Volunteers are the life-blood of your club; their valuable contribution is worthy of considerable recognition - as without them nothing would get done.

Recruiting and retaining volunteers is a hard task but it's vital for the future of your club.

But remember, its a 2 way process so here's a few tips on recruiting (and hopefully retaining volunteers):

• be enthusiastic about your volunteering opportunities!
• make sure that everyone in the club understands and appreciates the volunteers' roles;
• be clear about how the volunteers' role fits in with the club's objectives.
• Make the opportunities attractive and not too big to do

Good people need good support - if you don't look after them there are plenty of other things they could be doing with their time.

It is important to recognise why people volunteer and what they can gain personally through volunteering.

These benefits can be emphasised when recruiting volunteers for your club:

• give back to the sport/physical activity or the club;
• use their existing skills and learn new skills;
• social and family involvement;
• develop new interests;
• take on new responsibilities;
• enable other people to participate;
• know that they're making a difference - have a sense of personal achievement;
• be part of a team;
• build self confidence/self esteem;
• doing something worthwhile;
• gain relevant experience;
• to have fun!

When you start a new club or want to improve and develop an existing club there will be jobs that need to be done and roles that need to be filled.

If you get these basics in place at the start it will help your club to run much more effectively.

Consider the following questions in relation to your own club:

• what volunteers do you need?
• what skills do these roles need?
• what will be the (time) commitment for them?
• do you check or screen the volunteers?
• do new volunteers get an introduction to the club?

• RECRUIT the right people for the right job
• RETAIN them by providing good support in the form of role descriptions, clear briefs, mentoring and training
• REWARD what they are doing through appropriate acknowledgement and 'perks' (which will rarely be financial!)

• Ideas for recruiting and retaining volunteers
• Running Sport - Volunteers
• Template Code of Conduct for volunteers and officials
• Template Publicity officer job description
• Template volunteer agreement form
• Template volunteer co-ordinator job description
• Volunteer General Info
• Volunteer certificate

The following are simple and inexpensive ways of attracting new members to your club:

• Local press coverage to raise the profile of your club, ensuring its clear that new members are always welcome
• Distribute leaflets or flyers to homes within a mile radius of your club
• Put posters up in local schools and amenities such as Post Offices, libraries and shops.
• Hold open days or promote free weekend passes
• Offer "introduce a friend" incentives to current members such as a free coaching session
• Put up banners that can be seen by people passing your club that promote free 'come and try it' sessions or membership promotions
• Attract new people to visit your club by expanding what you offer; eg. hold local events such as car boot sales, charity auctions, quiz nights and live music that are open to non-members.  Offering your club as a base for other non-competing sports can increase membership, either by having a sub-affiliation structure or because the link itself attracts people to join your club. For example, if you're a tennis club, why not invite a local running club to use your clubhouse as a meeting point and allow them to use the changing and bar facilities.  If there's no local running club nearby, set one up.
• Ensure you have a good internet presence so that people searching for clubs online can find yours easily and it stands out over other local clubs. Establish links from as many other relevant websites as you can; the main ones being your national governing body and local authority - this will increase your chances of succedding on search engines such as Google.  Once they're on your site, the most important point is for them to easily find out what you have to offer, what the membership cost is and who to contact for further advice.

It is important to give people a chance to experience what it would be like to be a member of your club before they have to commit to paying a membership fee.

Make sure that anyone visiting or trying out your club for the first time is well looked after and encourage existing members to be welcoming and to help sell your club.

Do you want to extend your club to include a disabled satellite club or maybe integrating athletes with a disability into your club?

What's in it for you?

• create a regular supply of new members;
• increase club membership;
• recruit and develop more volunteers through parents and carers;
• raise the club's profile;

• enhance all players awareness of athletes with a disability.

Disability Sport Wales

This is a joint initiative between Sport Wales, the Federation of Disability Sport Wales and the 22 Local Authorities across Wales.

There is a Disability Sport Wales Development Officer in every Local Authority in Wales and they work with local clubs, schools and other organisations to increase opportunities for disabled people to take part in sport and physcial acitity in their local area.

The aim is to increase the number of disabled people taking part in sport and physcial activity by developing quality community based opportunities throughout Wales.

Disability Sport Wales strives to provide quality sporting and physical activity opportunities for disabled children and adults across Wales.

Developing inclusive opportunities

Disability Sport Wales have a huge network of clubs and sessions either specifically for disabled people or with an inclusive environment.  With more and more clubs looking to open their doors to disabled participants Disability Sport Wales Development Officers are working to help support clubs that are interested in developing inclusive sessions.

For more information visit Disability Sport Wales.

• Consult members in the running of the club, as the more engaged they feel, the more likely they are to stay.  They may also have some great ideas.  Do an annual survey to get feedback on how you can improve the club and implement as many suggestions as you can.
• Ask members who don't renew their reasons for leaving and see if you can do anything to persuade them to come back.  At the very least, take on board the reasons they gave and make any necessary changes in future.
• Joining a club is often as much about having fun, meeting new people and socialising, as it is about participating or competing.  So make sure members can have fun and socialise by encouraging people to stay after they have played or had a coaching session and hold regular social events such as BBQs, quiz nights, Christmas parties and end of season award ceremonies.
• Where possible, make sure that everyone can participate or compete in a way that's suitable for them.

• Junior Member Code of Conduct
• Junior member recruitment plan
• Junior membership form
• Parental consent form
• Parents / Guardian Code of Conduct
• Parents Intro Letter

Equality is about recognising and removing the barriers faced by people involved, or wanting to be involved in sport.

It is about changing the culture of sport to one that values diversity and enables the full involvement of disadvantaged groups in every aspect of sport.

Established clubs should have an equal opportunities policy in place and the ethos of this policy should be integrated into your constitution and within the running of your club and delivery of the sport.

To develop your club further in terms of Equity you should be working towards the following:

1. Having a named person or group who is accountable for equity
2. Ensuring that you keep accurate records of coaches and members so that you are able to maintain a 'profile' of your club and identify areas of under representation.
3. Having a written plan detailing how you intend to ensure that your sport is equitable, ensuring that an ethos of equity is communicated to staff and members. Utilise your website, newsletters, meetings and notice boards.
4. Involving your sport with the wider local community to encourage membership and involvement from those who may not traditionally be involved.

Your National Governing Body may have achieved or be working toward the Equality Standard for Sport.

You should enquire about this as they will be able to provide you with support in developing equitable approaches at your club level. If your NGB is not working towards the equality standard this can still be a useful resource as it identifies key areas of good practice to which all sports should be aiming.

• An increase in levels of participation and volunteer support;
• Public perception of your club and sport will become more positive;
• Achieving a more equitable status for your club will increase your appeal to large numbers of people and therefore can increase membership and revenue and attract revenue support;
• The number of people able to fulfill roles in administration, coaching, management as well as volunteers will increase;
• An organisation that is more diverse and reflects the community it serves in terms of staff make-up at management, executive, officer and volunteer levels is likely to be more innovative and able to respond better to the varied needs of all members of that community.
• Adhering to Sports equity means that you will be working within the law.
• You will be working to the Government's agenda and thus more likely to receive or continue to receive monies to develop your sport.

Further guidance may be obtained from

• Department of Media, Culture and Sport
• Sporting Equals
• UK Sport Standards in Sport