Volunteers
Has anyone else heard the rumour the club is trying to get rid of the Volunteers, who assist the Wardens by helping to keep the sites up to standard, and replace them with permanent ‘Ground Staff’? I understand it is an effort to save money as the Volunteers can claim a pitch fee and modest travelling expenses (up to 50 miles) for a day’s work. Seems a bit counter-productive to me.
Comments
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It’s true that there don’t seem to be so many volunteer wardens around these days but, to put the boot on the other foot, the club told us they had great trouble recruiting volunteers to run the now defunct Mildenhall site. It was volunteer wardens who were entitled to the pitch and travelling expenses.
Make of it what you will but I doubt anyone using this forum knows the facts of the matter.
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Are you suggesting that a vounteer is more expensive than having a full time groundsperson?
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that was my immediate thought from reading the post.....getting rid of volunteers to save money?
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Yes, that was my take on the story, the club appears to consider Volunteers are more expensive than a full time groundsman. By the way, I think the matter was concerning volunteers on Warden managed sites rather than the volunteers who actually manage sites without wardens.
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i am a warden and i have been actively seeking a volunteer/s to assist on site.
So hopefully this answers your question.....
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Evening
So, the club encourages people to volunteer on sites as they can be a valuable asset. It gives anyone thinking of giving this role a bash a good insight to what we do and goes a long way to getting through the recruitment process. I've worked with several volunteers in my ten years with the club and quite a few are now happy running their own sites as club wardens.
To the OP, I think, as mark reiterates above that you've been misinformed. The expenses involved are sort of negligible compared to the benefits of having volunteer staff.
This is of course very different to sites with volunteer wardens (Mildenhall rip).
JK
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As this is the case, mark, perhaps you could ask HO could highlight the work that volunteers do and instigate some sort of programme to recruit more, may be by an article or two in the club magazine.
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There may even be willing volunteers amongst the forum users.😗
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Don’t ask some of the review writers that question!😱
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Volunteers can only use the mechanical equipment such as tractors, strimmers etc once they have undergone the same training as wardens. Things may have changed but in the recent past the club were reluctant to pay for training for volunteers who can not always be able to be there when most wanted.
A good volunteers is worth their weight in gold as an extra bit of help but if the site has a workload that requires additional help on a permanent basis then some have gone down the route of a single grounds person not living on site rather than an additional warden couple.
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The Club is pretty generous.
