Langley Crew - Volunteering
Volunteering
Crew is not a “drop off sport”—we need a lot of parent help—which means you have an excuse to hang out, stay involved, meet your kid's friends, and generally be a bigger part of their life. Our regattas are run entirely on volunteer power.
Mandatory Volunteer Requirements
Each family is required to fill four volunteer roles:
1 turn as a Spring Training Bus Chaperone during water training
1 turn as a VASRA volunteer
2 “elective” volunteer activities. This could be an additional turn as a bus chaperone or VASRA volunteer, as well as volunteering at an event, participating in team work groups, or assisting the launch team in the pre- and post-season.
Volunteering to provide food at an event does not count toward the four volunteer requirements
Parents who are unable to chaperone the practice buses are required to volunteer at a second regatta, or at a VASRA/Occoquan workday. For more information about all the volunteer opportunities, go to the Volunteer Opportunities section of the Parents’ Guide to Crew. For reimbursement of any personal funds spent on a volunteer activity, email a completed Reimbursement Form and scanned receipts to treasurer.langleycrew@gmail.com
Contact us at langleyrowing@gmail.com with any questions.
SafeSport Certification
SafeSport is a new program designed to protect minor athletes against abuse and provides oversight by, and a reporting process to, objective third-party individuals or entities. USRowing, which is the sponsoring organization for all our regattas, requires all volunteers over 18 to either
- be aware of the protection policies, or
- to be aware of the policies AND take the online training AND undergo a background check.
All volunteers over the age of 18 must meet the first criteria - to be aware of the protection policies. Adult volunteers must be fully SafeSport trained, which includes policy awareness, online training, and a background check, if their volunteer roles are "predictable and recurring."
More information in what qualifies as "predictable and recurring" can be found on the website's SafeSport page.
Categories of Volunteering
Langley Crew needs parents to volunteer as bus chaperones, in team support, and in VASRA support.
Bus Chaperone
Bus Chaperones are essential to Langley Crew’s success. FCPS requires an adult chaperone on each of our buses down to Sandy Run; without these chaperones every day, our athletes do not practice. Parents are required to chaperone at least once each season. Fortunately, this is light duty – you are simply required to ride the bus to the Occoquan, hang out at the park, and ride the bus back. Find out more details on our Bus Chaperones page.
Regatta Support
VASRA Regatta Support helping the Virginia Scholastic Rowing Association (VASRA). VASRA organizes and runs the regattas that we participate in, and is hugely dependent on volunteers to make it happen. Each school is assigned different volunteer duties for each regatta; if we do not fill those assignments, VASRA fines the team $50 per assignment missed. Volunteer activities include pre- and post-season work setting up the racecourse as well as regatta-day activities. Each family is required to fill one VASRA volunteer role per athlete each season. For more details, and a description of the various volunteer roles, check out the VASRA Regatta Support page.
Team Support
Team Support involves helping the Booster Club make the crew season happen. This could mean serving on the Booster Club board, assisting in fundraising, or lending a hand in the team’s social events. Time involvements vary depending on the volunteer role, but can be as little as an hour once in a while or a regular commitment of a few hours a week. Most of our volunteer activities only take a couple of hours. Learn more about the volunteer opportunities and what’s involved on our Team Support page.