Q: What level are you currently at on the Cycling Award for Young Volunteers Programme?

Q: What do you enjoy most about volunteering?

A: Being able to give help and advice to people who want to get involved with cycling.

Q: How do you think being a volunteer has helped you?

Q: Is there anything you would change about your volunteering experience?

Q: Where would you like your volunteering to take you in the future?

Blog 1: 06/01/2013

BMX Training Session

My role was to lead my own training session for BMX riders at an expert level, while doing a variety of task and activities. The skills that I used during the session were leadership and teamwork; I felt that the session went to plan. I believe that the riders enjoyed themselves by the feedback that I got from them within the tasks.

What went well was being able to balance my time between each task. I could have improved on gaining the riders attention and holding that attention throughout the tasks. The other challenges I faced were working with a large group of riders and being able to control them in a safe way. The way I overcame this was by splitting them into three age/ability groups.

I feel that I could have planned the session out a lot better, so that the session could run a lot smoother. This is something I am going to work on for next time.

Blog 2: 17/02/2013

BMX Training Session

My role was to carry on leading my training sessions at the BMX club at an expert level, but still giving a variety of tasks and activities. The skills that I used for this session were: leadership and teamwork, as I was working to help out everyone in the session.

What went well was gaining the trust and respect from the riders and providing a smooth session. I would improve the session by incorporating more tasks. The challenges that I faced were trying to help the riders one by one, while still trying to keep the group interested in the activities we provided throughout the afternoon.

I felt that the riders had enjoyed the session and they also gave me good feedback at the end. It would have been nice to go through some more activities and group work, but I feel that the riders will take what they have been taught and try and push their riding on. For next time I am going to work on separating the groups better so that I can give more attention to the group that needs it, and then progress the other riders on to further activities.

Blog 3: 2/12/2012

Running a BMX training session at the club

I was continuing my training and being able to keep my riders and session going as smooth as possible, but wanted to add in some new games that I had thought of. I gave it a shot and involved the games that I thought might go well, the only problem was that they wanted to keep playing them and nothing else. So what would have been better was to have the games at the end of the session and get the rest of the session delivered before, so that they looked forward to the games.

The main challenge was getting the kids to stop the games and the do the main session. I got around this by promising to let them do another game at the end of the session if they carried on with the rest of the planned session.

I used a number of skills during the sessions, the main skill I thought I used and developed throughout this session was leadership. I had to lead my session in a strong and smooth way. Teamwork was hard as there were only two of us, but we got it done. Being able to have control of the group and being able to say no to the kids and move onto the next activity was necessary.

One thing that I would do differently next time is that I would save the games type activities until the end of the session instead of putting them in the middle. I would also make sure that I had enough help to keep things in order but generally session worked out well.

Blog 4: 9/12/2012

Running a training sessions at a BMX Club

This time I carried on with the same training session, but I had a better plan for the day. The only thing is the weather wasn’t on our side so I had to adjust the session. As the wind was really strong we had to work on other things while still doing what I had planned.

The way I planned the session went really well, I was more organised and the group were easier to work with. My organisation skills were a lot better and I was happier with how things ran, the kids understood things and they said that they preferred to have the session as it was as they got out of it everything they wanted to learnt.

The wind was a real challenge as it was very strong and the kids were struggling to hear my voice. However I made sure I shouted loud enough, so the riders could hear what I wanted them to do and again I was trying to be a strong leader.

There wasn’t much that I would change as it ran well, however I would have got the riders closer to me so that they could hear me so I didn’t have to shout as much, but overall it was a really good session.

Blog 5: 09/12/2012

Running a Go-Ride Event

The BMX club was holding a Go-Ride event and was asking for all the young volunteers to help out. My role was to organise the event and lead my group of young volunteers to a great session. This Go-Ride event was aimed at all new and novice riders and aimed to deliver a small series.

I felt and thought our team of young volunteers played a strong part in making the day a success and knowing that the riders were confident with everything, and that we got the day delivered in a safe and fun way. I would like to say that I was proud of all the other young volunteers as this was their first event. Well done guys!

I used my leadership, teamwork and communication skills to keep my team and the event running as smoothly as possible. These skills were all key to making sure my team knew what to do and understood the plan. Communication was needed to make sure the riders and parents didn’t have any conflict and racing was safe. The only thing I would change for next time is that I would probably plan the timings of the session a bit better and would make sure my team knew what was the plan was in order to keep to those timings.

What went really well was how good I got my team in place and positions for the racing and practice, plus we all worked together really well and got things done.  We only had two main problems and they were time and swopping roles. So what we did was carry on going with the session, but keeping a close eye on time. Luckily we only finished 10 minutes over as everyone was swopping roles quickly and there were no other problems.