Volunteers - how to attract them?

[fjordmom]

Yes it is a learned habit and one to be instilled early. Come on parents we need to d our jobs here!

A bit of an aside, but the other day I thought my computer had died. It sent me some very ominous messages that didn’t make much sense to me. So I did what I do when tech undoes me. I called my son for help. Although he sounded a tad perturbed at first with the dinosuar world (both me and my computer), he was patient and got me and the computer back on track in just a few minutes. Later I sent him an email thanking him for his patience and letting him know he was setting a great example for his 3 year old boy. He came back with Thanks mom, love you (yes including the emoji. He is just such a great guy and a phenomenal dad. I couldn’t be prouder.

[fjordmom]

That animal shelter director may not have a job much longer if she keeps driving people away in that manner. Jesh!

[fjordmom]

I’m with you. They can’t bother to call back, I have other things I can go do. It’s sad how oftern that happens too.

[fjordmom]

Years ago I used to teach several sections of the Master Gardener Program in my area. It wasn’t a payed gig. I did it partly as a favor to the local Extension agent who had helped me many times and it was good PR for my horticultural publishing business.

I eventually gave it up for two reasons. One, very few students ever fulfilled the volunteer component of the program. They just wanted the info for cheap. Second when the University system started telling instructs exactly how and what they had to say in their instruction, the valuable local component was lost. My time and expertise (of 30+ years) became pointless. Eventually they didn’t have enough interest to sustain the program. Talk about shooting themselves in the foot.

[fjordmom]

You’ve hit the nail on the head of what makes volunteering fun and valued; friends & community.

[Cowboy_Girl]

If us white collar ammy’s that work 5.5 days a week and ride can manage to drive 2 hours one way to volunteer, the pros and their students can too when they are on site for 4 days. They need to demonstrate commitment to the sport that they make their living off, or there will no longer be any sport.

[FrittSkritt]

^^This. And sometimes pros aren’t riding both days of a two day event. JMO, though.

[beowulf]

I volunteer at a local event twice a year. It is very well run from the volunteer side. But it’s a long day. I’m always so dog tired after it, it’s usually a struggle to even do chores after, forget rides.

We show up at 6:30-7 am for briefing and we’re lucky if we wrap up before 5 pm. For the most part I feel appreciated; our show coordinator rocks and takes the time to thank everyone and makes sure everyone is happy with their job they’re assigned. We always get snacks (everyone pitches in and brings a small platter), the competitors are usually grateful — but it’s a long, long day, and it only takes one rude competitor (or trainer!) to make you question why you do it. Believe it or not I think lately, the entitlement of trainers has gotten to me more as a volunteer than anything else. The kids are usually just nervous but trying their best. It’s the trainers that are demanding, impatient, and expecting special treatment.

It’s hard for me to carve out enough time out of my already oversubscribed life to do it as often as I’d like. I imagine many other people are in the same position.

Making it a community / friend group outing really helps. The problem is sometimes organizers need you to split up and it’s a lot more fun volunteering in pairs than it is being the lone JJ in a field. Some of my favorite “dates” with my SO have been us volunteering as a pair of JJs. We had such a good system down.

Something I’m noticing is there’s fewer kids around getting into the sport. People are making the conscious choice to not have children now more than ever. When your biggest draw volunteer-wise is parents of the competitor(child), that lack of new kids and new parents stepping into the fold really hurts.

I don’t know of many viable solutions. My last volunteer gig this May, I was thinking about how much the landscape of this show has changed since I was a kid. It makes me sad the next generation won’t get to experience how magical and wonderful that place is - unless more people step up to make sure the show goes on.

[Texarkana]

@fjordmom

I will respectfully disagree that yesteryear and SAHMs made it easier to find volunteers. First, in my opinion, SAHM is one of the toughest and unpaid jobs on the planet. I look at my own mother as the oldest of her 4 kids with only 6 years between us. She found plenty of ways to volunteer and eventually she worked outside the home as we all got older. I try to be half as good as she was and know that even only half is still pretty darn good. I feel lucky to have passed her ethic on to my own 2, now adult children.

Oh, I agree SAHM is the toughest job. I was in no way trying to put them down.

I’m a mother, too.

My point was that back when single incomes were the norm and roughly 50% of adults were not expected to hold down jobs outside the home, there is a lot more scheduling flexibility of people available to volunteer. Not because the moms weren’t working hard, but because they aren’t bound to some 9 to 5 elsewhere on top of caring for their children. Like your mother: she found a way to volunteer. You are happy to do half as well as her, I’m assuming you say that because it’s friggin’ hard to “do it all” as a mother today. Not that it is or was easy to be a mother ever.

[hey101]

That’s why I think people need to have it laid out in black-and-white what the true costs are. I’m making up numbers here but, if scenario 1 was $1000 and scenario 2 $250, I think people would quite quickly come to terms with “what can I do to help Keep costs down here”.

I think there have been a lot of really helpful and useful ideas here on how to recruit and retain volunteers but the suggestions someone made about a $40 refund in their entry fee just doesn’t even begin to move the needle. 40 bucks is now what we spend on one fast food restaurant takeout meal.

When I was doing Jumper land, I had plenty of downtime even with four horses at the show and I would’ve gladly filled my spare hours volunteering if I could’ve reduced that $3000 plus weekly bill.

[trubandloki]

@fjordmom

Rather, I’ve always felt that if we each do at least a small part to the best of our abilities and resources, out communities will be the better for it. That is what I want my children and grandchildren to inherit.

Yes.
That is why I volunteer too. Not just at events. At many things. Volunteering is good for everyone.

I was just pointing out something that is frustrating and makes people put the desire to volunteer at this specific venue lower on the list. Which I thought was the point of the thread.

[FitToBeTied]

@fjordmom

I think every volunteer has the right to call someone out if they are treated rudely. Sometimes volunteers just need a spine to do so.

I was jump judging at a big event. The last one I ever did when a former Olympic medalist came up to me asked for my whistle and then blew. He said “that’s how you do it!” Never mind that I was covering the entire coffin complex by myself.

I didn’t say anything because what official was going to stand up to this person?

[Bogey2]

We have been having the same issue with volunteering for the dressage shows over the past few years. I wish I could say we came up with a solution but we have not. At one point we rotated barns to cover each show so the trainer would rally their own troops to run a specific show and that was fun…until other barns did not step up.Then they required x amount of volunteering course to be eligible for year end awards (you could have a friend or family member help if you were showing)…and that sort of fizzled.
Finally they just started dropping shows. So we have less shows to choose from in an area where we have short season anyway.
We may have to go the route of paying more people and charging a ton more for the shows…then maybe people who show will step up?

[Syrynx]

@Larksmom

well, the thing is, I don’t really know anyone anymore. I am friendly with several of the people in charge, (I only see them once a year or so, and I cannot remember their names.) I do feel a bit foolish at the meeting in the morning, for the jump judges. No one really talks to me. I would kind of like to be more involved, but no one asks.

This is exactly how it is for me at the recognized show I’ve been volunteering at for years. I’m friendly with the xc steward and she is always so appreciative when DH and I sign up. In fact she usually emails us to let us know the sign ups are posted.

But I don’t really talk to anyone once there other than the person I am paired with. Which is ok but a bit odd. (DH and I have separate jobs)

I did this year offer to help more in the run up to the event so I am hoping they remember and take me up on it.

[dmveventer]

Like I said, I’m in Area II - no one is on site for 4 days and I’m definitely not driving 2 hours one way to volunteer. I don’t think I’d be able to volunteer much either in those conditions. I’m not sure what the solution is for events that don’t have a community nearby to draw from, maybe more flexible shifts so people can volunteer around their rides? Or a discounted entry for people who can volunteer around competing? I still don’t think we’re going to solve this problem by berating trainers. We already have a problem with pros burning out and giving up on trying to make it in the industry, suggesting they spend their limited time off working more isn’t going to help.

I think eventing could do a better job attracting the family members. Both of my siblings played soccer growing up, and the teams always had plenty of family along to help out and cheer from the sidelines. A big part of that was the community aspect, everyone was friendly and could socialize while working their jobs. The games were the social event of the weekend for those families. That’s not really possible with most eventing volunteer jobs, which are done by themselves with no social aspect, and even most barns don’t have that built in community for family members. Offering non-horsey perks or working with local scout troops might help bring in more people that otherwise wouldn’t show up, and finding a way to make it more social could keep those people coming back.

[FitToBeTied]

@dmveventer

We already have a problem with pros burning out and giving up on trying to make it in the industry, suggesting they spend their limited time off working more isn’t going to help.

I won’t disagree that people get burned out. However, this is about leadership. Leadership is about talking, its about doing. In the past I’ve seen Stephen Bradley and Boyd work at event when they were done riding. That’s leadership. As I said up thread I know quite a few eventers that are pros claim they don’t have the time to volunteer.

Eventing is already losing event after event. It will lose more because it doesn’t have volunteers. So maybe the pros take fewer horses to events and actually work at the event and lead. Because if the patterns don’t change there won’t be any events that need volunteers.

[piaffequeen2]

That’s sad. I volunteered for 13 years at the Carolina Horse park where I did everything from stewarding, jump judge and hospitality. I alway asked jump judges if they needed a bathroom break-I always has someone with me so they could sit at the jump while I drove them to the nearest port a potty.

I quit volunteering there because of the person they hired to be in charge of the food. This was at the Carolina International. She was brand new to the position and instead of asking for advice she lauded over me that SHE was in charge… When the lunches came there were only 15 boxed lunches and they had trays of sandwiches (Panera). I asked where are the other boxed lunches and she said that they were coming over from XC to eat. I said they don’t do that XC goes all day with no lunch break. She said yes they are. I went and got a XC ride time list and asked her to show me where there was a 2 hour break. She couldn’t find it so I grabbed the trays and put them on my golf cart. We ran out of sandwiches and the medical people didn’t get fed. 16 people-they had to go to the Food trucks to get food for them. Now granted the person in charge of the food is an eventer who competes there and knows how horse trials run. the final straw was when this lady yanked a box of chips out of my 12 year assistant’s hand and said you can’t have these. I walked over and grabbed it from her telling not to ever do that to my assistant. I had bought those chips for XC and it was marked on the box. Needless to say i was done.

[SusanO]

I think you need to look at the demographics of the current volunteers (especially if they are the old faithful’s) and the groups you are trying to attract. The GMO here (this was in the past, I am no longer involved) tried to motivate by requiring a certain number of volunteer hours to qualify for high point awards. But most of their volunteers did not show and some no longer rode. So this was probably not motivating that group at all. Most were doing it to give back to a sport that they loved and enjoyed the social outing. And a lot of them were parents. Who cares about a high point award in that situation.

And despite constantly bragging about how much money they had in the bank they were extremely stingy on the basic comforts of the people giving up a weekend day to labor in the rain, cold or hot sun. Now these were dressage shows so no jump judges needed and not a huge crew to get fed and watered. And most of the shows at the time were out in the boondocks so it wasn’t like you could hit a fast food place on the way over or back. If you worked half a day you got a voucher for a bottle of water. No food for you, even if you had to leave your house at 6AM and not get home until 2 or 3 PM because of the drive. If you worked the whole day you got a voucher for a bottle of water and a dried up hamburger from a food truck. The worst was scribing and you had to beg a volunteer for water and then after maybe 15 minutes somebody came with a lukewarm bottle. Really - you can’t afford to put a styrofoam cooler at the judges stand with iced down water so people could get something cold to drink? I guess you were supposed to pack a cooler with a lunch and cold water. In that case you better pack something for the judge too - my Mother always taught me you did not sit around drinking something without offering some to your companions. Even though I enjoyed scribing I wasn’t going to give up a weekend day back when I worked and not have basic comforts. Even if the treasury wasn’t full then you need to up your entry fees to do better for your volunteers or they will decide the hassle just isn’t worth it.

[Larksmom]

I always wanted to scribe. To sit next to a judge and write down what they say. What a mistake that was!!! I guess I do not write fast enough, because after the first rider I could see I was in over my head. Jump judging is fun, and relatively easy compared to scribing. For newbies, there ought to be a sort of test to see if they are up to it. I absolutely sucked at it.

[SusanO]

I loved scribing and did it so much that I was pretty good at it. Unlike non horse people I understood the terms the judge used and I could write pretty fast. And if I missed a part of a comment I could usually go back and complete it. My writing was legible, not perfect but I don’t think people had problems reading the comments and understanding what the judge was saying. So you got a test back with lots of comments written on it if the judge gave comments. But the shows started catering to the lower level tests and I wasn’t learning as much and it was just such a hassle to drive that far with food and water packed I decided it just wasn’t worth it anymore. I was not giving up my weekend day to scribe Intro A&B and leadline classes.