Development of volunteer numbers

That's all well and good, but I think you've missed my point. Your argument was (or at least appeared to be, from your last post) that you don't think expenses should be paid because heritage railways "are first and foremost, a hobby" - What I'm saying is that seems to me like an incredibly dangerous assumption to make, because I can't help but think that if your volunteer recruitment strategy targets only those who want to do it as a hobby, other than for jobs such as painting coaches and doing the gardening, I think over the next decade or so you'll find numbers start to dwindle. Why do so many young people looking for work experience go for charity shops etc rather than heritage railways where they'll be potentially learning key skills like cash handling, working to rules and regulations, teamwork etc? Well, for a start, the charity shops don't force you to become a 'member' if you want to volunteer, and many will pay travel expenses so their volunteers aren't out of pocket for helping them out.
I accept in the past and probably in many cases still today it's often been the case that you can get volunteers doing it with no reimbursement because "its a hobby" - but I don't think that's the right way to look at it in the future, where volunteers will be in much fewer numbers, and not necessarily be enthusiasts either. Unfortunately, I genuinely don't see that having to pay 20 quid or whatever a year and only get a few free brews in return will attract this future generation.

 

Your comment concerning "charity shops don,t force you to become a member if you want to become a volunteer" is totally wrong IMHO as the real reason for asking you to become a member is for insurance purposes.

Charity shops and railways are two completely different things.

Regards
Chris:

 

There was, I think 2 years ago now, a suggestion at the SVR G AGM that a special rate for membership could be given to working members. There was general agreement in the room, but the board were less so sure, saying it was hard to quantitfy who was a working member (or something very close to this). One answer I've thought of was to give out a claim back form with the annual staff pass. That said, I have a impression that not all departments are as reliable for giving them out, and it poses an interesting question about life members.

 

I'm not sure that, if you really looked, you could find many cases where someone was genuinely put off volunteering for the sake of £20 or so of membership fee, particularly when you set that against the costs you are likely to incur getting to and from the railway. For younger volunteers, I'd suggest the transport issue is probably a major deterrent to volunteering, particularly given the combination of early sign ons for many operational roles and the difficulty of reaching (sometimes remote or rural) sites without your own transport.

As Chris correctly notes above, for most lines, being a member is a pre-requisite of volunteering for insurance reasons. Moreover, railways are potentially dangerous environments, so there does have to be a certain formality of record keeping and training for volunteers, which will inevitably mean it is a bit harder for people to dip in and dip out, particularly for safety-critical and workshop roles.

Tom

 

Too right about the railway being a dangerous environment! It's certainly not a plaything and the operator must conform to a whole pile of rules and regulations.

The WSR (more specifically the WSR Plc who run the railway) treats all who work on the railway as "staff" although of course most are volunteers. The WSR Plc maintains a register of all staff who are issued with a Staff ID. The WSR Plc has over 50 paid staff and just short of 1000 volunteers. It is not possible to work on the railway without undergoing an induction course and if appropriate taking and passing a PTS course. I suppose staff could be seen as a "member" (of staff) but there is no requirement for anyone to belong to a "society" of any sort. Whilst it is not immune from the risk of falling numbers of staff who volunteer, I guess the situation on the WSR is different from the kind of railway described by Christoph, so I guess my ramblings (and they are my personal comments) are not that helpful, but I thought I'd add them to the pot.

Steve

 

To an extent, that is not surprising - the 30-55 age period is when people are concentrating on families and careers. so less time for volunteering. I think that statistic is probably true for most heritage railways - and maybe other voluntary activities too - though I suspect heritage railways probably do better than most in terms of younger volunteers.

 

I think things like cheap volunteer accommodation and facilities are far more important than the cost of a membership. Travelling and staying are the real cost issues these days.

 

I think it depends on the department as for numbers of 'younger' people. Taking the SVR as an example: the stations have health numbers of younger people with, I think, most stations have a good spread of ages, with some weighting prehaps to the higher end. MPD has a very good range of ages. Not sure of signalling so won't comment there. Guards and TTI are very much weighed towards the higher end of the spectrum, with a few people bringing down the average age a little (As far as I'm aware, there are only 2 people younger than myself in the TTI department and they concentrate on doing specials/have other commitments).
RE:Membership vs Travel-I agree, though I seem to remember it being suggest at the AGM by someone who would have benefited from travel 'expenses'. I think it's really just away of off-setting the costs incurred getting to the railway rather than the going down the route of 'expenses' (I live in kiddy so I quite often walk to the station rather than bothering my dad for a lift, so this isn't really problem for myself)

 

This thread has some very good points in it and obviously if there was a panacea for volunteer attrition the thread would not have been posted.

I don't think the idea that once you have recruited a volunteer, you have them for life was ever realistic - you may well have their support, long
after they dropped off the "active volunteer" list - as already mentioned, most people tend to drift off and concentrate on career/family for 20 or so years and
they might come back afterwards. Some sad people might argue that they should have been concentrating on that anyway but drifted off and
became a volunteer for a while.

That said, if you are going to have volunteers in your business plan surely that implies mechanisms in place not only to recruit them but more
importantly to retain them (especially if you've trained them): does anyone have any examples of those?

 

Steve,

In what respect it the WSR situation different? From what you say, I take that the volunteer numbers on the WSR are relatively level and certainly sufficient to provide the usual service. There is no sharp drop like the one we have experienced. In that respect your contribution was most helpful. A confirmation of my assumption would be nice, though. As an aside: How many of those roughly 1000 staff (volunteer and paid) are needed to run the railway on an ordinary day?

Kind regards

Christoph

 

What might make the situation different is that people who work on the WSR do not have to belong to a "society" and therefore do not have to pay a sub before being allowed to volunteer - although I'm sure the WSR is not alone in this.

Volunteer levels are always a concern. So the WSR is always actively seeking more volunteers by way of Open Days and similar promotions.

The length of the working day may well require two shifts - up to double the number for operational jobs. It's difficult to say how many people are working on an "ordinary service day" but I suggest it would range from 60 to 100 - that is just for operational (loco crew, train crew, signalmen and station staff. There'd be another 30-100 doing all the other front line (buffets, shops), the PW and S&T maintenance tasks, the loco and C&W works, the restoration works, station maintenance and all the backroom admin and publicity tasks that go on every day. Just my guess at numbers. I'm sure other railways will have similar numbers albeit scaled up/down appropriately.

Steve

 

The discussion on expenses is an interesting one. The organisation for which I work does offer travel expenses up to 25 miles each direction (I think - something like that anyway), however we make a point of not using expenses as an advertising gimmick in recruitment due to complicated legal shenanigans and to ensure a genuine interest in volunteering by the applicant.

Heritage railways, which are very volunteer heavy - 200 volunteers plus on a busy day at somewhere like the SVR or NYMR, I'd guess - can probably never go down this road. The complexities of policing would be nigh on impossible - how many hard-working volunteers do you know who can also be found about the railway at other times for socialising? How do you prove they're doing one or the other (hint: signing on isn't an option). This isn't a problem a charity shop would face, for example. Do you say that some jobs are worthy of expenses and others not? Completely unfair and indeed unworkable as there'd be totally understandable discontent amongst those who didn't qualify.

So alternative means of appeal must be devised. Free rides and cheap yet quality accommodation are ok, but aren't going to appeal to your local person wanting to volunteer for altruistic purposes who isn't that interested in railways - a strong audience for volunteering. I'll bang on the same marketing themes as I did last time - MEET NEW PEOPLE! LEARN NEW SKILLS! HELP YOUR LOCAL COMMUNITY! PUT A SMILE ON VISITORS' FACES! GET FIT AND HAVE FUN! SEE THE LOVELY <<insert your county here>> COUNTRYSIDE!

You need a strong, friendly and accessible volunteer office that assesses would be applicants, listens to their wants, puts them in the right place and contacts them at regular intervals during their career (it's not enough to just provide an email address they can contact with any concern - although that is of paramount importance in itself). Make them feel wanted. Provide the flexibility they need. Instil in Heads of Departments that new volunteers must be contacted, inducted, trained, welcomed. A new volunteer is uncertain - a friendly call from their new contact is of far more use than just waiting for them to turn up. Clique-ish tendencies need to be combatted.

 

I've been doing a bit more pondering on this matter, and a few more points have occurred.

Firstly, whilst people like to "give something back" and will often cite it as a reason for volunteering, they don't like being asked to. You don't want to make them feel indebted, that makes them grudging.

Secondly, a very large possible community of potential volunteers lies in current volunteers' spouses - if you got them all volunteering, that's an increase of, say, 30-40% (when you take into account single volunteers and couples where both volunteer). The tagline for this would have to be very carefully considered - you don't want to be too patronising in your approach or too prescriptive in areas on offer.

Finally, an intriguing offer is more likely to interest people into finding out more which will hopefully pull them on board. So don't say "Come and be a Guard", say "There's more to being a Guard than waving the green flag - come and find out more on XXth Month at ...". For MPD (not that there's usually a shortage of interested parties in this area), you could continue that oblique angle: "Your other car is a ferrari? Mine's got 2,000 horsepower". For a wider audience and aiming to recruit for wider areas, "It takes XXX volunteers a day to run the XXXXXX Railway. You could be one!", or "There's more to volunteering at the XXXX Railway than engines and green flags...come and find out more...". Widen the audience, draw them in, provide an effective and accessible induction process.

 

I did a rough tot-up in my head of what we would need at the Bluebell. On a regular Saturday (i.e. not special event) we run two service trains, an afternoon Wealden Rambler (cream teas etc) and an evening Golden Arrow. That means double shifts for one loco crew (i.e. 4 crew needed across three locos), signalmen (so six signalmen in three boxes) and some station staff. Add in loco crew, rostered loco staff (cleaners, running foreman etc), guards, signalmen, station staff at three stations, TTIs, and catering staff on the WR (who are volunteers - the catering staff on the evening GA are paid) etc and you get to around 75 volunteers to run the railway. To that, you can add non-rostered staff working on restoration and maintenance activities in the loco works, C&W, P/Way gangs, restoring and maintaining buildings etc. Easy to imagine we have upwards of 125 volunteers on any Saturday or Sunday, of whom at least 75 would be rostered (i.e. there would be a direct immediate operational impact if they don't show up). The number on a special event day (such as Santa) would be higher, not least because those days tend to require greater numbers of "on train" staff as wll as needing more trains to run (hence more loco crew, guards etc). And that number of 125 doesn't include the numbers working on the Northern Extension.

Our biggest pressure (talking specifically about the loco running department) seems to be getting mid-week staff for operational roles. We can normally cover the planned service, but it is sometimes quite hard to cover additional "special" services such as filming contracts, additional dining trains etc, which are sometimes planned at quite short notice. Historically, there was always a pool of people aged 55 and upwards who had taken early retirement and were available, often at short notice, and could be rung up to cover a turn. Fewer people are in that happy situation of still being relatively youthful, but no longer working, and available at short notice, which makes those turns harder to cover. Increasingly, the burden of covering those turns is falling on quite a small pool of volunteers.

Tom

 

Marketing volunteering is the way to go, more positive approach than the "come and join us" concept of volunteering in the pioneer days of the 1960s and 1970s.

Effectively heritage railways produce a Passenger Product and a Volunteer Product; the passengers brings in cash and the volunteers reduce expenses, thus both benefit the balance sheet so both deserve to be high management priorities.

Since both products are to be marketed, regular market research is needed to keep them competitive - customer-satisfaction, improvements/new features.

Supermarkets encourage affinity with cards/points but I guess most volunteers get satisfaction, and so develop an affinity, from seeing the line develop and improve - and from the socialising.

In a healthy organisation, volunteers identify with the aims and projects but also the management recognises the aspirations of the volunteers and tries to realise their dreams - after all every heritage railway started out as someones dream.

Volunteering in my youth, I would often hitch-hike 100 or so miles and quite happily kip in a sleeping bag in an old coach. During the interim years I could afford b&b and restaurants, nowadays on a pension, the bus pass and railcard help the travel but cheap and above all decent and warm accommodation is a must.

Local enthusiast volunteers often have family members who might want to get involved, I recall people's mums making the tea and one who took on mess room stewardship for a while: this is local non-enthusiast volunteers identifying with other local people involved in the project. I guess word of mouth and "come and join us" is still a runner in the local scenario - the competition here being the charity shop.

On the subject of getting youngsters involved. The electronic gadget fad hasn't stopped people playing football, taking up fishing, etc. These are all hobbies, so we should not forget that many volunteers are hobbyists - woodworking/DIY, gardening, etc - and provide an environment where they can flourish: Maybe someone volunteers to put up a shelf and a couple of years later they are into carriage restoration and the gardener finds themselves clearing overgrown cuttings - this is volunteer development which similar to career development in employment.

 

That's a really interesting way of looking at the problem.

It's always occurred to me that there are four fundamental ways a member of the public can interact with a heritage railway:

- Visit
- Join
- Donate
- Volunteer

Different railways have different strengths, but in general most (at least the successful ones) are pretty good at marketing visits, and some are pretty good at getting people to donate, but the prmotion of "join" and "volunteer" is often less good. If you see those four activities as the key to a healthy business, then you can think about how to promote (and also performance manage) each area - i.e. what indicators would you want to look at from a management point of view to see if things were going well in each area.

Also worth considering whether those activities are in fact a heirarchy of commitment. In other words, you want to get paying visitors in past the ticket office. But if you have a good visitor product, you hope a proportion of those visitors might be induced to invest more (emotionally as much as financially) with the organisation by becoming a member and thus starting more directly to identify themselves with the railway's own values. And then a proportion of those members (and recognising that within a broad membership, there will be levels of commitment and identification with the organisation) are then the ideal target audience to invest more by becoming donators. Finally, there is the ultimate step, which is volunteering, which potentially leads to the greatest emotional rewards in really feeling you are making a difference to an organisation you believe in, but which also requires the greatest investment, of time, money and enthusiasm.

Tom

 

Tom,

that is no new way of looking at volunteers. I wrote that as early as 1994. Volunteering is a product which has to be marketed just like any other product. The "product" needs to suit the volunteer, the "price" must be right, it must be promoted. If you don't deliver what the volunteers want, they might stay away. If the price tag for travel, food and accommodation it too high for the benefit, volunteers might stay away. I belive every railway can benefit if they find out what volunteers want and try to deliver and promote that. If you don't promote volunteering you probably won't get any volunteers, or not as many as you might get with some promotion. I sometimes wonder, if Joe Public knows that the person in uniform is a volunteer, that you can get involved with the railway.

I'm now coming back to actual figures. 75 people for a two-train service looks quite a lot to me, even more so when taking into account that there are about 250 days on which the Bluebell runs. Some days require less people, but I think the economies that can be made by running just one train rather than two are not much. You will probably still need the same number of signalmen, station masters, ticket clerks, porters, cleaners and all that. How many duties does the average volunteer do each year? I know that there is a wide spread. At my place the range goes from 3 to about 80. The average is 17 duties per volunteer each year which is up from earlier years. Until the end of the 1990s each volunteer did 13 to 15 duties on average but with the shrinking number of volunteers the average input of each individual has grown. I have a feeling, though, that mainly the few people at the top of the league are doing the extra duties. In relation it's not a big step from 50 to 60 duties compared to 15 duties rather than 5!

Christoph

 

Yes, I meant really "interesting to me" since I hadn't thought about the problem in those terms.

Really, that is a four-train day, not a two train day (two services trains, afternoon Wealden Rambler and Evening Golden Arrow). The evening train adds a lot to the volunteer numbers, because you need a change of shift for one loco crew, a guard, three signalmen and some station staff. So Sundays would be a lower number, (because there is no evening train) and midweek lower still (at least for rostered staff): for example, we have ten rostered duties in the loco department on Saturday, Sunday and Bank Holidays (a running foreman, two cleaners, an "X turn" of driver, fireman and cleaner, a lobby attendant and a "spare turn" of driver and fireman) that don't get rostered midweek. On the other hand, I suspect we have more unrostered staff working midweek; particularly on infrastructure such as building maintenance, lineside clearance, p/way inspection, there are mid week gangs that I think can be more productive when there is less other activity to act as a diversion. Also, a lot of volunteers seem to prefer the quieter atmosphere you get midweek.

Indeed. If you chop a train out of the timetable, you only save about five or six volunteers at most (Driver, Fireman, Cleaner, Guard, maybe a Travelling Ticket Inspector, maybe a Buffet Attendant). You still need as many signalmen, station staff etc. Part of our long term signalling plan is to allow Horsted Keynes Box to be shut out and run a "long section" between SP and KC - but even that only saves one signalman, though that is potentially beneficial during evenings which might otherwise be hard to roster. I'd imagine lines like the WSR with more stations have even bigger volunteer requirements than us; for example, rostering staff to cover 10 stations and 5 signalboxes, rather than the 3 stations and 3 signalboxes that we have to cover.

From personal experience, I probably do about 30 days per year - on average, two days per month at weekends plus one mid week (Monday to Friday) during the year. I'd say that is probably pretty typical for the loco department; if anything a bit on the "light" side, particularly midweek. Couldn't speak for other rostered or unrostered departments. Some of the volunteers working on the NEP seem to have been working a pretty big number of days of late!

Tom

 

It may not be a new way of looking at volunteers, but it is certainly in need of wider dissemination and consideration - marketing in the volunteer side of things in heritage railways has stagnated in the "if you build it they will come" attitude - now, there needs to be a stronger marketing edge. The value of volunteer labour and therefore volunteers' importance could be acknowledged more strongly. It is a partnership, and the value of volunteer labour probably rivals or even exceeds that of the income from visitors. That being said, the figures in a direct comparison would be skewed by the way in which a railway is run for the benefit of its volunteers - the overheads in manpower on the PDSR are doubtless far lower than that of the SVR, for example. If the SVR were to become something like the PDSR (perish the thought, no offence meant to the PDSR), you'd, for example, lose the signal boxes (5-7 men down to 1).

Long distance volunteers are almost invariably going to fall into the committed enthusiast category, so campaigns for new volunteers outside of this category should probably be more localised. That being said, the quality of accommodation can entice people from further afield as has been said.

 

Too right! I can recall trying to get something similar across to some railway managers about 25 years ago. Despite "volunteers reducing costs" being a fundamental part of heritage railways, investing money in recruiting and retaining volunteers was an anathema to them. However, some degree of "volunteer product" and ideas like it have caught on since.

Heritage railways have a source of potential volunteer recruits in the form of their customers/passengers: so it should be paramount to make sure they know that it is (mostly) run by volunteers and what they can volunteer to do.