Volunteers training up

Sporting volunteers across Gippsland have been receiving state of the art training thanks to GippSport's Sports Administration Hub.

So far the hub has helped train more than 200 volunteers at local clubs including Drouin Dragons Soccer Club, Drouin Junior Football Club, Baw Baw Squash Club, Drouin Cricket Club, West Gippsland Hockey Association and Gippsland Umpires Association.

Thanks to recent funding from the Victorian Government's Sustainable Volunteer Workforce Program, it now provides access to online, as well as person to person training sessions for clubs based at Drouin's Bellbird Park Precinct who are seeking support when it comes to managing volunteers, applying for grants, running meetings, child safety and more.

Drouin Dragons Soccer Club secretary Kathryn Cooper was highly complimentary of the program.
"We had a child safety program that needed to be delivered to all our coaches, to make sure they were all informed about current legislation," she said.
"The (hub) training has helped the club in that our volunteers, our coaches, were made aware of things they really hadn't thought of. The Vic Government training delivered that for us."

YD Singh from the Baw Baw Squash Club said "I didn't know where to go, what to do. I raised the question why we don't have a juniors program? Then I find out about GippSport - there is a body that can launch this initiative."

The upgrade to the program is part of the State Government's $60 million Regional Community Sport Development Fund, which also recently kicked in $1 million for an oval upgrade at Bellbird Park as part of the Regional Community Sports Infrastructure Fund.