L to R: Birmingham Volunteer Centre Manager, Alan Crawford, Zakya Jabeen, Volunteer, Matt Kendall, West Midlands Sports Volunteer Coordinator for 2012 and Mubashshir Chikhliwala, Aston Sports Club committee member.
One lucky sports club in Birmingham is on safer financial footing after working in partnership with BVSC’s Volunteer Centre in Digbeth as part of the Region’s response to 2012.
Aston Sports Club, a community lead sports club that uses sport to improve the lives of the people of Aston, advertised for a new treasurer using the Volunteer Centre at the Birmingham Voluntary Service Council, a job that many sports clubs find hard to fill, and had 6 responses, with 19 year old Zakya Jabeen from Aston landing the voluntary role. Zakya, a female accountancy student from Birmingham University said, “I love figures, and working with money, which is why I am studying accountancy – and I’m also passionate about my community, so the opportunity to gain experience and support something worthwhile is fantastic.”
Matt Kendall, 2012 Sports Volunteer Coordinator for the West Midlands said, “Sports Clubs don’t often look to recruit outside of their own circles, Aston Sports Club have done that with BVSC and have reaped the rewards. We will be using the hook of the upcoming 2012 Games with other volunteer centres and clubs to try and encourage them to do the same across the region.”
Most Volunteer Centres in the region have people coming in that want to volunteer in sport, but they often don’t have the volunteering opportunities in sport to place their interested volunteers. Alan Crawford the Programme Manager at BVSC stated, “We know that sport is a very popular area, but we don’t often get clubs approaching us, hopefully the 2012 Sports Volunteering Project, funded by Sport England and Advantage West Midlands can provide the spark we need.”
To contact BVSC and register your club go to http://www.bvsc.org/volunteer or if you are outside of Birmingham, you can find out more about volunteering here.