Volunteering

Volunteers keep gymnastics clubs and the competition structure running. Volunteers typically donate their time because they have a love of the sport or they have a child involved in the sport. Any good recruiter knows that when recruiting volunteers they must be made to feel valued from the outset. It is essential to emphasise the benefits for them rather than the needs of the club so that they don’t feel as though they are being recruited to fill a position no one else wanted and to ensure that the volunteer continues to feel valued, it is also essential to provide ongoing support.

Scottish Gymnastics provides a number of training courses for our club-based volunteers. Training is provided for the volunteer Child Protection Co-ordinators all clubs are required to have under the SGA Child Protection Policy. This training is ongoing and updated annually. To satisfy GymMark assessment requirements at least one member of a Club’s management committee must attend a Club Management Awareness course to ensure that they understand their legal obligations.

The SGA is committed to supporting a sustainable volunteer network and a volunteer strategy has been written to underpin this. We will provide a volunteer forum so that best practice can be shared and assist clubs with the recruitment of volunteers by creating a volunteer registry that is linked to the volunteer agencies. Our aim is to foster volunteering among people aged 15-25 to keep them involved in the sport and to recruit greater numbers of men and members of ethnic minorities into volunteer positions within our clubs. A recognition and reward programme that celebrates the contribution of our volunteers to the sport will be created.