the factors that motivate volunteers include need to help others, to acquire skills, improve chances of employment, and to help the community. There are numerous benefits of involving in volunteer activities including enhanced personal skills, employability, social integration, cohesion, and stability, self-fulfillment, enhanced understanding, and skill acquisition among others. Nevertheless, there are various challenges of volunteering in sports including shortages of volunteers, and tight competition for expenditure, time, and enthusiasm in a more competitive market. Volunteering is crucial for a successful club or organization. Therefore, it is imperative to carry out appropriate management process that includes recruitment, selection and screening, orientation, training and development, recognition, retention and replacement. References Downward, P 2009, Sports economics theory, evidence and policy, Butterworth-Heinemann, Amsterdam London. Pp. 161-170. Clubs Online 2012, Clubs’ guide to volunteer management, Clubs Online.com, Retrieved in June 30, 2012 from http://clubsonline.dsr.wa.gov.au/clubs’-guide-to-volunteer-management GHK 2012, Study on volunteering in the EU Volunteering in Sport – United Kingdom, Pp. 1-19. http://ec.europa.eu/sport/library/documents/f-studies/volunteering-in-sport-uk_en.pdf Hoye, R 2009, Sport management: principles and applications, Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann, Amsterdam Oxford. Pp. 50-60. Lancashire Sport Partnership 2012, Benefits and Roles in Volunteering, Lancashire Sport Partnership, Retrieved in June 30, 2012 from http://www.lancashiresport.org.uk/support- for-volunteers/benefits-and-roles-in-volunteering Nichols G, Taylor P, James M, King L, Holmes K, & Garrett R2005, Pressures on the UK voluntary sports sector, Voluntas, vol.16, no.1, pp. 33-50 Stebbins, RA & Graham, M 2004, Volunteering as leisure/leisure as volunteering an international assessment, CABI Pub., Wallingford, UK Cambridge, MA. Pp. 176-200. Sport England 2002, Sports Volunteering in England in 2002, Sport Volunteering, London. Sport England 2007, Active People Survey – 2, Sport Volunteering, London. UNV 2001, On Volunteering and Social Development, UNV Expert Working Group Meeting. UNV 2001, Below the Waterline of Public Visibility, Report from the Roundtable on Volunteerism and Social Development in The Hague, Netherlands, 29-30 November 2000. Read More