VOLUNTEERS URGENTLY NEEDED – The future of the League is in question

15 April 2016 Rich News 0


The league is to be suspended until further notice unless additional people can be recruited to help us to continue to coordinate the league competition and support race organisers. 

Overview
The Notts and Derby Cyclocross League cannot continue in its current form due to a lack of volunteers. Not everybody realises that the NDCXL is a separate entity from the clubs who promote the actual races. It organises chip timing, first aid, race officials (commissaires and judges), sponsorship (including signing on tents, race numbers and course marking tape), league tables, end-of-season awards and the presentation evening, and other admin and support behind the scenes. Without the League there would be no overall competition, and the reduction in resources and support available to organisers would result in a very different feel to any races that went ahead independently. 

NDCXL is run by volunteers on a not-for-profit basis. Just like you, our volunteers have jobs and families, so there is a limit to what it is fair to ask each individual to do. Year on year, the number of riders taking part in the league has grown whilst the number of volunteers contributing to the league has fallen. 

What can you do?
Please, please, give serious thought as to whether you can help. You don’t need to know how to do anything from scratch as other members of the team are there to help out and work with you. You’d get to know some great people and get that fuzzy warm glow from seeing people enjoy the League. You would be part of a team of 2-5 people, doing some but not all of the tasks that the team is responsible for. You could agree to cover different parts individually, cover just some parts of the year, or try a bit of everything if you prefer. All teams would inevitably deal with some questions and queries, but there’s always help on hand if you don’t know the answer.

Teams of volunteers work together in the following areas.

Admin Team (4-5 people)
Booking meeting rooms, taking notes, circulating documents, emailing chip timing and first aids firms, arranging the awards evening, ordering end-of-season awards, arranging an Organizer’s meeting, maintaining spreadsheets.
Ideally a named Chairperson to manage meetings and actions.

Finance Team (1-2 people)
Making payments and reimbursements, receiving club affiliations, reconciling league account spreadsheet with bank account, filing and record keeping, feeding back to meetings.

Communications Team (3-4 people)
Representing the League on social media, publishing items to the website such as race reports or simple documents from meetings, providing race reports to external sites, maintaining and updating the website.

Logistics Team (4 people)
Ordering essentials such as race numbers and course marking tape, distributing these to race organizers, transporting, charging and storing the radios, collecting in trophies at the end of the year, taking delivery of new trophies, helping set up the awards evening.
To include a named Equipment Officer and also any League sponsor (for input on use of equipment provided).

Officiating Team (2-3 people)
A commissaire coordinator: To coordinate appointment of commissaires at all events.
Judging team rep(s): To coordinate the judging team for all events.
 
League Table Team (3 people)
To update the weekly league tables following each event. Spreadsheets are provided, you won’t need to work out how to produce a league table from scratch!
 
Race Organisation Team (5 people)
To act as a contact point for race organizers, putting together the draft (and final) calendar of events, registering the events on the BC website (pre-season) to ensure consistency across all events.
Weekly during the season (but easily split amongst a team): To format signing on sheets in Excel (although we are currently streamlining this process so it may disappear).
 
Commissaires – ideally another 5 needed
Working in a team of three to ensure satefy and fairness at race events: reviewing the course and risk assessment, overseeing races, reporting to British Cycling.
Requires attendance at a free one-day British Cycling training course, and filling in a training record as you learn on-the-job supported by qualified officials.

Let’s get talking