University of Birmingham Volleyball Club

With the local community making up half of its membership, the University of Birmingham Volleyball Club (UBVC) is clearly no run-of-the-mill student sports club. Keen to provide facilities and coaching for people to play volleyball at all levels (from beginners to local and National League), it welcomes both students and local Birmingham residents who have no direct involvement with the university. With 125 members, it has completely outgrown its original home on campus, and now runs sessions at a variety of venues in the local area.

One of UBVC’s main aims in recent years has been to open its membership to players with disabilities. Emma Goosey, Club Captain and a PhD student at the University, attended runningsports’ A Club for All workshop because she knew it would help her and her fellow club volunteers identify how to involve and cater for a wider range of players. “We have always been keen to be as inclusive as possible and specifically wanted to offer sitting volleyball for disabled players,” says Emma. “We knew what we wanted to achieve, but weren’t sure how to go about it.” As Emma discovered, runningsports’ A Club for All workshop gives all those attending the practical tools, tips and techniques necessary to attract members from the whole community, including people with disabilities, so it was the perfect choice of workshop for the club at this stage in their development.

After attending A Club for All, the committee at UBVC applied for a grant from the local network fund (administered by the Birmingham Foundation) and were successful in securing £7,000. The money enabled them to buy the specific nets and posts needed to offer sitting volleyball, and to improve access to their main training facility, ensuring that large numbers of disabled people could arrive and leave at the same time.

The grant also enabled the club to publicise the sitting volleyball sessions, using techniques learnt at the runningsports workshop. “We value all players and volunteers, and wanted to pro-actively demonstrate this,” explains Emma. “A Club for All definitely helped us to realise our aim to provide for disabled players. And the bonus was that it also helped us to achieve Clubmark accreditation.”

A bright future for the local community
UBVC now wants to develop a junior league of Under 14 and Under 16 teams and increase its level of coaching in schools. They have a five-year marketing plan to attract volunteers and raise funds, and runningsports is playing a big part in their future. “We will send new volunteers on other runningsports workshops such as Funding for your Club and Developing Partnerships with Clubs and Schools, so they can come back to the club and put their new skills into practice,” Emma says. “The workshops are a great way to get new volunteers up to speed, and we make sure we keep up-to-date with the latest news from runningsports so we know all about the workshops that are available.”

Lisa Wainwright, Chief Executive of Volleyball England is also excited about what UBVC have achieved. As she put it:

“At Volleyball England, we’re all passionate about our sport and I am all too aware how essential volunteers are for the development of volleyball. What UBVC have achieved in reaching out to the community is fantastic and the fact that runningsports provided the knowledge and encouragement for them to develop is something all our volunteers should know about. As we move towards 2012 and the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the role of volunteers in sport is going to become more and more important – and the practical skills and support that runningsports provides are incredibly useful for all sports volunteers”

runningsports offers a whole range of resources aimed at making life easier for sports volunteers across all sports, much of it free of charge. The Top Tips for example, are free to download and contain practical information for busy sports volunteers.

If you’re involved with a club that needs to know more about attracting members from the wider community, applying for a grant or keeping and rewarding volunteers, Emma has proved that it really is possible to make substantial changes with relative ease when you’ve got runningsports behind you.

Benefit of runningsports’ workshops
“The runningsports A Club for All workshop helped us to identify members of the community we were not catering for, and showed us how to attract them and provide for them properly. We now offer sitting volleyball to disabled players from the local community.” Emma Goosey, Club Captain, University of Birmingham Volleyball Club.

The runningsports Workshop A Club for All
The runningsports A Club for All workshop identifies the benefits of opening up your club to include a wider membership base, and could help you to increase revenue, improve your eligibility for funding, and achieve Clubmark accreditation.

The workshop will demonstrate how your club will benefit from reaching out to more members of the community and will show you how to reach and retain them whilst catering for them properly.

With over 98% of volunteers who have taken part in a runningsports workshop recommending them to others, you’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain from booking yourself on one today!