Exeter City FC

Volunteers so valuable in many ways

THE CLUB AND TRUST has recently contacted the individuals who regularly volunteer their services in some capacity for the Grecians.  We have 135 individuals on this list who have contributed over 28,000 hours in the last twelve months, on a wide variety of activities!  In the last year this has been valued conservatively at over £310 000.  This is almost 50% more than in 2012.

The value to the club is so much greater than just financial.  Some volunteers give up large amounts of time to support the club. It is amazing and quite humbling.  Here is what just three volunteers do for us:

• Jeanne works in the office and regularly stays between ten and fifteen hours over her contracted 8 hours and works a further six hours a week from home.  She can be seen every home match day (and cup matches when we have them) in the Players’ entrance and then spends five hours at home on various tasks.  Over forty weeks of the year, this amounts to around a thousand hours.

• David also works in the office for about twenty hours a week, forty weeks of the year and on match days, looks after last minute ticket printing and helps Jeanne in the Players’ Entrance.

• Ken works, on average, 150 hours a year on match days helping on the pitch and other last minute jobs.  He also does a further sixty hours a year on maintenance work and twenty hours helping ‘Football in the Community’ by driving the minibus.  A couple a years ago, he gave nine weeks of his time (360 hours) at the Cat & Fiddle Training Ground building a new washroom, electrical store, bricked under the Groundsman’s shed, plus other work including filling in the potholes in the car park.  More recently, he spent around twenty-four hours digging out foundations and building the wall for the Memorial Garden.

Then there are the ‘dinner ladies’, who put in many hours at the Cat & Fiddle providing lunches for the players. There are, of course, many other people who deserve a mention and the above gives just a snapshot of the amazing work volunteers do for their club – there are just too many to fit in to this article but two of the Club’s directors wanted to let everyone know how much they are valued.

During the summer this year jobs undertaken by volunteers include power washing the stands, painting the safety ‘nosings’ on the steps, decorating the St James Centre, painting doors to main club reception as well as painting the Big Bank gates and turnstiles.

Laurence Overend, Trust chairman said, “Volunteers are the lifeblood of our club and the reason we are able to rely on such a large, dedicated and skilful group of volunteers, is only because we are owned by our supporters.”

Julian Tagg, Chairman of the Board, reinforced this message saying, “Such a level of involvement, effort and dedication is vital and has to be both maintained and increased year on year if we hope to both continue and progress further our Fans Owned Trust Model.”

There are many ways in which people can contribute their time and skills to the club and we are always happy to welcome anyone who’d like to help. 

If you are interested in volunteering generally or in joining City’s Big Match Team, please contact Richard Knight at richard.knight@exetercityfc.co.uk  And don’t forget our regular Sunday morning work parties.