We are delighted to be launching a new Dons volunteering scheme to support AFC Wimbledon and the wider community.
The picture above was taken at the Annual Volunteers' Away Day in 2019 and our Chief Executive Joe Palmer delivered the following message about the importance of extending the club's volunteering base after moving into Plough Lane:
"Volunteers have been one of the foundations of how this club was built and how it got to where it is now. I’ve been asked by a few volunteers about whether they will be needed at the new stadium and other volunteering opportunities. The answer is yes, absolutely! The people who devote their time and energy to the club continue to remain as crucial as ever to our success on and off the pitch.
"At Kingsmeadow, there were, on average, more than 50 volunteers on a matchday. They included turnstile operators, programme sellers and Golden Goal sellers. And at Plough Lane the number of roles required to support matchday operations and make home games brilliant will be even greater. But we also have a bigger requirement outside of matchday for professional services, to support finance generation, such as with the We Are Wimbledon Fund (WAWF) and other community help, such as those seen by the Dons Local Action Group (DLAG).
"This means that we need to be reaching and engaging more people to help support the club in a variety of roles. And so, we are looking to grow our volunteer workforce to help deliver maximum benefit right across the club and community, as well as for the volunteers themselves. The holding name for the new project is ‘DonsMakers’. The idea behind this was to move away from the older term of ‘volunteers’ with a view to making AFC Wimbledon an award-winning, national exemplar for volunteering. In short, we wanted to bring a new energy to volunteering and make it exciting again.
"With the support of a small group of fans we have formed a Volunteer Working Group who are currently working on a strategy to help deliver a skilled, motivated, energetic and respected volunteer force for AFC Wimbledon.
"As part of this, the group are doing some work across the club to understand how and where we are using volunteers and helping to identify resource, skill and experience gaps around the organisation. This will include gathering the opinions of people from right across the club and beyond to explore the notion of volunteering and include informal interviews and online surveys, please make sure you look out for these on the club website and on email over the coming days. For any questions or thoughts, please contact volunteerofficer@afcwimbledon.ltd.uk .
"I would like to extend a huge thanks to the Volunteer Working Group for helping me bring this work together and I’m looking forward to seeing DonsMakers come to life and being yet another reason to be proud of our club and its fans."