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Hello and welcome to Trend UK, your shortcut to popular culture from the British Council.

In the next few minutes we’re going to be talking about sports in visible workforce.

In the UK something like twenty two million adults take part in formal volunteering every year. And of those, six million get involved in sport on a regular basis. These volunteers help to run more than one hundred thousand sports related clubs and organisations, and they don’t get paid a single penny for doing it. In fact interest is on the rise - not surprising given that 2005 was the year of the volunteer and the year that London successfully bid to host the 2012 Olympics. So how and why do people get involved? Our reporter Mark went to meet the sporting volunteers.

I’m at a conference being run by the Step into Sport Initiative. With me is Peter Knight from the Youth Sport Trust which helps organise these sessions. Peter, tell us about Step into Sport.

It’s the key between the school (the education environment) and the sports clubs; providing that link around leadership and volunteering.

And what’s the range of volunteering?

When people would say volunteering initially they’d think of coaches. And that’s one end of the spectrum. But we…you know, it goes right across the board. It goes right down to the people that cut the oranges up maybe for a match or make the tea. So it’s a very very diverse range of opportunities and a lot of people bring a lot of different skills to it.

And why do people get involved?

It’s sort of personal preference should we say. What they’re going to get from it – are they putting something back into their community? Is it for their personal development? You know, the young people here today will be looking for their personal development. It’ll be about raising their self-esteem, raising their confidence. I think when you look round you’ll see that there are young people here who aren’t your archetypal young people top-end performers as far as sport is concerned. That really for me is the reason it’s a diversification of people who are going to be engaged in sport and physical activity.

Thanks Peter. Well let’s go and find out what some of the attraction is for some of the volunteers here.

It is fun. And you do get to see your sport develop I suppose. It is the grass-roots and you get to help them improve their performance and you see where your sport will go in the future.

It’s important that we get across to the youth of today that volunteers are needed within sports and we hopefully pass on our skills to them to volunteer in future sporting events.

Teambuilding is important to people’s future, and sport gives a fantastic opportunity for that. Obviously you get the individual events, but team events is life skills and kids need to learn that from a young age to progress for the future.

Well one thing these young people have in common is that they all seem to enjoying devoting their time and energy to sport.

Away from the conference now, I’ve come to meet Olympic rower Gwinn Batten. Now Gwinn, you won a silver medal for Britain in the Sydney Olympics in 2000; Would you say that volunteers helped you achieve that?

Really your talking about just the very best doctors that we have in Britain, just the very best physios as far as elite sport are concerned. But how did they learn those skills along the way? Say for example the team doctor – she would have spend many many training camps on many many weekends as a volunteer working closely with our elite teams. The support staff that are around our top teams have normal jobs and then they just come together for set events, whether those be the Commonwealth Games or the Olympic Games.

What motivates volunteers?

The skills that you develop in sport is a very hot-house environment especially in competitive sport. You’re putting yourself under/in quite a pressurised situation. And it’s very interesting to see how you react and how you learn to develop those people skills, those life skills, which when you go back into the workplace, when it’s a much less hot-house environment, in most people’s cases, you can actually say, ‘well actually, I was quite good at this’. Or you know your strengths, you know your weaknesses you have developed in that sport environment. And when you go back, you know, you just have so much more confidence in dealing with people and sort of working together and operating round those life skill areas.

So would you recommend it?

Sport is through our entire culture here in Britain. You need to find out what skills you have as a person. You know, whether or not you’re somebody who is very organised or whether or not, you’re someone who’s very good at inspiring or looking after people. And then you need to also find which sport suits your make-up as such. And different sports have different personalities. And so choosing the sport you want to be involved in and then choosing the skills that you have, and then going to your local rowing club (if it’s rowing that you choose), or your local sports club, or even your school if there’s a sports section in the school and offering your services. Most sports clubs whether they’re schools, universities or club-level will be crying out volunteers.

Gwinn Batten, thank you. Our sporting reporter Mark there. And that’s it for this time. Please remember that the opinions expressed in Trend UK are those of the individuals concerned, and not necessarily the views of the British Council. Don’t forget, you can find out what the British Council is up to on sport by checking our website www.britishcouncil.org, that’s www.britishcouncil [all one word] .org. Just follow the links under ‘Education’. And while you’re on the website you can also update your English by checking out the words and phrases in the Trend UK online glossary. And tell us what you think by sending us a comment or voting in the online poll. But for now, from me and all the Trend UK Team, Bye Bye.

Tricky Words

volunteer - a person who performs a service for free

self-esteem - how a person feels about himself/herself 

archetypal - the original form of which all other things are modelled

diversification - the condition of being varied 

grass roots - the foundation or source of something 

physios - (short for physiotherapist) a therapist dealing with any physical wekanesses or difficulties 

inspire - to encourage or urge on someone 

cry out for something - to need someting badly