Dronfield Dolphins is managed by a Committee of volunteers and heavily relies upon extra volunteers to help with certain aspects of the club. Volunteering for a club like this is a fantastic way of giving something back and even learning new skills. We are essentially a small business and therefore all aspects of running a business including strategy, finances, organisation, marketing etc. are required.
We recruit regularly to ensure all the work doesn't fall to a few people, and also to cover for people who leave the club as their children and young people move on. It's really important to emphasise that volunteering doesn't mean you have to attend every gala or do many hours per week of work. We can work things around your availability and the more people we have the easier it is for everyone.
At the current time we have the following vacancies available and we'd appreciate if you're interested in helping if you could contact Rick Skerrow at [email protected].
To run (and often attend) a swim meet, we need to provide technical officials who will perform roles like timekeeping and turns judge. If your children are (or are planning to) attending galas this is a great way to support them, support the club, and keep occupied during those long days! Please click here for a fuller overview of the role and training requirements.
During swimming galas (normally 1 day and not overnight) we must provide team managers to look after the safety of the swimmers and help organise them during the event. This can include making sure children don't leave without somebody knowing through to lining them up to start their race. Team managers must be 18 years old and attend a team manager workshop (see here: https://eastmidlandswimming.org/volunteers/team-managers/) which takes 2.5 hours. They must also undertake the Swim England Safeguarding training (3 hours webinar: https://www.swimming.org/ios/course-information/swim-england-safeguarding/) and have a DBS check.
Being a Team Manager is a very rewarding role and the more we have as a club, the easier it is to run events properly and ensure the burden isn't only placed on a few people. Unfortunately today we're in a position where we have very few and therefore a few dedicated people are doing this role without even having children swimming at events. We'd really like to change this before it prevents us entering further events.
Coordinating our galas can be a time consuming activity and this currently falls to one person. Finding events, checking availability, entering the team, arranging for fees to be paid, managing withdrawals, submitting team sheets etc. all take effort and currently this is undertaken by one person. If we could find 1-2 assistants this would be a massive boost to the club and would really help to spread the load and reduce the burden on everyone. It requires good organisation skills and we'd provide you with full training and support in house.
We have a dedicated welfare officer at the club however for best practice reasons, we'd like to have a deputy. The welfare role exists to ensue the club is looking after the best interests of children and young people who are members. It is vital to us that we follow the Swim England Safeguarding policy to make it an enjoyable and safe environment for all. The welfare officer makes sure all volunteers have safeguarding training and organises DBS checks. The role is also there in case anyone would like to raise a safeguarding or other concern. Recruiting a deputy will make sure we have someone in place for holiday cover and succession reasons but in all likelihood will not need to do a lot of work. You would however need to have relevant Safeguarding and DBS in place which includes the Swim England Time to Listen Course which takes approx 3 hours (https://www.swimming.org/ios/course/9656).
In addition to these roles, we are looking for people who may be interested in Committee roles in the future to shadow existing members with a view to learning how the club runs and ensuring ongoing succession. If you are interested in this, the full list of roles is attached here.
