Team Leaders and YST Staff: A New Era of Collaboration

Take a trip with Callie as she talks about her time working within the YST Staff team at the National School Games Finals 2024.

Intro
As a Team Leader for the Youth Sport Trust, I was invited to volunteer at the School Games National Finals 2024, where some of us were asked to work alongside the Youth Sport Trust staff in different roles. This was an extremely exciting opportunity for us to find out more about how the event runs and what work happens behind the scenes to make these events possible.

Event Lead-Up
In this process, we were able to explore the bigger picture of what goes on before an event, like the many online briefings the week before and the week of the event, to ensure I had all the information needed. All the Youth Sport Trust staff we worked with were extremely supportive in helping us carry out our roles to the best of our ability. I know that all the Team Leaders taking on this “staff” role were feeling a sense of excitement to be part of this major sporting event.

Settling In
On the Wednesday night, the other Team Leaders and I travelled over to Loughborough University to get settled into the hotel where we would spend the next four days. At the end of each day, we had a debrief with our Team Leader managers to talk about our day and discuss the upcoming days. This gave us the opportunity for questions to be asked and concerns to be solved so we knew our roles and felt confident for the next day. After these debriefs, it also gave us a chance to have some downtime and laugh about everything over a game of Uno, whilst we enjoyed a hotel chocolate chip cookie.

Athlete Walk
My first role as YST staff was supporting the athletes’ walk to the Opening Ceremony. I worked alongside other members of YST staff to support getting the hockey athletes to the Opening Ceremony. It was important that we had all the teams in the right meeting point at the right time, kept them hyped up and excited, and didn’t lose anyone before we got to the ceremony. There were over 1,500 athletes, so lots of preparation went into ensuring the walk went smoothly. Every sport had to enter at the right time and be directed to stand in specific spaces during the ceremony.

Venue Liaison
On the Friday, my role was a Venue Liaison for Wheelchair Tennis. This involved ensuring that the venue lead manager, the volunteers, the athletes, and the young volunteers all had everything they needed to enable the competition to run smoothly. This meant I was watching over the competitions and supporting any communication that needed to go from the venue to other staff on the event, or vice versa.

Games Services
Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to work in Games Services. The Games Services team would deal with anything from accreditations and kit to transport and accommodation. They were the first point of call for any of the team managers when they had enquiries. During my time working in Games Services, I spent the majority of my time at the front of house, answering any common questions and supporting any team managers that needed additional support with simple tasks. I also had to support the departures of different teams and ensure that all baggage was collected and all athletes made the bus safely. I really enjoyed seeing the way that all the little things that, as a Team Leader, you would assume would happen, were put in place to make sure everything went as planned.

Final Comments
Overall, this experience gave me a whole new outlook on how a major sporting event like this runs. As a Team Leader, I always look forward to being with the young volunteers and making a difference with them. However, with that, you often don’t see the work behind the scenes before the event as you are extremely focused on what is best for the young people. Therefore, as someone who enjoys sports and sports events, this opportunity to work within the Youth Sport Trust staff was an eye-opening experience that I am grateful to have had. It helped me understand how an event like this runs and the hard work that goes into it to ensure that every athlete, team manager, staff member, and young volunteer has a successful event.