Recruiting volunteers

One of the biggest challenges race directors face when they organize a popular road race is finding enough runners who will volunteer instead of register. I’m fortunate to be part of a running community that strongly supports Maritime Race Weekend. A majority of the pirate crew are runners from local clubs.

Even with so many eager runners returning each year to volunteer, it’s still a challenge to fill 180 race-day volunteer roles, especially with a 6 a.m. start time. Most volunteers want the same shift: a weekday evening at race-kit pick-up. Within a week of opening volunteer sign-up, I had almost 400 enthusiastic pirate crew members ready to help. The only problem was I had twice as many people wanting to help with kit pick-up than we needed and only half what is required for race day. Hopefully, most of the volunteers not registered to run will agree to switch their shift to race day.

This weekend, I revealed the volunteer name tags will be exclusive pirate crew bibs, this created a surge of people filling the remaining race day volunteer spots.

Volunteer recruitment ends on Wednesday. Thursday morning, I’ll start assigning volunteer roles. Automatic volunteer assignment software exists, but I don’t use it. Why? The software treats volunteers like robots, coldly filling open spots with warm bodies. I’m fortunate enough to personally know most of my volunteers, allowing me to build strong teams which work well together based on their personalities, strengths and experience. It’s a manual process, requires logic, takes thought, planning and is time consuming, but it works. Regardless of role, each pirate crew member has a significant responsibility. Taking the time to assign volunteers in roles they will enjoy increases their enjoyment and the likelihood of the race being a success.