Volunteering

Volunteering

There’s no escaping the fact that orienteering leans heavily on its participants to volunteer.  Equally, it is a real pleasure to work inside a well-practised team to deliver an event that people enjoy.

Without the many hours of volunteer effort from our members, entry fees to HOC events would be much higher.  To recognise this the club subsidises members’ entries to some competitions:
  • Half price entry for helpers at HOC Regional events.
  • 50% of Senior entry to CompassSport Cup competitions, 100% of Junior entries.
  • 50% of Senior entry and 100% of Junior entry to the following Relay competitions where you are representing HOC:
    • British Relay Championships
    • Jan Kjellström Orienteering Festival Relays
    • Harvester Relays
    • Peter Palmer Junior Relays
    • British Sprint Relay Championships
    • WMOA Relays.
  • A Senior both representing the club and helping at one of these events qualifies for a 100% subsidy.
This policy is subject to review by the Committee to ensure that it is financially sustainable.

Harlequins split the various tasks to share the workload as widely as possible, and to ensure that most people can still participate in the events that they help to put on.

The club has a number of useful documents and guides on the Policies and Procedures page. One word of caution – some of them are a little old! We are working on bringing them up to date; if you have any queries then please contact a committee member.

Big events

  • These are led by experienced event officials – the Planner, the Organiser and the Controller. There are training courses and extensive guidelines to support these roles.
  • Before the event, the area also has to be mapped, permission to hold the event sought from the landowner, IT systems prepared. The Planner and the Controller focus on the preparation of the courses. The Organiser works with experienced team leaders who will then co-ordinate delivery of different aspects of the event.
  • On the day of a bigger event we operate in these teams:
    • car parking,
    • entries and enquiries,
    • running the start,
    • monitoring the finish,
    • running the IT systems and producing results,
    • providing First Aid cover and
    • collecting the controls in afterwards.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, helping on the day at one of these events is an ideal introduction to volunteering with orienteering. It’s a great way to meet fellow club members, it is organised in shifts so that you still get to run a course and you get to compete half price!

Smaller Events

  • These are typically instigated by a League co-ordinator, with much of the planning and organising carried out by one or two people. They offer an ideal route into the Planner and Organiser roles, with the League co-ordinators able to offer advice or to suggest a mentor.

Running the club.

  • The Annual General Meeting elects a committee that meets every couple of months or so and has roles that organise all elements of the club. There is a list of the current committee members and their roles
  • There are a huge variety of other opportunities to get involved, from publicity and coaching to mapping and permission work.