Dear <<First Name>>

Welcome to this shorter third edition of our Volunteers and Officials Games Newsletter. We wanted to send a little note out to wish you a lovely festive break and Happy New Year, and to remind you if you have not yet completed your registration, please do this as soon as possible.

In addition to joining us on Facebook and Twitter, Sharing and Re-tweeting to help us spread the excitement about the National Summer Games, why not drop word of the event to friends and those you meet at any Parties and/or work events? With your help, we could reach our target of 750 Volunteers and 150+ Officials even faster!

As always, please remember to keep an eye on our website for further updates throughout the New Year. 

Wishing you a wonderful Christmas and New Years break. 

From.
All the team at Special Olympics Great Britain

The Special Olympics Great Britain Offices will be closed forChristmas from the 21^st December 2016 and will reopen on the 3^rd January 2017. During this period we will be unable to assist you with your applications or queries so please try to contact us before the 21^st for any urgent matters. Alternatively, please submit a contact form via the website and we will respond as soon as possible upon our return.

Volunteer Registration Support

If you need help or advice around your National Summer Games Volunteer Registration, come to our drop-in at The Circle and have a chat with one of our advisors – they are themselves volunteers & really enjoy helping others to volunteer too.
Open:  Monday - Wednesday, 10am - 4pm
Where:  (Sheffield City centre, just off Division Street)
VAS - The Circle,
33 Rockingham Lane (behind Costa Coffee)
Sheffield
S1 4FW
For more information, visit: http://www.sheffieldvolunteercentre.org.uk/

Photo Upload:
Lots of volunteers are having issues uploading their photo. This is generally due to the file size which should be no bigger than 5MB. Please try compressing your image if possible. If it will still not upload or you need any help with this issue, please email cara.pears@sogb.org.uk with your photo so we can upload it for you. 

Referees:
We ask that your referees be someone who knows you closely but is not a partner or family member. If you have been in employment in the last three years it would be ideal if you could put forwards your current/ex employer, or colleague.
For anyone still finding it difficult to put down referees, please get in contact with us directly. 

Update for Officials

Registration:
Selection of Officials will begin in the New Year so please remember to log on and complete your registration – we will only be able to consider those who have submitted their applications!
If you have any queries please contact officials@sheffield2017.org.uk

Officials Accommodation:
Please note that we will only be providing accommodation for key non-local officials if pre-approved by Special Olympics National Office. You should have received an email from Sophie if you have completed your application, so please get in touch with her to request accommodation.
If you have any other queries regarding accommodation, please contact us directly.

We have had a few questions regarding the volunteer training for the Games. Here is a quick update of the plans so far, this is a work in progress so we cannot release all the information at this time and it may be subject to change.
 
There will be a mandatory 3 hour (approx.) orientation session for ALL volunteers which will include: Special Olympics information, intellectual disability awareness, venue details, roles and responsibilities and more.
It will be an interactive session, where you can meet the team and prepare for the games!
The training will be held in Sheffield (venue TBC).
There will be a wide range of sessions available, evenings and weekends, so volunteers can hopefully find a session that fits around their other commitments.
There will also be some role specific training for a selected number of roles, those volunteers  will be made aware closer to the time about these sessions.
 
The training dates will be released next year and we will be asking volunteers to send in their preferences after this time.
 

If there are any further questions, please contact our Training Manager Emma.Roe@sogb.org.uk

Spread The Word

Please help us spread the word about the National Summer Games and encourage many more people to be involved. Join us on Facebook and Twitter and where you can, please share and re-tweet our stories! 

Frequently Asked Questions

Please remember we have a Frequently Asked Questions page on our website, so any queries you have maybe answered here. If not you can input your questions and we will endeavour to answer you as soon as possible. Please click the buttons below to be directed to your FAQ area: