As i'm now a member of the great unwashed i decided to volunteer with the local bods in cycling, with an aim to gaining experience towards qualifications.
Local Authority have started my CRB check (very nice of them to pay) but no-one and i mean no-one will answer any e-mails or phone calls i make about volunteering.

How the hell am i supposed to learn if i can't get a foot in the door, why is it so damn hard to offer to work for free?

haha thats unbelievable i get pretty pissed off when i send in applications and hear nothing back, i mean it ain't hard to say no not this time. but people turning down free work.

It's ridiculous, it really is. Rochdale Council are supposed to be rolling out a massive pro-cycling programme over the next 3yrs and i want to get involved with it. Not sure what capacity yet but i would like to do the bikeability stuff at schools as well as teaching adults etc.

I just can't understand why no-one bothers to answer the phone or e-mails!

Muddy – are you a qualified bikeability instructor?
It costs circa £450 to put yourself through the course (although there is a bursary scheme that pays a lot of that back later) maybe the council don't want to pay out for a volunteer. Obviously if you are an NCI then, sorry for teaching granny to suck eggs…

still they should contact him back, w**kers

true. a polite reply would be pretty easy for the council to do…

council, polite, organised, sensible – spot the odd one out!

I found this too. When I retired in January, I thought I'd offer my services to a few organisations (one was cycling a tandem with a blind stoker, another was Sustrans). Never heard back from any of them. I can only imagine that many such organisations are staffed by volunteers who perhaps are very busy with other stuff too.

No, i have no quals in any cycling related function, which is why i want to volunteer – so i can gain experience.
The council have told me they will fund my level 1 leader/instructor course if i do a certain amount of volunteer work – great, apart from not actually being able to volunteer!

I even had one bloke (CTC Manchester section head i believe) call me, leave a contact No. then everytime i call turns the phone off on me!

Keep pestering them. I've done various volunteer work and know that some organisations need a kick in the pants to get them going. 🙂

Just sent off another raft of e-mails tonight, plus found some new numbers to call tomorrow.

When i get my redundancy package through i'll look at paying for a bikeability training course, plus a level 2 leadership jobby for MTB stuff.

I'll have a few grand so it's got to be worth the investment!

more than one way to skin the cat

marshal for us

http://www.brownbacksracing.co.uk

round the corner and is all volunteer, gets you into the "event side"

also contact Rochdale cycling club, maybe not your cup of tea but they do a lot for accessibiity for the type of people the council are interested in

join a Go-Ride Club and see about getting sponsored for Level 1 or 2 coaching qual

Thanks for the invite – i'll be in touch!

I've contacted Rochdale Cyling Club but had no reply from them.

Never heard of a Go-Ride Club, what are they?

I'd also suggest contacting Rochdale Cycling Club. They come and do some rides with the kids at my school a couple of times a year and I presume that they do the same with the other local primary schools.
You'd get good experience with one of the govt's target groups and the kids love being ridden around on tandems & bikes with big bucket type seats.
I can get the details for the guy who leads it from our sports guy at work if it helps.

One problem you'll find with local authorities is its actually quite difficult for them to work with volunteers, its problematic to have volunteers doing work that staff might feel they should be getting paid for – it sounds a bit daft but its the case non the less. When I work for an LA we'd get students wanting to do work experience with us, but we could only really give them work that didn't really need doing, because we couldn't displace work from paid staff, so unless someone has actually devised a scheme and is openly asking for volunteers/participants then you'll find it a struggle.

By the same measure even smaller organisations can find it difficult to work with volunteers, as at least in the first place you'll require a lot of supervision, and there isn't going to be anyone who can step away from their own work to devise work for you and oversee it.

You'd be better trying to identify one off / large scale events that require a lot of participants, rather than trying to get involved in the day to day.

muddydwarf, did you see the ad the other day for a CTC cycling rep person in rochdale – someone posted a link on here. will try to find ot

Here yo go

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/psa-work-for-ctc-in-rochdale

Albino – please, that would be a great help!

Go Ride clubs coach kids

run by british cycling

gets you into coaching (BC route) and builds experience, aim to enter at Level 2, you can't qualify without coaching a group so you need to find a club

if you marshal I'll bore you with details first hand, I'm qualified to Level 2 (Go-Ride) and nearly completed Level 2 track

If you are qualified the jobs that BC advertise are easier to get

The other thing is that Sky Ride couldn't get enough coaches to assist and opened up the criterea to cover "experinced" riders gets you a recognised BC qualification and you even get paid, search the BC website

NBT – application sent!

Won't do any good of course as i have no relevant skills in that area but it's worth a shot 🙂

The council bods actually seem keen for me to volunteer, they have paid for my CRB check and told me they expect a certain level of volunteering in return, it's just that they now aren't answering any calls!

Ta Brownbacks – i'd love to chat with you about it. I'll be in touch tomorrow about marshalling.

good luck with it chap 🙂

Muddydwarf – Let me know your email and I'll give you the guys details, (unless you can PM on this forum).
Cheers, Al

muddydwarf, still waiting to hear from you….

yellow vest waiting!!!

info@brownbacksracing.co.uk