There is no doubt about it, cycling events wouldn’t be able to take place without our wonderful volunteers giving up their free time, to provide great days out and be involved in everyone having a fabulous time – sportives, road racing, track racing, introduction days, you name it and we need volunteers. 

As we all know, grass roots cycling wouldn’t stand a chance without our volunteers. Unfortunately after the pandemic, organisers struggled to put events on due to a lack of volunteers. 

This celebration won’t only help us show our gratitude but help to encourage more people to volunteer and help the community to continue to flourish. 

When is National Volunteer Week?

National volunteer week is an annual celebration during the week of 1st-7th June, to recognise and thank those that give up their free time for our communities. This is a time to come together for all of our volunteers for providing us with their invaluable time. 

This year we celebrate the 38th year of volunteers’ week and it’s taking place during the Month of Community, bringing together organisations, with a range of events to encourage everyone to get involved with their local communities if they have the capacity. 

How to get involved in National Volunteers week

An annual event, where volunteers and communities from all realms of life get the chance to get involved in activities run by small organisations and charities, put on to show their appreciation for everything volunteers do. Head over to here to get an idea of what’s going on. 

Many clubs will be sharing stories, or news articles about their volunteers and some will be holding celebrations, have a chat with your club to discuss their plan and get involved. British Cycling tend to release an article about how much they appreciate the volunteers, while also giving out special mentions to nominated volunteers. 

Volunteering for your club or British Cycling

Volunteering comes in many shapes and sizes with all sorts of responsibilities, depending on the area you choose to get involved. 

A majority of cycling events (if not all of them at grass-roots level) wouldn’t be able to run without volunteers. Volunteering calls upon those with a little spare time to donate it to the community, allowing others to benefit and have a successful day while bringing lots of people together. 

To help your club fundraise and try to get more people involved, they may need you to do one of the following roles: 

• Marshal a race/sportive 
• Supervise a feed stop in a sportive 
• Help assist coaching youngsters/club sessions
• Help with sign on and races
• Run the cafe 
• Take numbers of those in races 
• Man the stop watch 
• Man the finish line camera 
• Drive in the convoy at bigger races

These are many roles you can get involved with and by following this link you can find out some more information from British Cycling. 

You can also visit our club finder and contact some clubs directly if you would like to play a specific role for a certain club. 

Volunteering within cycling can provide great satisfaction and peace of mind, knowing you’re giving up a bit of spare time to help the community and its up and coming riders to progress – you never know which one of them will progress to be a professional cyclist. You’ll experience a new level of gratitude and you might even find a new love for cycling your own bike.