Darlington Football Club are after volunteers to help out on a matchday at Heritage Park.

http://www.darlofc.co.uk/news.php?NewsID=945

Just bumping this. The response so far has been very slow, infact we have only received 3 offers of help, and although all offers are welcome, we may not be able to take some of those up.

could you please just take a few minutes to think if you could help us out. We will need a matchday team, without it the games will not go ahead. We are northern league now and cannot afford to pay anybody, your help is needed. stewards, turnstyles.

Is it worth trying to get the Echo to run an appeal to get the message out to non uncovered followers?

i think you are correct, en echo appeal is going to be needed. got another good volunteer in the last 5 minutes so that is great news.

6 turnstyle operators x 1 hour x £7 = £42 aka less than 6 paying adults.
20 stewards (more than enough) x 3 hours x £7 = £420 = 53 paying adults

To say we can't afford it is bit strange.

_________________

That's £462 x 23 matches, and it all comes out of the profit margin. Remember we need to more than break even if we want to get back to Darlo.

It is not unreasonable to think that fans may be interested in being matchday stewards and turnstile operators - other clubs operate with volunteers in this field.

A steward that isn't paid still gets to see the match and I assume wouldn't need to purchase a match ticket, therefore is sort of paid in kind anyway?

What will be hardest will be running club shops etc on volunteers.

_________________
http://twitter.com/Quakerz72

Surely you could double up as well?

You don't neex the full 20 stewards there for the full 3 hours surely? Maybe half up until kick-off, and the other half could be operating the turnstiles during this period. 2 of those to then go and stick the takings in the safe, and then count up after the game.

Bushead, you are involved with the RA - what do they do?

_________________

The RA operation is a much smaller scale, no stewards are needed for a start . the turnstyle is manned by a committee member , and ball boys are juniors club members.
Spenny or Whitley bay may be better to ask , as their crowds are much greater.

_________________

i don't think many northern league clubs pay their stewards

Not many NL clubs have 800 fans turning up. Although i believe all Barrow's stewards are volunteers. Chester would be an interesting one, wonder what they did.

I posted my details and pleaded with someone from the club to contact me so I can volunteer and as of yet no repsonse.

Not sure what else I can do? I left my details at the open day, posted on here in repsonse to requests, tweeted Tori and spoke with Wayne when we were calling businesses to attend the Rockcliffe event and he said he would also pass on my details.

Any more suggestions? I know everyone is doing this in there part time but im more than willing to help

There needs to be an official database that is viewable so people can check they are on. It's also a single point for one of the board members to go to, or one of the workstreams if any help is needed.

When the OS launches it would be great to get it on there.

We do have your details and are in the process of contacting all the volunteers.

_________________
Let's be proud of what we have achieved, Darlington Football Club needs to survive so let's all be in this together because this is your club now and your club needs you.

What happened to the volunteer sheets that were filled in ages ago? How is this being held - hopefully not on word documents in the 'volunteer forms' folder on someones PC!?

I don't know if you need an form of assistance turning these into a manageable data source - I'd offer my help with this but I am sure there are others better qualified as moved away from a local source to a web based source (which is probably what you would need) i'd be stumped.

EDIT:
The more I think about it - makes me think a re-jig of the original volunteer form is in order given it is now more apparant what we need. Literally have ticky boxes of the roles needed and people can put a tick in what they can/want to do - a seperate section where they can put day/time availability (under normal circumstances) and finally a sections for skills/experience to back up their ticks or to provide additional information if there are ad hoc tasks.

Firstly asking on here isn't really the best place as the majority will want to be at the match and not outside doing some of these duties, like at the Arena most that fulfilled these duties weren't actually fans.

Also I reckon if there was a spreadsheet with every game on it and the duties/numbers required alongside each game it would fill up pretty quickly as everyone would see it visually and like most thhings it would become a bit of a race to fill it up, every mucking in the community spirit.

Not many people will put their name down to volunteer per se, but I reckon quite a few would if it was one game here or there.

I completely disagree. I can understand the poor amount of volunteers for the store as the majority of us work but, as someone who has worked for the club on a match day, volunteering on a match day is a pile of piss. You are already going to the game so if you volunteer on the turnstile you will need to arrive slightly earlier and miss up to a maximum of 5 min at the start of the game.
If you volunteer to be a steward you have to arrive slightly earlier, wear a silly coat and stand where you are required not where you want.
If you volunteer to sell programs you need to arrive slightly earlier but you won’t even miss any of the match!

This really isn’t much of a sacrifice is it people?? Remember every game you volunteer for you are donating the equivalent of £20+ per game!

[This is not aimed at people who physically can’t do the job or have children who will be attending the game and need looking after. Also to pre-empt comebacks I spend less than 5 months a year in the UK so really couldn’t regularly help but want to be involved when I am back]

_________________
Now is not the time to cry
Now’s the time to find out why
I think you’re the same as me
We’ll see things they’ll never see
Darlo’s going to live forever!

Liddle for ever if you think turnstiles shut at 3.05pm then your v.much mistaken.
Many clubs have people on the gate/turnstile til at least 3.30pm.

_________________

At NL level?

I think once the queue has disappeared there is no need for anyone to be at a turnstile after 3.05, simply release a press statement that fans need to turn up early (which is especially the case this season given the distance and the few entrances into the ground). If someone turns up at 3.25 and can’t get into the ground then I think they only have themselves to blame.

Also if teams do staff the turnstiles that late it doesn’t mean that it is the right thing to do.

_________________
Now is not the time to cry
Now’s the time to find out why
I think you’re the same as me
We’ll see things they’ll never see
Darlo’s going to live forever!

Erm, the proof is in the uptake.

The uptake is (from what we have been told) very, very poor. I am trying to alleviate any concern that people may have about how difficult/time consuming/annoying the task will be.

_________________
Now is not the time to cry
Now’s the time to find out why
I think you’re the same as me
We’ll see things they’ll never see
Darlo’s going to live forever!

And if your shift finishes at half two? It's not exactly 5 minutes away is it!

_________________
His enemies would go blind through over-exposure of his awesomeness!

The uptake for matchday volunteers is pretty poor so I've put them on my jobsite (for free of course) and I've given Scott's email address and I've given my contact number on there too. I've also put a request in on our official Facebook and Twitter but we will be running a press release in The Echo asking for volunteers also.

In terms of shop vounteers, great take-up. Over 15 people to help with this so just sorting the rota's out for it. Looks likely we will have a presence in there this Saturday am and people will be able to buy merchandise but looking at on official opening probably the 21st. I've got a till, slat boards and display things (no idea what you call them) but we now need coat hangers and till rolls.

Oh and I'm picking up the card reader today too which can be used anywhere there is a phone signall (GPRS).

_________________
Let's be proud of what we have achieved, Darlington Football Club needs to survive so let's all be in this together because this is your club now and your club needs you.

Tori,
not a gripe, but asking for till rolls is a bit of a risk !!! Unless you are intending to use them as "ticker tape" you need to let people know what the till is because they are not standardized and you could wind up with loads of rolls you can't use.(other than as ticker tape of course !!!)

The till is on the back of my car do I shall have a look at model.

_________________
Let's be proud of what we have achieved, Darlington Football Club needs to survive so let's all be in this together because this is your club now and your club needs you.

number_one makes a good point, what you need is a