A vol­un­teer is “an in­di­vid­ual who works out of free will or rel­a­tive­ly un­co­erced and re­ceives no re­mu­ner­a­tion at all or on­ly a rel­a­tive­ly small re­im­burse­ment or pay,” (Cnaan, Handy & Wadsworth, 1996). Vol­un­teers serve as tech­ni­cal of­fi­cials and gen­er­al sup­port staff in the ex­e­cu­tion of any sport­ing event, whether at the com­mu­ni­ty, school, na­tion­al, re­gion­al, or in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el.

Vol­un­teers typ­i­cal­ly per­form var­i­ous func­tions, in­clud­ing ath­lete sup­port, ref­er­ee­ing and of­fi­ci­at­ing, se­cu­ri­ty, lo­gis­tics and op­er­a­tions, ad­min­is­tra­tion, and more. For many, they stand in the sun, record da­ta, hand out wa­ter, and pro­vide any oth­er es­sen­tial func­tions to en­sure the event’s suc­cess.

At the Paris Olympics 2024, there were over 30,000 vol­un­teers. There­fore, the onus is on or­gan­is­ers to en­sure that vol­un­teers are treat­ed as a crit­i­cal cog in achiev­ing the event’s de­sired ob­jec­tives. Fail­ure to heed the im­por­tance of vol­un­teers will re­sult in high at­tri­tion rates, which will se­vere­ly im­pact the over­all qual­i­ty of events.

Vol­un­teers must be trained to per­form their roles and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, re­ceive of­fi­cial uni­forms, food and drinks, or­gan­ise trans­porta­tion, ac­cess to fa­cil­i­ties, cer­tifi­cates of par­tic­i­pa­tion, and re­ceive in­vi­ta­tions to ex­clu­sive events as a sym­bol of ap­pre­ci­a­tion for their ser­vice.

The great­est ben­e­fit of vol­un­teer­ing is the op­por­tu­ni­ty for net­work­ing. Large re­gion­al events like the Caribbean Pre­mier League or the Carif­ta Games, which are host­ed in var­i­ous Caribbean coun­tries, re­quire a huge num­ber of vol­un­teers from “all over” to help with tasks like tick­et­ing, ac­cred­i­ta­tion, seat­ing, and pro­vid­ing in­for­ma­tion to fans. For these mega-events, the or­gan­is­ing bod­ies of­ten pro­vide vol­un­teers with uni­forms, and some­times even ac­com­mo­da­tion and trans­porta­tion. This is es­pe­cial­ly help­ful for tech­ni­cal of­fi­cials, who may need to ar­rive ear­ly or leave late. Lo­cal­ly, for ex­am­ple, for 5K, 10K, 15K races, or a half-marathon, vol­un­teers are typ­i­cal­ly giv­en a t-shirt, a hat, and on some oc­ca­sions a phone card to main­tain ef­fec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the or­gan­is­ers. De­pend­ing on the time of day, a meal (break­fast) is al­so pro­vid­ed.

As de­mo­graph­ics, val­ues and at­ti­tudes change, the Gen Z pop­u­la­tion is not pre­pared to ac­cept any ser­vice short of ap­pre­ci­a­tion and re­spect for their time and ser­vice, which is both free and valu­able. This gen­er­a­tion is more like­ly to speak up, and if not heard, they will leave. How can any sport grow un­der these con­di­tions? It is not just the ath­letes that must be con­sid­ered, but all vol­un­teers, es­pe­cial­ly those who pro­vide ser­vice in the tech­ni­cal as­pects of events.

As­so­ci­a­tion ex­ec­u­tives must be very mind­ful of how they treat tech­ni­cal of­fi­cials. Af­ter all, these of­fi­cials—along with club mem­bers—are the ones who elect the ex­ec­u­tives to their po­si­tions. These vol­un­teers ex­pect that the ex­ec­u­tives will look out for their best in­ter­ests, ad­vo­cate for them, and treat them with dig­ni­ty. In re­turn, the ex­ec­u­tives are re­spon­si­ble for en­sur­ing the con­tin­ued ex­cel­lence and suc­cess of the sport.

Vol­un­teers are the heart of sports, freely giv­ing their time and en­er­gy to sup­port events and or­gan­i­sa­tions. Their ef­forts are dri­ven by a deep com­mit­ment and per­son­al val­ues, mak­ing it es­sen­tial that sports as­so­ci­a­tions and non-prof­its man­age them with care and re­spect. There­fore, we urge all sports as­so­ci­a­tions and non-prof­its to treat tech­ni­cal of­fi­cials and all vol­un­teers with the ap­pre­ci­a­tion they de­serve. They should be seen as equals, not sub­or­di­nates. Lis­ten to their per­spec­tives and work to­geth­er to achieve the best out­comes for every­one. Strive for ex­cel­lence with­in the sport­ing com­mu­ni­ty by treat­ing vol­un­teers with the same re­spect you have for your ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers. Al­ways show ap­pre­ci­a­tion for their work, as they are tru­ly the back­bone of the sports in­dus­try.

Bernadette An­toine spe­cialis­es in sport man­age­ment and ad­min­is­tra­tion. She holds a BSc. in Sports Man­age­ment and is pur­su­ing an MSc. in Sports Sci­ence. She is an ad­vo­cate for ad­vanc­ing women’s par­tic­i­pa­tion and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment in sport.