Volunteers are not as many as they used to be. It’s a story we hear often and one community organisations like Lions and Rotary are undoubtedly facing at most meetings.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Some clubs have adapted, with new satellite and junior clubs, social media experiments, variable meeting times, and revised traditions to bring new, and invariably younger community-minded locals into the fold. Some have found success, but for many clubs and organisations, it must sometimes feel like a losing battle.
For those on the outside of clubs and groups, the work of volunteers, even those as visible as Rotary and Lions serving up sausages and coffee at sports events and taking the helm on all those Sundays between monthly markets and book drives, can somehow fly under the radar.
We’re all too happy to take a cuppa when the chill settles on the footy field on Saturday, but the volunteers giving up their weekend to man the Bushells box are, to our shame, sometimes as quickly forgotten as the empty styrofoam cup.
The situation becomes more troubling when we consider those organisations that many of us are likely to think are a given - ranks of volunteers, that we perhaps cannot easily imagine not being filled, giving up their time, and sometimes risking it all, in the name of their community. They’re the firefighters, and Red Frog volunteers keeping an eye out for us at festivals, the first aiders so often on the scene of a bad situation.
Armidale Fire and Rescue were training new volunteers on Friday, reminding us there are still many in the community who are willing to, sometimes literally, face the heat in the name of their community. As superintendent Tom Cooper said, these were ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Perhaps we can take a leaf from their book this week and consider while we may step up to protect our friends, families and homes, these up and coming firies added their neighbours, neighbourhood homes and the friends and families of people they may not ever know to the list.
Whether it is the manning the coffee machine at footy oval, or pulling on a fire suit, there is a lot to be said of those who wear the volunteer badge, and we should be stoked to live in a community under their watch.
As the superintendent also said, your local fire station relies on people in the community to put their hand up to become firefighters.
