Volunteer Coordinator

I’m Scarlet, a first year student reading history. Since my time rowing at Leeds, I’ve appreciated the transition from junior to student rower, gaining more independence and knowledge around my training and boat tech whilst also meeting new like minded people in the process. Deciding to continue with rowing at university has definitely been the best ( and most time consuming) choice I’ve made since coming to Leeds; getting to race at events such as WEHORR and BUCS head have been only improved with the presence of such a strong and friendly squad. Unfortunately, due to a major back surgery in the summer, this will be my last year rowing however I wanted to make sure I could still be involved in a sport that has encompassed my life so significantly for the last 7 years, hence my application for this role. With a background in coaching and coxing at my old club as well as across my first year in Leeds, I believe without the extra burden of performance training next year, I can devote all my time to coordinating the volunteers across our squads and be able to commit to ensuring seamless communication amongst our volunteers to deliver a more cohesive style of coaching across the squads. I also have experience in organisation, training plans and crew selections as captain of my junior and school squad. I have always been involved with clubs that rely heavily on volunteers, and it’s been a privilege seeing the willingness of squad members wanting to reflect their rowing experience onto others as well as give back to a club that helped them develop so significantly. A vision for my role as potential volunteer coordinator would be to elevate the roles of key volunteers in our club and praise their efforts even more than we already do, to encourage an atmosphere of appreciation for squad coaches and hopefully increase respect for attendance in recognition of the coaches commitment too. Similarly, with the new squad structure coming in next year, hopefully we will have more seniors volunteering at sessions with a more flexible training programme and subsequently expanding the demographic of coaches and giving more people the opportunity to volunteer. In order to galvanise more people into volunteering, I would set clear expectations and rules for coaches, either through training workshops like using the launch or online resources, building off of Connor’s work with online instruction videos. Giving coaches confidence in their work and making sure they feel comfortable around equipment and rowers will be fundamental in maintaining a committed team. The role as volunteer coordinator will also hopefully coincide with a place as a coaching scholar, which means I can get a formal level 2 coaching qualification in the process, solidifying my experience as a coach as well as teaching me new elements of coaching I potentially wouldn’t have learnt without the qualification. I believe coaching not only provides key technical advice to rowers but also important role models within the squads and a sense of commitment the rowers have to coaches they feel they want to make proud, a brilliant example of this being the beginner girls attitude towards their cox/ captain Sam this year, with this kind of relationship being something I want to expand and encourage across all squads next year, perhaps through working with social secs and captains to have more intra-squad events and training. I would like to work closely with the coxes captain to make sure rowers are understanding the calls both coxes and coaches are making as well as giving them advice on preferred calls for each squad in the hope we can maximise engagement from the rowers and allow the coxes and coaches to have greater depth of calls.