Volunteering

Your Club needs you! New Officials! We are a big, and ever-expanding Club.  We enter lots of competitions, be they Leagues or Open Meets, and as many of our kids as possible get swims for us, wearing the Green and Blue hat that we’re all so proud of.

However, we need your help.  At any event that we compete in we need to provide Officials, those pesky devils dressed in white that have the unenviable job of making sure the rules are followed.  In fact, at Open Meets, the more swimmers we have at an event, the bigger the number of Officials we are obliged to provide.  I am really grateful for the current Officials we have, who regularly volunteer and do a great job for us.  However I want to make sure that it’s not always down to the same few people to do all the volunteering.  Obviously, if an event doesn’t have enough Officials, it can’t go ahead.  And at some events if we don’t provide enough Officials, they will not let us enter, and I definitely don’t want our swimmers to miss out due to lack of volunteers from parents/helpers.

Training for Officials is organised by the County.  There is a structured system of training, which starts with some group work/classroom input, followed by mentoring poolside and a workbook, before you’re let loose on your own!  We’ve got a great team of experienced Officials who will be more than happy to support new people going through, and it’s not difficult, we will help you along.

Plus, at Meets, it means you get free entry, usually get fed several times, and are actually gainfully employed through the day rather than sitting around all day for tiny snippets of swimming every few hours!

If you’d like to speak to one of us about what it involves, please speak to Mark Stowe, John Pridden, Hayley West or Steve Redfern (our most experienced and highly qualified Referee) or anyone else your know from the team of officials that we have.  We will all be happy to help you.

If you’re happy to put your name forward to undertake Level 1 training, please email Hayley West on officials@worcestersc.co.uk and he will get back to you.

I really look forward to hearing from Hayley about how many more people have put their names down, young or old, all are welcome, including our Senior Swimmers!!

Volunteering

If you have some time to spare and would like to get more involved in your club there are many ways that you could help.

We always need help poolside either officiating or coaching. There is financial support available for training and courses are run on a regular basis. For those who are happy to give their time freely the full cost of your training will be covered by grants and WSC. If this sounds daunting please don’t let it put you off. We can always start you off gently, maybe by attending one of our own time keeping courses, which are relaxed and friendly, and then you can get some practice in at Club Champs!

Behind the scenes there is also a lot of work to do. If you are not ready to join our committee, there are still ways that you could help them with one of the administrative tasks. The club is managed just like any commercial enterprise and ever increasing government legislation obliges us to be more accountable in every aspect of the clubs affairs. If you have skills in;  IT, finance, payroll or general admin to name but a few, I am sure we can make use of them. If you would like to speak to someone about volunteering please contact Hayley West on officials@worcestersc.co.uk

Squad Representatives

If you are one of those parents who regularly attends the swim sessions to watch your child swim, this could be the job for you. We need Reps from each squad to bridge the communication between the committee and the parents and swimmers, particularly when the annual renewals are about to go out. We need help to gather the renewal forms and ASA cheques, as it is a huge task for one person.