Ready to serve

The elite rowers participating in the 2017 World Rowing Championships at Nathan Benderson Park will be relying on precise teamwork.

Likewise, when the opening ceremony begins Sept. 23 and the first oar goes in the water the next day, the entire competition will be relying on the same kind of teamwork from the volunteers to make everything run smoothly.

The volunteers, though, won't have years of training like the rowers.

Nevertheless, fans will want their tickets checked in a timely fashion, the athletes will expect on-time transportation from their hotels and the media will expect information to be delivered in a timely manner.

It's a huge responsibility, and one that will be handled by approximately 2,000 volunteers, the majority who live in Florida. The volunteers have filled 125 positions under the supervision of those who lead 10 bigger categories, such as those who will work in the headquarters, the boat house and the finish tower.

Morgan Skillman is the World Rowing Championships volunteer coordinator, which means she had to round up people willing to do the jobs and then dividing them up to make sure all the categories were filled.

Skillman reached out to all types of groups, like local boys and girls clubs, as well as individuals.

Once signed up, volunteers could pick the position they wanted, if there was space. Skillman would ask many of the volunteers if they would be willing to work the team hotels, as most wanted to be on site.

“A lot of the time, people wanted to be on the island (at the event), even though those (hotel volunteers) are the positions where you get to interact with the athletes the most, which is a very special thing,” Skillman said.

Volunteers must be at least 16 years of age and they must attend a training session prior to starting their job. Those training sessions cover basic event information, as well as information on the traditions and greetings of each country in attendance, so workers know how to interact with everyone.

Some of the positions had special skills needed to handle that particular job, so the volunteer needed to have those skills. Each volunteer needed to assess their own ability to handle a particular job, such as standing for a long period of time.

Personality matters when it comes to volunteers. Ticket checkers, for instance, are some of the first people fans will see at the championships so they are required to make people feel welcome. Lakewood Ranch's Lanny and Carol English, who are not particularly into rowing, thought they were the perfect for the job.

They are world travelers and love meeting new people. Lanny English said their travels have proven to them that everyone is the same.

“We meet people a lot,” Carol English said. “They don’t want grumpy people taking tickets, you know? They need people there who are pleasant, so we are the best (laughs).”

For Lakewood Ranch’s John Miller, the opportunity to attend the event for free (a perk of being a volunteer) was a perk he couldn't turn down. Miller will work on the docks, placing flags and GPS trackers in each country’s shells or sculls. He loves new experiences, he said, and though he’s never done anything like this, he said he is not worried about making a mistake, or embarrassing himself by falling in the water.

One volunteer excited to see the competition is Lakewood Ranch’s Ellen Cunningham, who is working to allow access to the finish tower. She heard author Daniel James Brown speak about his book about the U.S. men’s eight rowing team at the 1936 Olympics, “The Boys in the Boat,” and fell in love with the history of the sport.

While Skillman gathered and assigned the volunteers, she didn't have any experience to fall back upon in overseeing the workforce. This is the first time the world championships have been held in the United States since 1994 and only the second time overall. She had to build it from scratch, starting on Nov. 1, 2016, when she started on the job.

Although she has managed to build an impressive workforce, she said the credit shouldn't go to her.

“I came into it knowing what it would be, a big task,” Skillman said. “I was happy to see how the community rallied around this event. We have well over 1,000 volunteers just from Florida. It’s incredible.”