MGT2SVM Volunteer Management - Assignment Solution

Introduction

Recreation and sports are the integral part of economic and social life of Victoria. Sports support more than 3.25 million Victorians to get engaged in active recreation and build a connected community (Victorian Government, 2017). Victoria, alone is home to 100 State Sports Associations, 30 Professional Sports Teams, 16,000 Clubs and 9,500 Community Sport Facilities (Tennis Victoria, 2018a). Victoria has the reputation of major sports organizing state globally that attract World-class sporting events while adding $1.8 billion per annum to the economy of Victorian State (Trade Victoria Australia, 2018). From the high performing event like Formula One, to the local competitive sports like Melbourne Cricket Tournaments, the sporting industry in Victoria has been bridging local and distant communities together. 

The sports and recreation industry rely heavily on the hard-work and dedication of volunteers. The ABS (2015) data showed Sports and Recreation to be at top with 32% where the Victorian Volunteers contributed in 2015 followed by education and training (25%), welfare and community (21%) and religious (19%) (shown in the figure 1 below) (Victorian Government, 2017). 

Figure 1: Volunteers Participation

Source: (Victorian Government, 2017)

According to report by Whitehorse City Council (2015), volunteers carry out approximately 80% of all administrative duties within the recreation and sports sector. According to ABS (2018) data, 47 million hours are devoted to organization of sports and recreation events by volunteers. Volunteers tend to play a vital role in development of the overall sports industry and management of the local sports club. The major activities carried on by the volunteers include fundraising (22%), coaching/refereeing/judging (14%), teaching (15%) and administration (14%) (Victorian Government, 2017). The data indicates the importance of sports and recreation for Victoria where the clubs and recreational activities knit people and communities together. It is also seen that the sports and recreation clubs are the engine of volunteering. This report is written to assess the Tennis Victoria in terms of its organizational structure, volunteers’ responsibilities, opportunities, training needs of the volunteers, educational programs and compliance requirements. 

2.0 Organizational Structure

Tennis Victoria is the administrative body with which nearly 900 clubs, centers and associations are associated (Tennis Victoria, 2018). The main purpose of the organization is to connect more people through tennis while retaining and creating new participation in the sports. Tennis Victoria also acknowledges the efforts of volunteers, participants and administrators in achieving the desirable results. The organizational structure followed at Tennis Victoria is shown in the figure 2 below starting at CEO followed by General Managers, Regional Managers and Country Managers (Tennis Victoria, 2019). 

The volunteers play a pivotal role in operating the overall events organized by the higher level authorities in Tennis Victoria. The general managers at participation tend to manage the regional tennis managers, club development officers, school development coordinators and project leader (Tennis Victoria, 2019). The coach development manager manages the coach development coordinator and administrator while the general manager at government relations manages the senior coaching leader and court coordinators. The general manager of culture and communication manages the digital marketing coordinator, receptionist, administration and communications officer and marketing manager. The tennis operations manager manages the competition coordinator, events coordinator and officiating development coordinator. The coach development manager looks over the training of the volunteer coaches and employed coaches whereas the development coordinator looks over training of referees, volunteers and ballkids. Tennis Victoria works in collaboration with Tennis Australia for providing training, coaching and education to volunteers and participants at national and federal levels  (Tennis Victoria, 2019).