- Invest in an online sign-up and training program
- Provide a comprehensive volunteer handbook
- Limit shifts; encourage rotation every 30 to 45 minutes
- Ensure volunteers have time (30 minutes to one hour) to watch the sport event
- For multi-sport events, consider a 1:1 ratio of volunteers to athletes
- Encourage volunteers to recruit family members, friends, neighbours and co-workers
- Engage and reward volunteers with social events before and after the tournament
- Splurge on the swag: Commemorative pins; two event T-shirts instead of one; higher value clothing, such as windbreakers, that volunteers can wear throughout the year
- Match local post-secondary student volunteers to skilled positions, i.e., use kinesiology students for athlete interactions, police and corrections students for access control, math and statistics students to record competition data
Source: Roundtable discussions, Alberta Sport Leadership Conference 2019
