Embracing Events Webinar: Delivering A Successful Volunteer Programme

hello everyone I'm lesle mman and I'm delighted to welcome you to embracing events this webinar is part of Tourism Northern Ireland's tourism development program and today we're looking at some of the key considerations needed when delivering a successful volunteer program I've been delivering events for almost 30 years working with volunteers on many of those including most recently one Young World Belfast the world's largest youth dominated event which is held annually and especially selected

Global location I've also been a volunteer most memorably in 2013 at the world pleas and fire games I'm delighted to be joined by a panel representing a variety of facets of volunteering Alison Gordon representing the open house festival Claire O'Neal from the Belfast City Marathon Lindsay Armstrong representing volunteer n Gian O'Neal from visit Belfast and Carn Gaston representing herself as a seasoned volunteer just to give you a bit of background into our panel um Allison is the development

director of the county D PL based open house festival and the courthouse born in Banger she initially worked in London and that's where she met her future partner and husband Kieran Gilmore with an interest in the regenerative par of Arts music and cultural tourism they returned to Belfast after the Good Friday agreement in 1998 to start a festival that they hoped would make a contribution to Northern Ireland's new shared future with its home no and Banger open house festival's Origins are as th

e first Festival to take place in the then newly designated Cathedral quarter in Belfast Allison's aim in moving the f Festival to Banger was to use it to lead a Grassroots movement for Change and to Kickstart a cultural and economic Renaissance in the town which had once been Northern Ireland's leading seaside resort but had suffered from economic and social decline when Public Image Limited frontman John Leiden played the festival in the summer of 2018 he changed the lyrics of a song from ange

r is an energy to Banger is an energy with an audience of 2,000 singing along this was a great demonstration of how much the festival had done for the then time nice city also representing event organizers on our panel is Clare O'Neal executive manager at Belfast City marathan she's been with the marathon since way back in 2007 and has seen it evolve and grow in success over an almost 20-year period bringing along a very active volunteer community with it Claire's role has allowed her to travel

internationally to see how other cities such as New York home to the world's largest Marathon deliver their events but she is happiest at home with her husband and children or enjoying the Walking Trails of slave Gan Lindsay Armstrong is community projects manager at volunteer nigh with 26 years experience in the Northern Ireland volunt sector as part of the volunteer n leadership team Lindsay has on event volunteering for the past 10 years she's worked with Partners such as tourism and I on the

delivery of some of the biggest events to come to and be held in Northern Ireland including jro Italia the 148th open toll ships Marathon um antrum Coast H half Coast Marathon um a number of Irish opens and the one Young World Summit um which I've already mentioned having the opportunity to work in some of the most beautiful parts of Northern Ireland Lindsay loves be by the Sea particularly on the North Coast in all weathers which as we know is crucial in our four seasons in one day climate pas

sionate about volunteering and the impact it has on visitors local communities and volunteers alike Lindy is currently working with term Mi to deliver a volunteering at events toolkit which we'll hear more about later on Chen O'Neil is visitor servicing project manager at visit Belfast and brings 30 years experience in travel tourism at home and abroad she spent six years with flight centers International managing one of the Chain's branches in Sydney Australia before returning to Belfast to wor

k with Chieftain and map tours with two small children under two Jan decided that was exactly the right time to start a masters in international tourism management and it was this qualification which opened doors to her roles in visitor servicing she spent 14 years with tourism ni's marketing division with responsibility for the roll out of the welcoming messaging at our ports and airports as well as managing the Northern Ireland network of visitor information centers she was a key member of the

visitor information team at large Signature Events such as jro dalala and the open and our current role in Vis Belfast includes amongst many things the management of a volunteer program last but not least of course Carlin Gaston is an experienced volunteer and we're delighted she's here today to give a Viewpoint from the other side of the event fence carin's worked on some of the largest events ever held here in Northern Ireland and across the UK she was selected as a games maker at the London

2012 Olympics an experience which turned out to be life-changing when the world plac and fire games came to Northern Ireland in 2013 Carlin was selected to assist the volunteer recruitment process which incl included attending the one show in Belfast on the eeve the applications were closing doing interviews uniform and accreditation as and when was needed prior to the games she was then selected as a team leader for four events which took place at iconic venues such as Carrick fargus Castle in

her hometown and Titanic Belfast in Carolyn's favorite spot Titanic quarter in many ways world plac and Fire Games is still the largest event we've delivered in Northern Ireland described at the time and hopefully still by organizers as the friendliest and best games ever Carolyn recalls with pride and wonder being one of the three and a half thousand volunteers who helped make that happen representing Northern Ireland on the world stage so welcome to our panel um volunteering advents is a reall

y vast subject so we're going to try to cover as much as we can um in the time we have and and we're going to divide that into four sections covering first of all planning then looking at recruitment before we go on to the live event and then we'll spend some time at the end talking about retention and so first up is planning um in this initial phase it's important to understand what defines a volunteer why you should consider developing a volunteer program and what volunteers can bring to an ev

ent and its community you should also consider what roles volunteers uh will fulfill what roles will benefit the event will enrich the volunteers and which should remain as paid rules what skill sets do your volunteers need are there skills gaps within your team which volunteers could fill are there areas of your event which will appeal to particular types of volunteers who have an interest for example in music sport culture or or maybe who are studying for qualification in a relevant subject wh

at are the costs involved in managing a volunteer program um they are participants just like every other person involved in your event is so there's going to be a cost associated with them and then you should look at developing a volunteer plan um of who goes where and when which would feed into your event management plan and ultimately your volunteer handbook which is the document that you would share with all volunteers um so as I've said right at the very start it's important to understand wh

at exactly a volunteer is in order to integrate them into your event planning um Lindsay uh does volunteer no how do you define a volunteer yeah it's always a good place to start we always start with the definition Leslie and that is I'll read it right for you H so it's the commitment of time and energy for the benefit of society a community the environment or individuals outside or in addition to one's immediate family it is unpaid undertaken freely and by choice and that's the definition that

we use here in Northern Ireland and that's the definition that's outlined in the volunteering strategy for Northern Ireland as well so that's the the basis in terms of what we mean when we talk about volunteers okay that's perfect thank thanks because I think sometimes um it was interesting just what you said there about family you sometimes you don't um think about what who's a volunteer and who is just uh giving up their time out of the goodness of their heart or because you who win them into

it because uh you'll not make their dinner when they well you'll not make their dinner when you go home if they don't um Allison it seems to me having a um attended Open House events over the years that volunteers are an integral part of the festival would you maybe tell us why they're important and what sort of roles they undertake yes to volunteers I think it's really important to start from the beginning by thinking they're not just free labor obviously they do give a lot um and if you were t

o try to employ you know that number of people for that amount of time it would probably break your budget but you really get out of your volunteer program what you put in so for us there are various things um various reasons why they're really important one is there are friend ly face of the of the festival so we can have large numbers of people we have about 100 annually in our um Festival volunteer program so we can have them you know at the entrance to events smiling with a nice kind of brig

ht pink high visz on they're excited um you know so they're really visible reassuring presence so wherever you go at our events you'll see them they're happy enthusiastic excited we get so much feedback about about our volunteers um so they kind of set the tone um they are ambassadors and champions for the festival and for our organization so it's ripples they're like pebbles in a pond and they will talk to their friends and their family and and so they kind of create um you know a ground swell

of support um they build community which is a big part of what we're trying to do as a festival is to kind of develop Community here so there are friendships that are now years old people will travel and stay with other volunteers and meet up afterwards and so on um they help to increase capacity so we're increasing skills in the local community um and sometimes we have people who um maybe have disabilities or unseen disabilities um or um you know suffer from social isolation and so on so you kn

ow there's there's a lot of person benefit that will come to those individuals and to our community um also being you know selfish as an organization it's a really good way for us to demonstrate Community buyin to our funders so if you're writing a funding application you know your funders really like the fact that you're putting time and effort into developing your volunteer program um you know it shows Community buying um so and as far as the roles most of our volunteers would be in front of h

ouse rules um at Music and Arts events and that would be you know welcoming stewarding um you know taking tickets showing people to their seats uh being an information Point um giving out and collecting feedback forms um they you know sometimes they'll be helping with the event setup maybe putting out chairs a little that tends to be we try and keep the sort of manual labor as little as possible letter picking um and occasionally there will be some specialist rules so we did have a wonderful vol

unteer who's a qualified lawyer who came and spent a day week in our office for a while getting all our policies up to date which was wonderful I know that was really we're really lucky so you know the volunteers are a big part of what we do um yeah and you've raised a couple of things there that that I hadn't thought about and it prompted me just to let people know that um some people did submit questions um in advance whenever they registered but um given um the variety of information I think

we're going to hear today if anybody watching has any other questions um please do put them in the chat and we will try to get to them um as we go along um so Claire um B City Marathon again um I feel like it's interesting what Aon said there because um her volunteers are very much the face of and even just Al when you're talking about the bright pink um which Carolyn is demonstrating excellently today um the uh you know that that sets them aside and make makes them um they're instantly recogniz

able to members of the public that this is somebody who's involved with this event can help you um it seems to me that they're front and center again um at the marathon are they are they as important as as maybe I think they are to you yeah probably important and more um Carolyn's obviously a very trusted team leader volunteer with us for a number of years and we've worked with Lindsay as well and volunteer nigh as well to learn some new tricks of the trade I suppose over the years but yes the m

arathon is a very different event to a lot of events in Northern Ireland and that it covers 26.2 miles of Bast so we would be unable to see it the event without volunteers to give you an idea of numbers um we would need probably about 750 volunteers per anom across all four of our events so we have full marathon coming up now in may we have the half Mar September we introduced a new women's only 10K in June and we are hoping for our final fourth event in November F of 5K fund run so we have to l

ook at the volunteers very different for all of those events um now some of the roles would be very similar um and in terms of the breakdown and roles that can AFF who sexs forward to become a volunteer um the most challenging I suppose role for us with the marathon is root Marshals and the reason for that is that the volunteers are on their own so although we do give them adequate training and support and documentation and briefing and all of that there on the day they could be standing on a ju

nction at their own guiding the runners the right way um making traffic or cars aware that there the race is happening and obviously that is sometimes difficult for volunteers because they're not police officers they're not EVC Marshals they are volunteers I don't want to say only volunteers because on the route alone we probably need about 200 volunteers across the 26.2 miles so it's important for us to differentiate those roles for the volunteers um we've also introduced a pack collection in E

xpo for the marathon so that's an inside role so to speak so supp a third thing to highlight maybe the difference with some of Allison's events is that our event is all outside so when we're recruiting volunteers if you wake up in the morning and it's raining or it has been snowing at some events you're relying on that person getting out of bed getting dressed and coming to do their Road you know they're not inside where they have nice they're nice and warm and there's May to be a coffee they re

ady for them you know they are out and some volunteers could be sanding from anything from 10 minutes right up to six hours on Marathon route um so we do look at you know who is going into those roles we look at their abilities we look at their ages um there are group positions as well so the likes of water station start finish Rel changeovers you know we tend to use groups for that whether it's Athletics clubs sports clubs Church groups schools universities um and that's probably the easier for

m of recruitment because people like to go with others they like to feel conf able that they're going with their friend or their family or their colleague um so that's important and then also in terms of the Pack Collection it's a very busy setting it can sometimes be a setting where people can complain a lot you know maybe if something has happened since the first point of registration until they get their pack click or their pack or race number they might decide to say x y and Zed and they're

saying that to a volunteer who has maybe just come on to the marathon that day you know they're not sitting as part of the management team working on this event from October they're coming on Race weekend um and likewise there's opportunities for other volunteers maybe for students or people who want to get an insight into event management we do um take on students throughout the year we have a student placement um which I think is incredibly important that's how I started that's how I'm still i

n the marathon all these years is from my student placement um but also it gives an insight to what you do pre event pre delivery of event so there's a lot of planning um us internally we're a very small team there's only four of us so when you compare the likes of 33 members of Staff working for the London marathon and then four of us were very different night don't worry I don't put myself in the same L as London Marathon maybe one day Belfast might be a major but we're working hard and we do

pride ourselves on on that you know in terms of the different volunteer roles that we can offer to people um and I think what you said there particularly around um weather and what Alison said around um those kind of manual jobs it it it's raised a question with some well raised a question my head but it's ra a question with Somebody's Watching Lindsay um somebody's asked whether there's any legal requirement around working with volunteers possibly on the back of what they've just heard yeah no

I mean obviously volunteers don't fall under don't have the same protection as as pen staff members so that they're not covered that way we talk a lot about best practice when we talk about involving volunteers because um as as Allison and clar both articulated you know there's there's a process it's not only to recruit but to retain your volunteers and to make sure that they come back and have a really positive experience but there are some fundamentals that they would be covered by so things l

ike your health and safety policy know to make sure our volunteers mentioned in that policy specifically um you do have a duty of care for your volunteers so that's really important also things like insurance as well so obviously if you're organizing event you will have insurance for that event but you need um you need to make sure that you have insurance for your volunteers um and that you're having maybe conversations with your insurance company to make sure that they are named within that pol

icy and also the activity because um you may develop and change roles as your event maybe grows and there may be other things that you want volunteers to do um so it's important that you continue to have conversations with your insurance company to make sure that that is still covered under your existing policy um so those sorts of things people can get caught out about and that's really important also to have conversations with your insurance company around age ranges for your volunteers as wel

l is there a minimum is there a maximum age that they will cover because that's kind of all all part of that as well um and also things like gdpr so um you know there is a data protection um in place for all of us if you are holding people's personal data you are obliged to do that in a secure way and also that um that there's no data breaches in terms of information going astray um and how you store so you need to store that information securely and things like that but yeah so best practice re

ally for the most part but there are certain things that obviously uh there would be a legal requirement uh as you would with any uh with any uh P member of Staff or anybody else come into your uh event yeah perfect that's really useful and I think um I think I said it earlier that I I believe it's important to consider volunteers right from the very beginning whenever you're planning your event and so for example when I'm sitting down to work out who do I need on site at what time and what are

they doing at that point on my one of my many Excel spreadsheet I will have columns where where I'm allocating that as a volunteer role um and not not and always thinking um not because I'm trying to save money but because that might be interesting for somebody to shadow that or shadow that that team leader in say artist leaz on or um actually we might need a lot of people with languages at that or you and so it's useful there to to to plug gaps so I think if you start to just think of volunteer

s as another part of your overall team then you do naturally integrate them into everything so yes you should be talking to your insurance company you know they should just be part of your event um vocabulary um and one of the other things just when I'm thinking about that onsite experience is that I always try to remember that it starts from the minute somebody gets off a plane or gets off a boat or uh arrives at a train station um and Dan you and I have had experience in recent times in the uh

not too distant past um of working together to on that kind of Welcome um when we were doing when I was working on one Young World and um the team at visit Belfast um helped us with that welcome and one of the things that didn't surprise me but it maybe surprised those um members of the team here from outside Northern Ireland was the positive comment about um that welcome and I know that one Young World they um they use volunteers to do that welcome no matter what city around the world to go to

but um we don't think this it's unusual that one your world said they've never experienced um anything like it um and that it's one of the things that makes this place so unique is that you're like you would you have to agree with me on that don't you that that the Northern Irish welcome the Belfast welcome is something that is is unique to this place absolutely no it's second to none and just using one Young World as the example um when we were asked to you know to help um again just meet and

greet really you know and then you were like it's that positive first impression of of the country that you're arriving into um we had no problem at all our volunteers were just Bing over back to come and support the event and to help us they love meeting people they love meeting International visitors um and so in that particular instance you know from the moment the that the passengers or the delegates stepped off the plane um through the work that tourism Northern Ireland have done and provid

ing that amazing welcome with all of the Fantastic images you know to give you that sense of place that you're in Northern Ireland you're in the destination um right through to having a team of people meet and greet you you know when you come through the doors um now in that particular instance we were also um providing them with transport passes so again our volunteers were very much involved in the orientation um you've just arrived you know this is where you need to go to and we had we had vo

lunteers at every touch point along the way um so getting people on to the coaches um again in the bus stations so that they were then helped and directed to their hotels uh and you know yourself Leslie the feedback was incredible I know the team from one young world that they said look this is normally what we do with with with their staff so you know the fact that that they had a team of local people to assist them you know they they were more than grateful for um and just when you were pickin

g up on on different types of volunteers on that uh I remember you know just meeting people and some some had lost baggage had lost you know different pieces were in a bit of EST state some had traveled you know 20 hours and we're we're very tired and maybe a bit sick so just been able for me to go and assist them knowing that the team of volunteers had had the orientation and the sign poting in place was fantastic and again just different skill sets as you you um we we certainly um you know I f

ind that lots of us were just meeting grips of two and three but then you see the people that have been teachers like Gathering a crowd of 20 or 30 together and just deliver the message once so you know don't underestimate um the skills that our volunteers have we we couldn't we couldn't do it without them and guess um just as we chat um anybody listening will be um will be hearing about a variety of different types of roles that that volunteers do and Carlin um you I mean you your experience is

uh pretty phenomenal and you know we both worked all we both volunteered at World pleas bar games but doing very different things and I came across you at one Young World a few times but um are there any roles in particular that that you've worked on uh you volunteered locally that um really stand out for your that you really enjoy or you know just to give us a little bit more of a flavor of what you do as a volunteer yeah absolutely um I mean obviously I've worked with Claire on Belfast City M

arathon for probably over a decade now um and the half Mar and I've been there from the start of it and then the the women's 10K and I'm looking forward to the the fourth um and the all arent leader for action for happiness as well um which I sort of found stumbled upon in 2019 I was going through a bit of a a dark um uh period of my life and I just happened to stumble across it and it's been a life-changing event and I'm actually this week this Thursday is my last week of a six week course that

I'm delivering so Z Lama being our our Patron so it's been a life-saving and a life-changing um event as well so I'm trying to spread the sparkle of Happiness um around the world so I have people from South Africa and everything join our monthly group but I I run a six- week course which is quite intense so do that um both for City Marathon I did one Young World so worked I worked for the princess trust I volunteered for them as well ended up getting a job with them so um that's where things ca

n lead to um so I I um uh I did one Young World worked all day then did one Young World in the amazing absolutely amazing feedback um as well um did the tall ships um I've done um I'm a Committee Member now of Belfast Pride I have a transgender son um it's been a difficult Road as well for the past number of years so I turned myself to Belfast um Pride donated my birthday to them a couple of years ago and I now end up I'm a a Committee Member uh fabulous amazing incredible um the RS those people

put in it's just it's amazing so I do lots of rules I'll go and pooper scope I'll do whatever it needs to be done uh for any event and I'll be a board member doesn't really matter to me what the rule is as long as I'm you know I I feel like I can give back and I can use my experience um and you know I've got loads of it to give so I'm I'm quite happy to share it which is evident I feel like your email is going to be on fire off back of one of the important things that I wanted to make sure we w

e talked about because I think sometimes people can be a little bit naive when they're thinking about um their planning how they're going to use volunteers and it's just about the cost around it um and as I said earlier you have to manage and recruit volunteers um in the same way you have to manage and and recruit or engage your own staff your performers your participants whatever it happens to be um and you can either do that by Outsourcing it to uh we're very for forunate I think in Northern i

rland to have a organization like volunteer n um or you would in my experience you would give it to an internal team member who has the time and the ex experience to look after the volunteers um that person obviously has to be a good communicator um patient a real people person um and somebody who's very organized as well because in some ways if you're looking after the volunteers you're almost you're managing a team that are almost shadowing the main um event team so you almost have to have the

same skills as as the main event organizer um then you need to train your volunteers um you need to break them you need to put clothes on their back you need to feed them they need somewhere to be on site and all those things um cost money um and I think and okay that can be pretty daunting when I just said all together like that but it's I think it's also worth remembering that third certain aspects of the cost that you might be able to to look at getting sponsorship and kind for example um so

again Jon World hings hotels donated um sustainable bottles of water now was branded get into hotel that's absolutely fine but we would have had to go out and buy um thousands of bottles of water if they hadn't supplied that and there's obviously um a cost against it um Alison open house came up in um we were doing a TNI master class last week at montalto and it was about um commercial sustainability and um somebody had spotted that your volunteers um seemed to be sponsored by um cland boy Lodg

e in Banger and we just it came up and we were interested in just finding out about that that relationship yes well cland boy lordel is the um currently I think the biggest hotel in Bangert on the outskirts and uh we would have put artists there and had audience members stay there and done meal deals and we've actually used it for a few events um we had Sir Michael Parkinson we had an interview with him there a few years ago um so they actually approached us about sponsoring the festival and spo

nsoring the volunteer program seemed like a really good match because they Pride themselves on good customer service so they give us um little bit of cash sponsorship which goes into some of the costs you know volunteer t-shirts and um you know their hive is and you know snacks and and that kind of thing um I mean they get a lot out of it they get a lot of branding and and so on um and it's just strengthened the relationship with them as a local business um but you're right about having to inves

t in your volunteer program as I said before the more you put in the more you get out and we have um we have a a design dedicated volunteer coordinator she works freelance we're seasonal you know we're a a Summer Festival so she would come um kind of in the spring early spring we would start to have conversations and you know she's very much a part of the team so she'll be talking to you know Karen who will be doing the artistic programming having a look at what's coming up so you know we could

have small indoor events we could have you know things like our picky to peer sea swim um or you know we could have we did Snow Patrol acoustic concert for 5,000 people on Banger seafront you know our Ward Park music in the park um all different kinds of events so starting to think about the shape of the festival um where there will be pigs and troughs she will then work very closely with our um operations manager um and you know different members of the team um to make sure that the volunteer p

rogram is fully integrated within the organization and that at every point we're thinking about where they fit um so we're very lucky she J actually was a volunteer and she was a really good volunteer and she asked if she could do more and then just over a coffee realized she had actually managed a volunteer program in the past and so we snapped her up so she's very good in that her other work she will always keep a space for us and try and you know fit her other bits of work in and around the f

estival and come back every year and that continuity is amazing because so much of it is about building relationships knowing your individual volunteers you know what their strengths are um what they're prepared to give um you know what rules to put them in who to pair with who and and so on so that kind of coming back manually and building on that knowledge is absolutely invaluable to us okay great um there have been a couple of audience questions come in but I'm going to um I'm conscious of ti

me so I'm going to jump on to the next section and then we'll we'll come to those at the end um we want to talk about recruitment now um so once you've got your plan in place the next stage is looking at how you're going to get your volunteers on board what exactly is the requirement for each volunteer role um what do you expect as the event owner from the volunteer and what will they get in return for example by way of training welfare um parking are their expenses covered do you need any speci

al skills something Lindsay me mentioned earlier about age restrictions are there any is there minimum age um from a legal perspective um and how are you going to go about recruiting um the right people and as I've already said we are very fortunate to have um an organization like volunteer n in Northern Ireland um who can do everything for you if you you need them to but um some people don't go down that route um and I know some of the smaller event organizers who would be watching Lindsay woul

dn't so I'm just wondering if you could tell us about the ways in which volunteer n can help without being the PE the the body who are managing all the volunteers yeah no absolutely I suppose part of our role is really around volunteer promotion we want people across Northern Ireland to get involved and so there are events that you say that we're brought in to specifically do that recruitment but we want to promote other events that are involved on volunteers as well that's part and partial of w

hat we do suppose in terms of what we can offer um we can offer that promotion um directly to volunteers um we have been we've had amazing volunteers over the course of the last sort of really since 2012 really since word placement bar Games events really took off for us um and so we have a we have a database exclusively for those individuals and there may be a few people on the screen who are members of that as well um and we use a system called better impact um it's not our system it's a syste

m that we purchased to allow us to kind of run these big events but what it also allows us to do is to communicate directly with people who have been recruited through ourselves to be um event volunteers so there's probably about 2,000 people on that system um so one thing that we can do is get information directly out to those people who we know are interested in events and that's what we want to do so we produce a thing called an e flash H which goes out Ube twice a month to our volunteers and

what it will do is it will highlight people's events um and um what they are looking to involve Volunteers in and there's there's no cost anything like that it's really just us promoting in here's an event here's the roles and here's the contact details um so we can we can do that there's there's no charge for that we we will send that out um that will go directly to those people who we know are interested in event volunteering but we also have another system that we work with because we're vol

unteer now so we have a platform called we Collective and really that's where we work with a whole range of voluntary uh Community sector organizations not for-profits and they can advertise their volunteer roles through that platform the platform also allows people who's interested in volunteering to make that connection so you can in and do a search maybe depending on what you're interested in so there's another method there that um not for-profits can kind of advertise volunteer rules and you

can advertise your event through that that message we will also produce sort of m e magazines from that which will go out to uh volunteers connected to that system so again it's about promotion um we can use lots of things through our social media so for example if you have an event on you can send us the information we can put it out through our Instagram our Facebook our Twitter account and Linkin with other um organizations and we have quite a lot of connections we we never do these things a

lone any of these events we're always working in partnership with others and so we have quite a good network of organizations that we work with who can try to spread that message out as widely as we can and as localized as we can because lots of these events it's amazing as Allison said you know when you can get local people involved they become real ambassadors I mean cln and the passion that she has for volunteer and you can't pay for that that comes from a volunteers experience and a love for

what they do um and when you get that Local Buy in it just helps to spread the message of what you're trying to achieve and if a volunteer has a positive experience they're going to tell that message but if they have a bad experience they're got to tell more people it's what our experience has always been so you know volunteers can be your your biggest um asset in terms of getting that recruitment message out there because we know still in Northern Ireland um um we have um word of mouth is stil

l one of the biggest ways of getting people involved but I should probably caveat by saying you know let's take a a little snapshot of where we are and volunteering across Northern Ireland at the moment and we know that we've had a dip um since uh Co in terms of people getting involved quite a substantial dip of about 10% when the last survey was done so we are in a period of rebuilding and we can see the sheets of that coming through which is fantastic but we're also in a period where people ar

e much more picky about their volunteering and what they want to get involved in so that's why it's really key that if you want to involve volunteers as everyone has said you know you start that planum when you're planning your event and articulate what you want volunteers to do and how you're going to get that message out there knowing that we are in slightly more difficult times in terms of people signing up to volunteer and that's not just events that's right across the pace in terms of volun

teering in nor and inevitably um in the chat somebody's asking about um how they go about um contacting you so um are we just are we directing people to the website and then by email to send information about their event I can s or send it directly to me might be the easiest thing and I can pass it on rather than going into an info box if there's something there I can pass it on to our our V team or others within the team so yeah okay so let's as part of the um correspondence that goes out to ev

erybody who registered we're going to include Lindsay's um email address everybody here her said that was okayu on no um just again thinking about I mean I um have worked with uh you Lindsay um and the volunteer our team um for many years but thinking outside um that recruitment sphere I also would work quite a lot with um queens and YuYu plus um in particular basm but um some of the other colleges to look for um volunteers and quite similar to CLA going down that line of um if there if it's som

ething they're in they're studying in and they're interested in getting involved with I find that works quite well um I've also worked with other organizations who have their own volunteer programs so um for example the team at hrp at Hillsburg Castle who um they have their own team of volunteers who I would then absorb um into mine or similarly um the guys down at Titanic quarter um Martin Belfast and Titanic Belfast again of their own volunteers so that's another useful place to go if you're s

pe particularly if you're do an event that is location specific because those people bring a knowledge with them as well which um I think is quite good Lindsay sorry another question you're going to get bombarded now um somebody's asking how far in advance should you start your recruitment process yeah uh as as early as possible I always say start with your what's your date when is your event going to be and then you work back from there um I think people you know most people sitting on around t

he screen here are volunteers or volunteered at some point and we all have our own lives volunteering is considered a Leisure activity so by that we mean you're probably competing with going down the pub going for that walk on the beach you know meeting up with friends it's within that volunteering is within that space and we all are living busy lives so the earlier that you can get in with that message the better not necessarily a fullon recruitment but get your message out there to say um almo

st like save the date here's what's coming here's what's coming up for example for volunteer now we have a number of events that we are managing this year and in January we sent out a save the date to people here's the events that are coming up we will give you more information but here's dates for your diary because it's easier for people to put those dates in advance them try to undo plans that they already have so no that's not give me a specific do this within six weeks but I think it depend

s on a lot it depends on the nature of your event it depends on the number of volunteers that you are um you need need to involve as part of that event and also how are you recruiting those volunteers so what will be your recruitment process so if I come to you Leslie and say I want to volunteer at your event what do I need what steps do I need to go through to become a volunteer is there is there a process where we have an informal chat do I have to fill in a form do you need references from me

you know those sorts of things need to be built into your plan because that takes time if you're interviewing a 100 people because you need you know you need 80 volunteers and you want to have 20% extra because of the drop off then you need to fill that in and who within your organization will coordinate that because once you go live with your message people will expect an instant response you know if you look at I mean even the marathon CL yourselves if you're dealing with 200 volunteers if yo

u go out live with that message you know that you need your staff or trained volunteers who can deal with that um to answer because people will expect an immediate response not necessarily immediate answer but an acknowledgement we have received you know your email um and this is this is the process so people can be clear from the outset what's expected um of them so I would say look at your event and work back from there so event when are you going to have the training what type of training do

you need is it a half day is it a full day is it an R is it online is it face to face is a mixture of both and then how many volunteers do we need and what do we and what do we what process do we want those volunteers to go through and how long is that going to take but I would always say start early get your save the dates out um as quickly as possible because it starts people thinking this this is coming and I might want to be involved in this perfect Jane did you have your hand up there yeah

yeah yeah know it was just just to echo on what Lindsay had said and just to give you better context in terms of the visit Belfast last example um so we we would um advertise and we work with volunteer now so we we would um go through them where they they really do a short listing process for us and then we interview um people but just to give you an example we're interviewing tomorrow for um the the season that lies ahead uh so although cruise ships won't start coming in until April um and the

bigger and the busier ones will probably be May June July we are interviewing tomorrow for that process because we know that um there's a fairly lengthy induction process you know that that we do do induction training but as part of the training you know not just the visit Belfast policies and procedures we are very keen that that the the volunteers have good product knowledge so often not TS them taking them out on a farm trip and those take a bit of time to organize as well so although we have

we're running Farms over the next couple of um months we will definitely do a bespoke one for our volunteers for our new recruits um coming in through the door because it is important that if if somebody is you if they're standing down at the cruise Hub um and all these visitors are getting off and wanting to know what is there to see and do in Belfast today there's no substitute for having experienced a product yourself and been able to you know wax lyrical about how fantastic it is so the the

full recruitment section definitely I would I would Advocate um months and months of plowing um because again just once you once you have your Volunteers in place you want to body them up with with other staff just to increase their confidence and skill sets um but yeah the more the more planning the better better yeah um Alison you you don't work with volteer no is that oh you oh you're on mute sorry Alison sorry um we run our program but our volunteer Coordinator would uh attend training um t

o keep her skills updated with volunteer no but you're obviously then you're using your own recruitment you're using your own methods I'm just wondering what works for you I mean it sounds like um you have a lot of volunteers who are just coming back year on year but have you had to go out and look for new volunteers maybe on the back of what Lindsay said about the co drop off um and what how do you find them do you use social media or what way do you go about that um yeah we've been going 25 ye

ars um when we moved the festival from Belfast to Banger some of our volunteers came with us and some of them were already in Banger um and you know we've we've even lost a couple of volunteers along the way who've who've died and we know have Awards in their name um which is a kind of lovely uh sort of Legacy most of our volunte would come through Word of Mouth a lot of people approach us and say oh I've seen your volunteers I'd love I've been at your events I'd love to do that um and in a way

that's the perfect form of recruitment for us because those people already know us as an organization are ethos and in a way their expectations are um manageable um I think if when we've when we go out if we if we find we need more we will generally go through our own social media channels to try and recruit people who are already familiar with the organization if you're getting people you know who are not familiar with who we are and what we do it is more difficult I think to integrate those pe

ople then into the organization but a lot of our volunteers are they're customers and then they they get a bit of space in their life and they say well you know I've enjoyed this festival for years I'm going to be part of it now um so that works really well for us we have specifically gone out to recruit um Young younger volunteers because a lot of our volunteers would be older either early retirees or people who maybe the kids have flown The Nest or you know or maybe a bereavement and people fi

nd they have space in their life for something else um but we have worked with the local College Circ um specifically to get some of their tourism and Hospitality students it gives them experience um they can get a reference from us and often it will help increase confidence um but I've also had a stall at the local um school um what do you call it recruitment fair and um initially it started out just wanting to represent the creative sector because I you know was aware with when my kids were so

rt of secondary school that the recruitment fairs were mostly um sort of professional organizations you know kind of it and and that kind of thing and the creative sector wasn't really represented but I would then get these kind of cre cre of kids come come up going oh a festival can I can I get involved and then we found that we were able to give spaces to some of these young kind of um people in their last couple years at school or school leevers to come and um volunteer and get a bit of life

and work experience so um so actually this was the moral of that story is that no matter where you are in the country that you know you've got young people around you and the easiest way to tap into them is through their school or college um yeah which I suppose it depends on what your event is as to what that age um what that lower age limit is as well and Carolyn with so many that you obviously have a very full and busy life um but with so many um events going on so many opportunities how do y

ou decide what event you're going to you're going to volunteer at does it come down to when you're available or is it to do with the subject matter or what are the kind of things like if if people watching were wanting to uh recruit you what would they need to to do to to make sure you you pick them well to be to be honest for me it it does come down to time I'm a full-time worker I'm a full-time single parent um with a son with neurodiverse um needs and that now that we're you know uh fighting

through that at the moment um but I do a lot I do junior Park on every Sunday I help set it up I do that every single week and to be honest with you what brings me back one is time for sure the other is costs with you know I I do work for a Charing now I'm certain not the salary I used to be on so I have to be more selective um so for example I'm now doing the adult park run on Saturdays but I've chosen Carrick rather than the valley for example because it's further for me to travel so I'm tryin

g to be respectful of of my own costs um but certainly I mean if I know I can add value I'm all about the social impact um you know if I can add value in any shap or form particularly online I guess lecture as well for rer University and you know that's not too difficult I was doing that online um so really time and costs um a lot of volunteers they're their uniform collectors um certainly when I I'm about to go to Paris so I've been selected to go for the my third Olympics um which is just mind

-blowing for me um it's a lot of money um and that's where I'm focusing this year because I only get to do it well it's been what six years um so every four years um I'm not always selected either Commonwealth Games all the big stuff that's fancy but it's it's an incredible experience you can't even buy it but what I find is the younger ones because I'm trying to recruit I've been asked to help volunteer manage for the the 5K and the one mile that's coming up vum Coast uh so we' got Joshua chap

guy and I'm working obviously with um volunteer and I are looking after the road crew I've been asked to look after the start finish area we've got elate athletes going to be BBC are going to be filming it it's it's the the one it's the one last event it's the only pre Olympic event to be held here but it's the one the last event that chap guy is going to be doing before he goes to Paris um so you know it's going to be a massive event for Northern Ireland and and you know worldwide event um so t

hat's a hook um so I'm going do a guest lecture in a couple of weeks so I'll be trying to hook hook those people in um to it's a worldwide event if you're a runner through into this sort of thing that that's great um but I often find nowadays and I'm a very I like people to be accountable to be reliable uh and it's quite difficult to get that out of young people um these days what I find is in in my junior Park every Sunday we we've got a lot we've got like eight or 10 J of Edinburgh uh pupes wi

th us and they're so standof offish um in terms of their confidence and their self-esteem see within a couple of weeks that's knocked out of them they're brilliant they got all the rules to do and we we as senior volunteers we sort of Step Aside with the like timekeeping they're all petrified of timekeeping you know the barcode scanning all of those things and they all step up and do it we have a volunteer Award of of the the month um as well nine times out 10 of goes to them so we try to incorp

orate things don't cost a lot of money um just that acknowledgement as well but I think um volunteers I think people think why would you get out of bed if I I if I i' would be rich if I had a pound for every time someone asked me that um it's just you have got to have the passion it's not for everyone and that's the thing I would like to put across if you have 100 people in room it could be just 10 of them but you want those 10 because they're passionate they're there because they want to give b

ack to their Community um but equally if there's a couple of pound for your petrol or you get a we b or something we bacon B to get you started that that's brilliant I mean that's brilliant for my experience and I appreciate that but there in this day and age I think a lot of volunteers are looking for what's in it for them and and that's okay I'm not judging them but you have you've got to get that passion enthusiasm and the retention part of it then um if it's a year on year thing um you know

like the Belfast City Marathon I mean claring the T I see I see myself as a supportive role I'll do whatever I can to support them um to deliver because it's my country as well and I want to make sure we put on a hell of a show and that the one Young World as well I worked all day and I did the one Young World at night and I made sure every single human I came in contact with got to know about our Island um and everything that we did you get the Game of Thrones yes been to see the cruise ships y

ou know all that stuff do come back it's 190 people or sorry 190 countries around the world if if one if each one of them had a positive experience was tweeting had somebody's mother on the phone to me well in in a hotel from I think it was Palestine blessing was week before the the war broke out but someone's mother was off oh here I in the hotel was I was just waving away in the back you just you have no idea um the the impact the worldwide impact that we have and that's one of the things that

drives me and I just I hope that I instill that other volunteers well um I think that's uh a definite um again time's just running on so I'm going to jump um onto the live event and actually carlyn you took us quite um quite seamlessly into that just with talking about um that kind of on on-site experience um one of the things that Lindsay mentioned earlier was about gdpr and I think um and the tools that um volunteer and I have around um commun capturing data and communicating with um their vo

lunteers it's it's really important um that you capture the volun data from your Volunteers in the same way that you would from your um event crew so you know you need to know what are who's their emergency contact do they have any accessibility concerns any allergies if you're providing parking if you got their um faal details if you need to share those with venues and then I think um all of us would agree that um it's really important to create a document that um answers all the questions that

a volunteer might have in the same way that um event organizers will create an event management plan an event brief so that becomes like your volunteer handbook um and the kind of things that you would need to cover off on that are where do the volunteers need to be and when um how are you going to communicate with them on site for example are you going to create WhatsApp groups um onsite welfare details are really important is there a room for them to go to and um and resting can they leave th

eir belongings securely there um what breaks do they get what catering do they get and again that also comes back to something Carn said um around expense um and cost and and really I believe that if you're bringing somebody um on site no matter what their rule is um but particularly for their volunteer they should be getting um adequate brakes what do they what do they need to wear and um in that it's important to think about um say you're giving them I don't know t-shirts or polo shirts um how

many do you need to give them because if they're doing if they're shift if they're doing a shift that's um maybe I don't know 8 to midnight but then they're on again at 8 the next morning um they're going to need a fresh uh clean t-shirt to put on so thinking about that because again there's a cost um associated with that or you can do what Alon talked about and go down the line of thinking well there's something that maybe um would be great for sponsor because it's particularly if you're going

to put their name on it you've got all these people walking around with um haranda kit I think the car the parking things is really important um particularly when you're doing events around the the city city centers or town centers where um it's very hard these days to find free parking or maybe thinking about um whether you can get some kind of car sharing um going on between volunteers what your public transport routes are um who the key contacts are for a volunteer when they're on site and w

hat happens if um not that they wake up in the morning like CLA said and look out the window when it's raining but if actually they wake up and they're not well or they can't make it for some reason um what happens then um and I think probably the other thing that's key um is Allison and Claire both talked about how um those volunteers are are front line and front facing and um I think it's really important that you equip them with as many details about your event as possible because um in all l

ikelihood they are going to be the first people that are bombarded with questions um and so I think doing that's really important yeah Carlin so I was just going to add one of the things that um probably hasn't been touched on and we do tend to forget about is the inclusivity part of it um so a lot of volunteers don't May don't have the um if they've got mobility issues or they're disabled in some other way um or maybe need a a you know a guide or something like that and they they tend to maybe

sit back and don't maybe register or Avail of the opportunities and I think it's important to try and get those opportunities out to people I I I volunteer with a lot of people here in wheelchairs and different other things and buing up with them you the more experienced uh volunteers really quite good so I think um to try and be as inclusive as you can now is the way going forward because these people have a lot to give yeah and there is um again there's a question that if I get time will come

to it um that's to ask about whether what experiences are from the event organ organizer side of you about being inclusive like that um just and and if I get time I will come back to that Carlin just going back to that um thinking about a lot of those volunteer rules being front facing and um and Jane the other thing in addition to making sure they know um what's going on with your event is is also just thinking about questions they might might get from a tourism perspective um and you know peop

le asking them things like uh where's an a chemist um where working I really a fancy an Italian M tonight work and I go for that where did I get this bus those sorts of um tourism questions as well as the things like H Carla mentioned about Game of Thrones people saying oh how did I get to the the Game of Thrones experience what time do Titanic Belfast open what time does picky Thum Park open when can I get on the swans whatever it happens to be and um and you talk you just you touched on it bri

efly about um training your volunteers because obviously your volunteers um have a their tourism specific um so and you you mentioned fan trips I'm just wondering can you elaborate on what you mean by that or what you're what exactly you're doing with them sure okay so as you said I mean in terms of product knowledge and training it it can be information overload so that's why we like a a longer leading time for people to budy up and just observe and see how people answer questions but the one t

hing I will say with our volunteers we we we position it as it's very like soft skills soft visitor information you don't need to have the the minute detail because we have a team of visitor information staff who are experts in that so they always would be encouraged to sign post visitors on but as they get more confident they will know and from their own experiences you know if they've taken their kids to Titanic past or to Game of Thrones they'll know that detail but we will work with them we'

ll give them frequently Asked question list um which they can read up on we also um would produce a what's on sheet for each day so particularly when there's Cruise Ships coming in um every day of the week you know whil there's certain attractions are open all of the time there may be oneoff events that are on um but we will make sure that the the team of volunteers is briefed on that um you asked a question about familiarization visits so again that's just making sure that people have an opport

unity to get out and experience um and attraction or an activity themselves so obviously we can't cover everything but we do encourage um volunteers to go off and see things in their own time if if they so wish um and we will accommodate that so I mean we could we could um you know get free passes for them to do a Hop On Hop off bus tour for example um or you know tours of storment are free anyway so uh but we will put together programs for our volunteers where we'll take them out they might go

on a walking tour they might go on a buser they might visit um Titanic Belfast or do the hydro bikes on the Lagan you know so we'll do as much as we can um and throughout the time that they're with us uh we have what are called quarterly briefing sessions where members of the industry actually come in and talk to um volunteers visitor or not visitors sorry other other members of the tourism industry so again they're invited along to those product updates so they're continually getting their thei

r their knowledge enhanced um but yeah it's a very very long a long program um and that's why we tend to find that we we do manage to retain quite a few volunteers um what I will say we also have like a natural progression onto paid employment from our volunteers and that's absolutely fine um you know that that's great if that's what they choose to do um but yeah that that whole product knowledge is important so they're given the tools um through what's on sheets you know just websites where peo

ple can go and and you know brush up on their their information but it's it's an on the job learning process and it's not done in a day or a week or whatever it takes time okay um and just thinking again about that time investment Claire um and what Lindsay said earlier about um how you need to work out how you're going to brief your how are you going to train your volunteers how are you going to brief them do they need specific training um and you've talked about the N the kind of numbers you'r

e dealing with so whenever you've recruited all your volunteers are you doing like face Toof face briefing are you taking them in different groups depending on what they're doing how do you go about about that yeah well we would have a health and safety um risk associated to some of our volunteers especially those on the route um and in particular with the new road closure legislation so what we would do is we would have three sessions two weeks before we EST and that will be a weekend a lunchti

me and an evening so we're looking at all demographics to see where they're coming from if they're from our side of Bast if they work in the city center if the MIM can come in the evening so we we career for everybody um in terms of retaining volunteers if somebody has done that training session once we don't T you know to ask them to come back um because they're going to hear the same training unless legislation has changed or unless route has changed or their role has changed um and I think th

at's important to with volunteers um some volunteers like to do the same role every time like our carollyn there she will do the information point at the start and we know that's going to work for her and it's going to work for us and it's going to work for the participants because they're going to get the right information at a very stressful time in terms of groups as well to try and recruit more we ask that if a group's doing a water station that maybe only one person comes to training and th

eir training could be different than a route training again the volunteer handbook is critical you know to give to everybody but I suppose for us what we find with volunteer handbook is that it's well and good giving it to the volunteers but sometimes these volunteers don't read what's on the volunteer handbook um so you could have it like a Bible and every single FAQ is in that and they will still come and be unsure or maybe lack confidence in like an answer so they have their their cues but we

tried to like group volunteers with a team leader and then those that are out on the route they would have my contacts so when we say I'm in a control room and they would ring me so we normally have event te that I'll go around the route and check locations we simply don't have the resources to to do that back when we were working with Lindsay it was fantastic her and her team helped us and we broke it into sections um so they would help us do that and then if there are gaps then we have to ris

k assess those gaps you know can that like person that's not there can the race continue without them do we need to put an event SE there do we need to notify you know silver control and mus grave so there's a lot of other issues but in terms of training we try to make it as easy as possible when we came back after Co we did a video we moved it virtually and because people weren't they were comfortable to volunteer outside but they weren't comfortable to come in their training room so we made th

at easier for them as well in terms if there was a video there of the health and safety manager give some tips the operations manager gives some tips and then obviously in terms of the training that would be where we would give our packs to volunteers so what everybody has said it's important to reward your volunteers so it's not possible for us to provide lunches to every volunteer on the day so we try to look at the amount of time for those that are working over four hours they'll genuinely be

with us at the Finish area where lunches will be available if you're out in the route you wouldn't be working longer than four hours um and you get like snacks and you get your you know your kit and stuff and it's funny what Caroline said or Caroline said because some people are motivated by what they get in terms of like whether it's Jack jackets or t-shirts or freebies and that's fine but I think it's also important for the event managers out there as well to realize is that that can be quite

costly um and especially for us in the marathon we don't want to underestimate the value of volunteers but we have to be careful what we're giving Volunteers versus what we're giving the participant so if a participant is paying an entry fee whether it's 50 pound for a marathon or 120 for the rele you know they'll get a certain amount of things in their race pack but a volun here is getting more than that then questions are asked so it is a balancing act and you can look at well who does more f

or the event and being not for-profit you know it's kind of we sit in the fence a lot of the time um but like Allison we do try to get bring in some corporates to help us with sponsorship um we're in talks at the minute with another company is hopefully going to help us at the full Marathon previous years we've had fourstar pizza that is sponsored the volunteers and I think there was a way bit of eyebrow reason go and gosh why four star P to sponsoring the marathon but they were in there to cong

ratulate participants and also to congradulate the volunteers so everybody would have got a small pizza um so it is amazing how you can use sponsorship to work for your event not looking at just the ethos of your event but looking at higher award participants and also volunteers as well is critical okay um we've had a question that I'm just GNA um ask ala no because it's kind of just relevant where we're sitting um and somebody's asking a question about um monitoring or managing um social media

um on site so I mean in my experience um when you're running an event you would have a social media policy where you're telling your you're telling your paid staff as well as I would always extend it to your volunteers this is um this is what you're allow to um these are our standards this is what by signing up to be um a a peg member staff or sign up to be a volunteer this is what you're adhering to um somebody's just curious as to whether you have have had any issues with um getting people to

just maintain a level of decorum on um social media from a vol from a volunteer perspective um I I I can't think of problems we do have a social media policy for our volunteers and that would be referred to in the volunteer handbook um but the volunteers would get it and we try and keep our policies short and Meaty um and basically the policy says uh more or less um from memory um you know if they're posting anything on social media they don't it's not on our behalf they have to make it clear th

at it's their own personal views we ask people not to um take photographs at events and post them without permission but rather to share what we're posting um and that they shouldn't you know they shouldn't be photographing backstage or anything like that um anything that would you know compromise people um I'm not aware that we've had problems um I I think the um the message really is if in doubt ask uh and um no I don't I don't think we've had or if I have they haven't come to my attention oka

y thanks and Carolyn um I look after the social media for Jordan Jor parkr Belfast Pride as well um so have admin rights it's quite a scary responsibility at times but um I'm quite up to SP nearly seven years for Jordan's time but I'm well up to speed with the the etiquette but if I'm unsure of something it's having that Rapport and that relationship with the person that you so if you know the person so I know that my event director is the person I should be going to if I'm unsure about somethin

g cuz parkr you know they they don't um promote other events and different things I can do I I I know the UT n but it's just um we we we've really had no issues but I think it's just to make sure that there's just someone that they're very well aware who they need to contact to run something past them if they're doing on behalf of the organization which I do for the two but if I'm doing it on my own um it's just making sure exactly as says make sure the grind RS are sort of like just being decen

t really yeah okay hopefully that's answered that question um and again I want to move on because it's we're already uh fast approaching the Finish Line um and we've already I feel like we've already kind of touched on um retention um but Lindsay one thing I I think kind of crosses between being on site of the live event and then retention is um communicating with your volunteers and um I I think it's important that you are listening to them as the live event is going on that you're getting feed

back from them um because partly um if there are any issues if you can resolve them then that's going to lead to what you referred to earlier somebody referred to as a a positive volunteer experience which um you know it's all obviously going to have a ripple effect would you re recommend that whoever the your volunteer coordin coordinator is or your volunteer manager is um listening or or asking for feedback as the the live event goes on yeah absolutely I think feedback is is crucial I think vo

lunteers um want to be listened to and also want you know that very much can be your eyes and ears on the ground if you're looking at the likes of the marathon that clar's talking about you know you can't be everywhere so if there's an issue then volunteers are sometimes the first person to kind of gather that information and so the how that information is um kind of gathered and uh fed back is really key so that's part of your plan and I think in terms of you know if there is an issue who's you

r if I'm a volunteer who's my first point of contact if I see something um and then how that's reported back up so you know um that it can be dealt with um or if a volunteer is maybe in danger because of something you know um so those things are important but I think regardless of the event normally what we try to do is to have a brief in in the morning so regardless of the training that's gone before if it's possible to gather your volunteers and it will depend on the nature of the event before

they start their shift is to have a briefing with them just to get everybody together just to get everybody energized for the event just to kind of give those kind of highlight information again an opportunity for volunteers to ask any questions that they may be unsure of or something but then also at the end of their ship when it is visible to do a day brief so that you are hearing that firsthand information as it's fresh here's something that um uh that I came across or here's something that

maybe I wasn't very happy about or here's something that happened and then you have a way of getting that information instantly now if it's an event that's happening over a couple of days you have an opportunity to kind of look at that and to see if there's things that you need to put in place so that doesn't happen again um but also if that's the event over then it's an opportunity to kind of look at that for forward planning but also after that would tend to do um a survey for all of our volun

teers that we would send out to get a you know ask many more questions and have volunteers to have an opportunity to think and reflect on their experience and we want to hear it all we want to hear the good and the bad because we won't improve and I would rather have a volunteer come and tell me the bad that we can try to address and we retain that volunteer than somebody feeling that way not articulating it and going away and then you've lost them as a volunteer not all things should be able to

fix cuz some things you just can't you can't fix so for example you know if you have road closures and we know if a a motorist suddenly stop because they expected to be on a road that morning and they can't get on that road and you're a volunteer man in that position you may be in for some dogs abuse because that person wasn't expecting to be stopped where they are and you're just the first point of call you can't try to equip them you know or you can't try to equip them with deflecting skills

and they're not the psni and if there's an issue psni will be at hand um so some of the things that you can't fix but you can try to minimize the kind of risk in relation to that but it's so important and also to let people know that they can contact you at any time you know that you might not be able to respond to them in the midst of the storm of the event but if they send an email if they send a text if they send a voicemail that you will endeavor to get back to them people want to be listene

d to they want to feel that they're valued and they want to feel that if they have um something to share that you are actively listening to them and getting back to them to say actually this is what we've done as a result of what you've said or actually we've had a look at that and there's nothing we can do we're really sorry but it's important to listen and it's important to feedback and then it's important to see what changes we can make to make the experience better for people okay that's bri

lliant um I feel like everybody has touched on some elements of ways in which you can ensure that you're retaining if you're putting the effort into training um staff that you retain them um Alison obviously gave a great example of how somebody who volunteered then ended up um in paid employment managing their volunteer program and similarly Jan has talked about um how in visit Belfast sometimes their volunteers um go on to pedr rals which I'm assuming Jan because somebody has actually asked the

question that it's just that an opportunity arises with inv Vis Bast and then they apply for that role um and then they would have experience that obviously somebody who hasn't worked um in visit Bast would have where we tend to find um the big uptick is people love working down at the cruise ships um at the cruise hubs so whereas in year one or year two and to be fair our volunteers do stay with us um but again you know there have been a number of occasions where they've loved it that much the

y've said like you know would you mind if I went on to paid employment um if I apply and obviously they go through normal recruitment process um but there's no doubt that they you know the experience that they have that they received um volunteering in that location certainly helps um yeah um other things that we do is we would we would take them all out for an end of season dinner on a day breef and everything just to um as a thank you yeah and I think those kind of volunteer recognition events

even if that's just a cup of tea or so you know that just singling them M to say thank you I think it's really important and and also just interestingly what um Claire and Carlin were saying about the merchandise because like I have bit I have bits of merchandise about like I am not um like I like to have a a logo Ty is and I like um you know to have my water bottle which says whatever on it but that's not what drives me you know I understand that there are people that actually that is one of t

he things that you know it was a big thing with um Culture Night when whenever I start started working on it that the culture night t-shirts were a really big deal for volunteers so you know there there are people that that will be something that helps with retention but I feel like um what everybody has talked about is if you can if you can give a volunteer a positive experience then um there's no reason why they wouldn't come back um and Lindsay whilst the the figures might say that um the num

bers have dropped off I think that as we get back to because we kind of we had this um interruption in the particularly in the Live Events um scene where that just stop for a while so you know I think as we get back into the rhythm of it then hopefully we'll pick um volunteers up again and we will encourage people you know to come back out and um and work with us on those events because ultimately we're all here to ensure that every visitor coming to Northern Ireland has an amazing experience um

and and wants to come back again and volunteers are kind of at the front of that yeah go ahead Lindsay yeah just to say I think that kind of volunteer identity is really important as well particularly for that visitor experience and I know we talked about t-shirts and things like that and obviously you have to work within your budget but there is something there about branding that is visible that the people who are providing this experience as volunteers because that means so much to the visit

ors I know when we did the likes of 14th open up at Royal Port rush to see volunteers out with their High it says volunteers on the back of it we had a global audience coming to Northern Ireland the Americans the austr they were so overwhelmed that volunteers were there to give up their time so I think it's important not necessarily to have all the bells and whistles but something that identifies your cohort as volunt is really important because not only does it give that message that the commun

ity is supporting what you're doing but also hopefully it will inspire some other people to ask well you're a volunteer how did you get involved how do I get involved so hopefully it helps you with more Recruitment and and and getting that message out there wider um and just in the last um minute or so before I close um Allison I wanted just to come back to there's there was a question about inclusivity and I feel like that's it's actually a whole other session in itself but I'm just wondering u

m have you have you had to make any changes um of late to try and be more inclusive um from a I suppose specifically from a volunteer perspective if there are people that want to get involved that maybe have accessible needs um I mean I suppose it really comes down to um asking people what they need from us to make the volunteer exper experience work for them so our volunteer coordinator is lovely very empathetic and she will have a face-to-face meeting with everybody before they come to volunte

er for us it's compulsory um and in that meeting um that's the opportunity then to find out you know what needs people have whether it's physical or you know it could be done to people maybe who don't communicate easily um maybe they're shy or they um have you know maybe a l mild learning disability um they might need to be paired with somebody who um you know can support them or put not so much on a customer facing role so you know at some of our bigger open air events we'll have a coffee stati

on for the volunteers and we'll maybe have a couple of volunteers who will then you know serve teas and coffees for the other volunteers and that can be a good entry point for some volunteers some will not able to stand for long periods of time so it's making sure that they you know are somewhere seated um so it's not a one-size fits all you know it's really just about talking to volunteers and and kind of just honestly asking you know what do you need from us and how can we make it work for you

and you know we we would have we've had volunteers you know with um autism or other you know mental health um illnesses that we've been able to support and they've got gone on got references and gone into paid employment um you know so we've had some really positive experiences um and I'm sure we probably don't always get it right but we just always try um if we can yeah and I and I think that's um that's the main thing that and I think we just we just have to start to be as event organizers um

to be aware to ask to ask people what they need and to listen um and then to do what we can to to help them to be a part of our events um we're almost out of time so I'm going to thank the panel uh like I could a talk for ours there um and apologies to those people who put questions in the chat that I didn't get to but there were as anticipated there were just too many um I I think these um sessions are really um useful because everybody comes to them with a kind of um open willing to be open a

nd honest about their experience we find that whenever we're doing um these in a face-to-face environment too so thank you to all of you for for being open and sharing with us um another useful resource that I mentioned um at the beginning was the volunteering events toolkit that's a joint project between volunteer n and TNI it does currently exist but it's been updated at the moment um to replace the existing one that if you want to look at at night it's on um tna.com so the new one should be r

eady after Easter um it not only looks to inform um the events industry on the practicalities and the requirements surrounding volunteering and in managing volunteers but it's going to take a holistic approach on what inspires people to volunteer and we have touched on some of that and which is one of the reasons that we so great to have Carin here um and then how to consider inclusivity and accessibility which we've just talked about um whenever you're looking at your event volunteer strategies

so that will be a a useful um follow-up document so keep an eye out in the coming weeks for that um so just to close I wanted to let everybody know that if you registered for today you will get um a follow-up email which will have um uh it'll have Lindsay's email address in it but in addition in addition to that um it's gonna have a link to where this session will be uploaded onto tn.com because you might not think oh that was quite interested I'd like to share that with my colleague or I'd lik

e to come back and uh listen to us talking again um and then on that email there's also going to be a feedback form and as we all know it's it'll take a couple of minutes but it's really important that you tell us um what you thought of this session and what more you want to hear because that will help inform future events and speaking of future events uh as you can see blazing on the the screen at the moment um our next inperson embrac events master class is that the beautiful Mosley Mill up up

in mavi on Wednesday 13th of March it's all about um delivering sustainable events and we're really hoping to get a room which has event organizers suppliers venues everybody involved so we can start some really good discussions um around that so uh once again thanks uh to the panel for taking the time out today and thanks to you for watching enjoy the rest of your day thank you