More than hundred volunteers involved in 4th European Universities Table Tennis Championship 24.06.2010
More than 100 young people volunteered to work at the 4th European Universities Table Tennis Championship.
18 volunteers work as team attaches, 2 volunteers translate for the umpires, 8 volunteers work at information booths and 8 volunteers in the press center. Dozens of volunteers assist the Championship in transportation, accreditation, technical support, catering, accommodation, prize drawing and entertainment of the spectators in the Palace of Sports.
At the same time more than 150 young people train for other sporting events that will be staged in Kazan soon: the European Shotgun Shooting Championship and the European Universities Beach Volleyball Championship. The student activists take part in the Towards the Universiade 2013 Youth Volunteer Camp organised by the Ministry of Youth Affairs, Sports and Tourism of Tatarstan in association with the Kazan 2013 Executive Board. The volunteer camp drew participants from different regions of Russia: Rostov, Nizhny Novgorod, Leningrad, Irkutsk, Volgograd, Chelyabinsk, from the Republics of Adygeya, Bashkortostan and many other regions. The volunteers of the camp will enter the volunteer pool of the 2013 Universiade.
Before volunteering in the international sporting events all the participants will undergo special training where they will complete tasks, learn volunteer culture, gain knowledge in conflict management and international communication. The volunteers create a positive image of a sporting event.
Yana Bagryanskaya, volunteer team leader in the 4th European Universities Table Tennis Championship values highly the work of the volunteers. She enjoys volunteering. “It’s very interesting to work in the volunteer teams. You have a chance to feel the spirit of the championship, communicate with the teams, be a real help to the sportsmen.”
For Bagryanskaya the Championship is not her first volunteer experience. Starting with volunteering in the 2009 Universiade in Belgrade she went on her activity and assisted as an attache to the FISU technical delegate at the “Russia – country of sports” forum, she was also involved in the BDO Women’s Cup Qualifiers and many other events. She got her first volunteering experience during the organization of Barak Obama’s visit to a US town as an exchange student.
“Volunteering in such events provides a rich experience that you cannot get when working for money,” Yana Bagryanskaya says. “You can really take responsibility for an important project, show your leadership potential, develop your personal qualities. Volunteering helps in self-discipline and self-improvement. I don’t grudge the time I spent on volunteering.”
The Championship participants give positive feedback about the volunteers of the 4th European Universities Table Tennis Championship. University of Anadolu coach Turkan Nihan Sabirli expressed her gratitude to the Championship volunteers. “Since the moment we’ve arrived in Kazan we’ve been provided with a volunteer attache. We are very pleased with his work. We often see volunteers at championships but in Kazan they work wholeheartedly. If the volunteers at the Universiade-2013 will be as friendly as at this Championship Kazan will host the World Student Games without any trouble.”
Elina Faskhutdinova
Special correspondent of press center of 4th European Universities Table Tennis Championship
