V4V Good Practice Case Studies: Osted Gymnastikforening (Osted Gymnastics Association)

Pillar 1 – Volunteer strategy and planning

Pillar 2 – Volunteer recruitment and deployment

Pillar 3 – Volunteer management and retention

Pillar 4 – Volunteer development and training

Focus of volunteer intervention: Volunteer recruitment

The club wanted to create a movement community for families in the local area, where all members of the family could be active, and which would act as a conduit for the recruitment of new volunteers.

Families could sign up for ‘Familieidræt’ (‘Family Sports’) which took place 6-8 times in April-May and gave families different options for activities (such as badminton, apparatus gymnastics courts/motor skills courts, volleyball, round ball, relays, unicycles, rope skipping, old sports games, floorball, line dance, Ludobasket etc) they could take part in. You can see a clip from the initiative after 1 minute 20 seconds on this video:

After the activities had finished, families were given the opportunity to eat together at a local cafeteria which was a really important way of enabling them to get to know each other. ‘Familieidræt’ took place after the gymnastics season had finished, so also provided an opportunity to tag people and spot potential volunteers for the next season. The activities allowed the club to present the association in a friendly, informal way which helped encourage people to consider joining the volunteering community at the club.

To help facilitate the activities, the club borrowed sports equipment from other clubs in the local area enabling them to provide a broader range of activities. This was also a good way to advertise the other activities families could do within these clubs and the local area. Visits were also arranged to the sports branches of the city’s other sports association, so that families would be introduced to activities available there.

At the beginning of the project, the bulk of the work was undertaken by a few volunteers/individuals which resulted in a lot of work and responsibility for them. Since the initiative has taken off, other individuals have become involved and taken on some of the responsibility.

Many people who were not previously part of the association have attended ‘Familieidræt’ enabling them to get to know others in the area and create new community connections and friendships. The initiative has also helped to attract new members to the association, plus new instructors, and volunteers. The initiative has also been successful in attracting new immigrants to the area to the club helping to embed them in the local community and to start making connections with other local people.