South-west organisations call for help amid chronic shortage of volunteers

Sporting clubs, emergency services and community organisations that aid the city's most vulnerable are desperate for community members to put their hand up to avoid closure.

Warrnambool Agricultural Society president Jason Callaway said volunteer numbers started dwindling before the coronavirus pandemic, and it's only getting worse.

"Numbers have sadly been declining for a couple of years but compared to what we had (pre-COVID-19), numbers have definitely dropped off even further," he said.

"What I've found is that following the two years of COVID, people who used to be out volunteering have realised they don't want to commit anymore as there's other things to do. It's certainly not isolated to our society, it seems to be happening across a lot of other organisations.

"I think people just want to do other things now that they have more of their life back. It's certainly different to what it was a couple of years ago."

Mr Callaway said it was also difficult sourcing volunteers from a "younger demographic".

"Over the last couple of years we have lost people to age. We're an ageing workforce and we had people who had been around the last six, seven or more years, but it becomes difficult given their age," he said.

"We would love to see some youth come through the committee but that younger demographic is definitely the hardest to get volunteers out of. The older generation still seem to put a hand up and offer help yet it's not the same in the 16 to 30-year-olds, it's very hard to get anybody in that age bracket."

The Standard this month reported Warrnambool's Red Cross op-shop was in desperate need of volunteers after losing more than three quarters of its members resulting in slashed opening hours, days and revenue.

It came after Warrnambool's RSPCA op shop was left with just one volunteer, forcing the charity to close for over a month and having a "dramatic" impact on animal welfare funds.

Sporting clubs are being hit hard too.

In January Port Fairy Football Netball Club told The Standard it was "in a bit of strife" as it struggled to fill key roles ahead of the 2022 Hampden league season.

The Seagulls sent out an impassioned plea to members - just two months out from the season - urging them to help fill a number of vacancies, including coaches, team managers, trainers and canteen coordinators.

Shaun Murrihy, who has held many roles in his involvement with the club since 1982, this week urged "all footy-minded players and ex-players" to put their hand up to save the reserves from forfeiting.

"If this happens, I cannot see in the future getting them going again. I have never been more concerned for our club," he said in a Facebook status.

Former South West Sport chief executive Michael Neoh, who resigned from the job in January after 22 years, has seen a dramatic change in volunteerism.

"You used to have one person volunteering for four different community organisations, whether it's CFA, SES, and then football and netball clubs, but we're seeing a real shift in demographic as well as lifestyle," he said.

Mr Neoh listed a number of determinants he believed affected volunteer rates, including ageing population in rural areas and a declining population as young people move away for work and study opportunities, and farms previously run by four or five families merge into one.

He said greater employment opportunities and pressures to work weekends were also driving volunteers away.

"We're seeing more kids working part-time jobs on weekends than when I first started at South West Sport," he said.

"In the hospitality sector, there's so many jobs out there and young people are picking them up on the weekends and missing out on those opportunities to volunteer in sport.

"Family businesses, such as De Grandis, may not have opened when those weekend community events were on but now we've got big franchises open seven days a week."

Mr Neoh said it was also evident in the trades industry as it tried to keep up with the region's housing boom.

"That plus COVID has seen a real high demand for tradies. When sport was cancelled during the pandemic, I would assume a lot of tradies were working weekends because there was no sport on," he said.

"I don't know if we're seeing all those people working in that industry coming back to volunteer and play."

For Warrnambool's Tom Woodhams, he can't imagine not volunteering as it's something he was brought up with.

He began volunteering at Premier Speedway when he was 17 and has worked in various roles including his current position in the crash crew where he is responsible for driver welfare after an incident.

His dad was the captain of the Mortlake CFA and Mr Woodhams is the current Warrnambool CFA captain. Helping others comes naturally to the 33-year-old.

"You've got to be brought up with it and in this day and age it's just not happening," he said.

"My father was the captain of Mortlake and we lived and breathed the fire station and that's just carried on. If you're not exposed to it and you don't see people doing it in your upbringing."

He said recruiting new people, particularly younger members was "a struggle", as was keeping existing member's interest.

"It's a struggle. We've got a membership of 36 active members but in reality I've only got about 15 that are active," he said.

"I just cant engage members to turn up for incidents or even weekly truck checks. They're notified by pager but they're not coming in. They're just not interested."

Mr Woodhams said everyone had a busy life now.

"There's so much to do. People are becoming selfish that's what I see," he said.

"They're doing what makes them happy and that's fine, life's short, but especially for emergency services and SES, I don't know how to engage. I've got no idea. I sit and scratch my head regularly thinking how am I going to do this and there's no easy fix."

Mr Woodhams said he'd raised the issue at different locations right up to state level calling for incentives, such as tax relief for employers to allow employees to respond.

"There needs to be a lot of work put into it at state level. A lot of people can't get time off work," he said.

"After hours I'm fine but during work hours people can't get time off and if they do it's leave without pay. In our field being emergency services, we can't pick and choose when the calls come in. With the cost of living at the moment we all have to work.

"I don't know what the future holds for volunteering, especially for the emergency services field."

Mr Woodhams said many hands meant light work and more people needed to step up.

"That load gets loaded up onto smaller groups and eventually they'll burn out, myself included. How much effort do you put in before it becomes too much?"

He said it was particularly important at smaller stations which relied on members to respond.

"If you go to Koroit, Port Fairy, Mortlake, Woodford, Woorndoo or any of the smaller towns there are no career staff and it relies on the community to come together and they're the ones that are struggling the most," he said.

Mr Woodhams said the CFA had trouble attracting younger members, which was a statewide issue, and the average CFA volunteer age had "blown out".

"We're just not attracting younger members. It's a hard one," he sid.

"How we fix it I don't know? We just need people to be mindful that volunteerism doesn't just happen. It takes people to put their hand up and have a go at something new."

Mr Woodhams said they were looking for females and Warrnambool had at least three very active females in the brigade.

"You don't have to be a bloke to join the CFA or SES," he said.

Mr Woodhams said the brigade wasn't currently recruiting but would be in coming months.

He said they had an influx in enquiries after large bushfires due to the media and public attention.

"Whenever there's big campaign fires we always get an influx of people looking to join. I think it's a spur of the moment thing though," he said.

"People want to put their hand up and help and then they drop off after a while."

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