Recognising Volunteers

Volunteers are incredible and essential members of our sailing community and deserve to be recognised for their hard work and commitment.

It is important that volunteers feel both valued and valuable, so we have compiled some ideas around volunteer recognition strategies that you may wish to utilise at your club or class association.

Our top tips for generally acknowledging volunteers include:

• Send welcome and thank you letters when volunteers are first recruited. 
• Provision of a Volunteer Handbook and adequate induction with mentoring by existing volunteers, will provide new volunteers the confidence to complete any new role.
• Acknowledge volunteers at the beginning of their volunteer role. A simple hello and thanks for being there is often sufficient.
• Appoint a volunteer coordinator or multiple volunteer coordinators who have as part of their role to support, recognise, and praise the efforts of volunteers at your club. 
• List active volunteers on the club notice board in a public show of thanks.
• Volunteer of the Month Awards, photos of outstanding volunteer contributions. 
• Organise a function for all volunteers to recognise them once a year. 

• Fund or part fund training for volunteers. 
• Offer reductions in membership fees or reduced entry fees to events/regattas for volunteers. 
• Give volunteers club merchandise e.g., caps, t-shirts. 
• Recognise your volunteers during National Volunteer Week 

It is also important to acknowledge volunteers in the lead up to and after events and regattas, see below for some relevant tips and ideas:

• Include volunteers in decision making e.g., invite them to meetings/planning days.
• Use the public address system to acknowledge the various volunteers at a venue/ after a regatta.
• Acknowledge volunteer efforts at the AGM and/or presentation evenings. 

• Ask the members to thank the volunteers personally, encourage juniors to thank their parents.

Long-standing volunteers deserve additional recognition for the enormous amount of time, passion and dedication they have for the sport of sailing and their club or class association. We have listed some ideas for recognising long-term volunteers below:

• Conduct Club Champions, Club Legends programs which recognizes long term extraordinary volunteer efforts.
• Develop a list of long-term volunteers to display on your website.
• Certificates and/or awards for volunteers e.g., Life Membership. 
• Enter outstanding volunteers into community based/local council recognition awards.
• Name an event/ or trophy after an outstanding volunteer.