With the World Cup and Wimbledon in full flow sport is at the top of the agenda in British hearts and minds. Justin Davis Smith looks ahead to what will be the UK's most important sporting event in decades to discuss how the London 2012 Olympics will drive volunteering into a new era. 

The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games are not going to be just an extraordinary sporting occasion but an extraordinary volunteering occasion. Nearly 70,000 volunteers will be involved in running the Games, and many more will be volunteering in events throughout the country which are inspired by the Games and part of the celebration.

So, for the volunteering movement the build-up to the London 2012 Games is an exciting and important time. We want to make sure the Games themselves and the thousands of events in our cities and communities are good for the volunteering movement in that:

• the people who volunteer have a great experience which makes them want to volunteer again and again post-2012;
• the systems and organisations which recruit and manage the volunteers are strengthened through the involvement with London 2012;
• the success of the Games and the national celebration raise the profile of volunteering, demonstrating what volunteering can do for our society.

The legacy of the Games for volunteering is crucial.

Things are moving in the right direction. LOCOG (London Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games) has committed itself strategically and practically to making the volunteering programme central to its operation, and is in dialogue with volunteering infrastructure organisations. The Government Olympic Executive in the Department of Culture, Media and Sport has developed the social legacy strategy and is managing a complex architecture of bodies involved.

Just before the General Election campaign kicked in, the then Minister for the Olympics, Tessa Jowell, launched the 25th Hour, a portal through which people will register their interest in getting involved in their communities and find volunteering opportunities; as I write, the new Government’s decision is awaited.

The Office for Civil Society is funding a project by YouthNet and Volunteering England to help organisations develop 100,000 volunteering opportunities inspired by the Games, opportunities to be recorded on do-it.org and, on current plans, fed through the 25th Hour website.

Helping satisfy the volunteering spirit 

Meanwhile, volunteering organisations are watching keenly and in some cases anxiously to see how they can play their part. Some of the spirit behind London’s bid for the Games was dependent on the tradition of volunteering in this country. Volunteering organisations are aware how much they could contribute, and yet many have felt frustrated in trying to engage with the momentum driving towards 2012 and the global parameters of the Olympic system.

In Volunteering England we reviewed eighteen months ago what we and the volunteering infrastructure could offer, and so drew together our sibling organisations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales together with Greater London Volunteering, v, TimeBank and the Media Trust to form the Life-Time UK Alliance. This Alliance would be to make the most of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of London 2012 and to engage with LOCOG, GOE and bodies such as the Host Cities with venues for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.  We offer guidance and feedback to LOCOG and GOE about strategy and practical plans, and we are in a position to deploy the specific expertise of the Alliance partners on particular issues.

A major issue in which the Life-Time UK Alliance seeks to assist LOCOG and the GOE is with what, in all the enthusiasm for volunteering in and around London 2012, could be a negative scenario. On the data-base established back in 2005 to record people’s interest in volunteering in London 2012 there are over 280,000 entries, and there are projections of perhaps a million or more people applying for the 70,000 volunteering places in the LOCOG volunteering programme.  Thus, there could be a worst case scenario where hundreds of thousands of people offer to volunteer in London 2012 and find they can’t; and many then feel alienated from the idea of volunteering again. How the expectations are managed is hugely significant for people’s attitudes towards the Games and for the volunteering legacy. 

As Life-Time, we are working to help people have realistic expectations of what volunteering in the Olympic and Paralympic Games involves: not many people will get to look after the track-suits in a 100 metres final, but many more will be in stewarding and support roles where they don’t even see the track.

We are working too to see how the excitement about being part of the Games can be channelled into all the other parts of the 2012 celebration, whether it’s meeting-and-greeting tourists at airports and city centres … or  helping in the school sports competitions … or taking part in cultural events … or serving the tea at a street party.

In this age of the Big Society the 2012 Games has the power to transform volunteering for the good.

Justin Davis Smith is chief executive of Volunteering England