Glasgow City Council on Tuesday revealed plans to provide quality volunteering opportunities, with demand for opportunities is growing in the wake of the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

The council says its new volunteering policy is “designed to create new volunteering opportunities, recognise the contribution that volunteers make to the city and the added value they bring to the council family”.

Volunteering opportunities are currently encouraged through services provided by the council and associated organisations, including mentoring and befriending, tutoring, sports coaching, outdoor activity and assisting with events. 

But the council has discovered that Glasgow’s residents are increasingly seeking volunteering opportunities to allow them to contribute to their community, as a means of social engagement and to increase their experience and employability.

The volunteer effort was one of the most successful elements of the acclaimed Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. More than 1200 Host City Volunteers and 15,000 Clydesiders were praised for their efforts as well as the cast ceremony volunteers, Queen’s Baton Relay batonbearers and event teams giving up their time and putting in the effort to help deliver the  best ever Games. 

This has encouraged many people to seek out new volunteering opportunities, but there is currently a gap between the number of people who want to volunteer and the number of quality opportunities being advertised.

“We have seen a significant increase in public awareness and interest in volunteering in Glasgow, but only a moderate growth in opportunities in which people can get involved,” said David Maxwell, Operation Manager at Volunteer Glasgow.

"The city’s partners including the council, Glasgow Life and Volunteer Glasgow, are challenging themselves and other organisations across the public, private and voluntary sectors to take the chance of benefiting communities by enabling more people to donate their time, skills and energy in different and inventive ways.”

The council says it hopes to encourage volunteers to become more involved in their local communities and contribute to the design and delivery of services in their area to better meet the needs of the local community.

Special effort will be made to recruit volunteers from all backgrounds and be more inclusive – making sure those not usually able to access advertised opportunities will be able to do so. Guidance is expected to be issued on encouraging young people under 16 and asylum seekers to volunteer. 

Councillor Archie Graham, Depute Leader of Glasgow City Council said: “We want to foster a mutually beneficial relationship with volunteers, where they can bring new skills and perspective to us while fulfilling their volunteering ambitions.

“This new policy is certainly not about replacing staff with volunteers. These new opportunities will be things that wouldn’t ordinarily have been undertaken if it weren’t for volunteers.

“It’s about recognising that there is a demand from people who want to volunteer for a whole host of reasons and about helping to fill that gap to benefit the individuals, our local communities and society as a whole.

“The added bonus is that our organisation will also benefit from the wealth and breadth of views, skills and experience that the volunteers will bring with them.”

The announcement was made after Volunteer Glasgow held its first Alistair Malloy Inspire Awards in the City Chambers on Monday night and national Volunteers’ Week drew to a close.

The Inspire Award nominees demonstrate the impact of volunteering in health and social care, housing and homelessness, refugee integration, sport and events, the environment, employability and community development. 

Organisers of the 2015 Rugby World Cup in England have revealed that 20,000 applications have been received for 6,000 volunteer positions for the rugby union tournament.

With the application deadline having closed, organisers will sift through the contenders by holding a series of selection events between now and December.

About 4,500 volunteers will be recruited from English and Welsh rugby clubs with the remaining 1,500 places to be given to members of the public.

The host cities for the tournament are now in the process of staging the try-outs, with the successful applicants to join the volunteer team, which will be known as ‘the pack’.

The host cities are Birmingham (Villa Park), Brighton (Brighton Community Stadium), Cardiff (Millennium Stadium), Exeter (Sandy Park), Gloucester (Kingsholm),  Leeds (Elland Road), Leicester (Leicester City Stadium), London (Twickenham, Wembley Stadium and Olympic Stadium), Manchester (Manchester City Stadium), Milton Keynes (StadiumMK) and Newcastle (St James’ Park).

“The pack will be made up of 6,000 volunteers so we had approximately 20,000 applications and we are going to interview 10,000 of those. That will break down into 6,000 that will make up the volunteers,” try-out team manager Mary Cahill said.

The volunteers will perform various roles during the six-week tournament, including working in transport and accreditation services.

The UK public’s appetite for major sporting events has been whetted by the recent 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland and the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games in London, England.

More than 50,000 people applied for 15,000 volunteer positions for the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, while more than 240,000 applications were received for the 70,000-strong volunteer programme at London 2012.

The 2015 Rugby World Cup will run from September 18 to October 31.

The 2019 edition of the event will take place in Japan, with the host of the 2013 Rugby World Cup yet to be decided.

The first ever Tour Makers for the Tour de France in the UK have been selected, with 12,000 volunteers making it through the application process.

The Tour Makers will be the volunteer force that will welcome millions of visitors when the Tour de France Grand Départ begins in and races around Yorkshire for two days and a third stage from Cambridge to London. 

Official applications have been now completed and almost 12,000 people have been named as successful applicants and will become a Tour Maker. 

 The Tour Maker project is a first in the history of the Tour de France's Grand Départs.

Gary Verity, Chief Executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, the agency who led the winning bid to bring the Tour de France to Yorkshire and devised the Tour Maker idea, said: "The response since day one to the Tour Maker project has been unbelievable, with so many people wanting to be directly involved with this historic event.”

Volunteers will be allocated roles by the TDFHub2014Ltd, who are delivering the Tour Maker programme. 

Nicky Roche, chief executive of TdFHUB2014 Ltd, which is managing the Tour Makers, said: “I’m delighted that we now have our 12,000 Tour Makers for Stages 1, 2 and 3. The team look forward to working with them and getting to know them over the next few months as they go through the training process. 

“The standard of applications was incredibly high, and I know that come July we will have a team of incredible, talented Tour Makers ready to welcome the world to the Tour de France in the UK.”