Day 7: THANK YOU!
As Volunteers’ Week comes to a close on day 7, we would like to say another thank you to our volunteers across the West Midland Region, and give you an overview of the key topics from the week.
Swim England have launched the National Awards for 2023, where members and organisations of the aquatics community are recognised for their commitment and passion for our sports.
The awards will honour those that have excelled in sport, as well as the best of the aquatics workforce across the country. Nominations close on the 2nd July, please take some time to read through the awards and nominate anyone you feel is a deserving recipient.
Winners of the awards will be recognised by the region, and will be invited by Swim England to the National Award ceremony in Birmingham. Full award descriptions can be found on the Swim England website, here.
Start your nominations! 🏆
This year, the West Midland Region has re-launched its pin badge scheme, as part of the developing reward and recognition for volunteers. These badges are for volunteers that are part of the regional committees or events.
If you haven’t yet received your badges for 2022 and 2023, here’s how:
2022: Fill out out 2022 survey to indicate when you volunteered and how we can contact you, found here.
2023: Volunteer at one of our events later this year to get a pin badge in person! You may also receive a pin badge via your committees or discipline, who will receive the badges and distribute throughout the year. Please bear with us as we get these badges out to everyone throughout the coming months.
We are excited to launch our new volunteer culture project which aims to address the current challenges in the Region regarding volunteer recruitment in clubs, counties, and the region. The first step of this project is to conduct some research into the current attitudes and feelings towards volunteering in the region. For this, we ask that all our members take some time to answer our survey– whether you are a current volunteer or not. This will only take 5-10 minutes and answers will be used to inform the project, so please answer honestly and in as much detail as possible.
Please share with your club and members.
Throughout the week, we have been highlighting and celebrating the groups of volunteers in our Region who are the backbone of our aquatic communities:
🌟Governance teams
🌟Officials
🌟Event Volunteers
🌟Support Positions
🌟Coaches and Teachers
Many of our day-to-day operations across the region are carried out by volunteers, who devote their time to ensuring the athletes have the opportunity to reach their potential. We want to say a huge thank you to each and every person, we are grateful that you chose to be a WMR volunteer.
We also had a feature from one of our youth volunteers, who made a video for us to talk about his experiences with volunteering in his club and as part of the Region. You can watch this video by clicking here.
The Commonwealth Games legacy charity, United By 2022, has launched its volunteering legacy with the Volunteers Collective.
The Volunteers Collective is a new digital match-making service that coordinates people looking for volunteering opportunities with organisations looking for volunteers. United By 22 will be managing the platform and promoting volunteer opportunities across Birmingham and the West Midlands. Whether it’s new exciting major events in the region through sport, arts, culture and education, there will be something for everybody through the Volunteers Collective.
You can register for the Volunteers Collective here.