In January 2010, Scottish Cycling held the inaugural Volunteer and Coaching Conference at the Stirling Management Centre. The conference attracted more than 100 volunteers from all over Scotland. A variety of workshops were organised, such as child protection courses, sports equity training, event officials’ workshops, coaching development sessions and more. Plans for a conference of similar format are in the making for February 2011.
Scottish Cycling interviewed a volunteer to find out what it is like volunteering within the Scottish cycling community and to find out his experiences as a volunteer. This is continuing on from the Volunteer in the Spotlight feature we started earlier in the year.
Scottish Cycling put Jeremy (Jez) Hastings in the spotlight, a volunteer from the Isle of Islay where he is a member of the Port Mor Wheelers CC. Jez has been involved in cycling for 35 years and as a volunteer he has performed a number of roles which have included coaching, leading rides, trail building and trail leading. Jez enjoys volunteering as it is something genuine which enables him to give something back to the sport and ‘wee’ communities like his on the Isle of Islay depend on volunteers to get a lot of things done. 2010 has been a brilliant year for Jez as he has seen his club grow to now have 30 kids all mad for cycling where he hopes in the future to raise funds to take a handful of kids to do the SCX events in 2010/2011.
Photo: Port Mor Wheelers
One of Jez’s most memorable experiences as a volunteer has been enabling a young boy to get onto two wheels, when his parents where told by education experts he would never be able to ride a bike. Jez’s future plans are to try and break some national road records with David Harmon as part of team Wiggle Tandem. Jez has a real passion for cycling and was even delayed in responding to us for the newsletter as he was out running a camp for kids!
Lastly, we at Scottish Cycling would like to thank and praise all the volunteers who help week in week out with cycling as your continued support and dedication is invaluable to our sport.
