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Volunteer Needs/Opportunities: Descriptions

Updated 4/5/2025. Recent-ish changes/clarifications in pink.
Student-athletes may count team-service help before/after/outside of practices/meets toward their PVSA hours.

To sign up to serve (or to see who's on your team), go to the SignUpGenius.

To add events to the Team Calendar, follow the instructions here.

Click on any position to jump to its volunteer description.

Prayer Team
Purpose: Every season is a gift by God's grace and never to be taken for granted; there are many layers to our team's participation and community. It would is a great encouragement to know that the directors, coaches, and student-athletes are covered in prayer!

This team can be whatever you make it. Ideas from past seasons:

Volunteer Coordinator
Volunteers are key to our program’s viability. See above. :)
Further, community service is closely tied to sponsorships, and it has the added bonus of giving student-athletes the opportunity to serve, represent the home school community, and work toward goal-hours for volunteerism awards. Some of these organizations also offer college scholarships.

Seasonal volunteer position lists.

Volunteer Sign-ups. Maintain team service and fundraising events--unless you want to change something, just let us know! You do not have to attend all of these, just make sure they keep rolling and have enough volunteers. Use the master Volunteer SignUpGenius page (see link at top of this page) as a reference for committed volunteer chaperones and the Team Forum to secure additional help as needed. 

Captains' practices are the responsibility of the captains; they will create a signup for chaperones. However, some do not remember their chaperone volunteer commitment, so please remind them to sign up once the captains have posted their signup.

Errand Runner Team
Purpose: Free the coaches' time. :)

Student-Athlete Recognition Coordinator
Purpose: Northwest Homeschool Athletic Cooperative offers several ways for home schooled student-athletes to earn awards and recognition. Our desire is for our student-athletes to have as many opportunities as possible to be recognized and to help build their resumes for college/job/scholarship applications. This position covers team, state-, and national-level awards.

Must have a printer capable of printing on card stock.

Appreciation Coordinator
Purpose: We rely on local organizations to support our programs, so it is important to maintain those relationships through communication, appreciation, and recognition.

Submit any receipts to the Athletic Director (A.D.) for reimbursement.

Thank-you's. Gratitude is one of our program's key values.

Chaperone Team
Many events require additional adult supervision, including captains practices and some fundraising/service and other events.

Event signups will be available throughout the year. The biggest push for team community service is late summer. This is how we earn financial support for the team.

For captains practices, chaperones do not need to work out with the athletes, but they do need to stay for the duration and be attentive and observe as much as possible. Connect with the captains upon arrival to determine where "team camp" will be. This is where they will be doing warmups/cooldowns, leave their bags and water bottles, etc.--and they can be flexible with camp location depending on your needs as well.
 

Website Calendar Coordinator
Purpose: The Team Calendar is the hub of scheduling information for the season. It is the first place team families look for details regarding practices, meets, community service opportunities, and other team events. This position requires some technical confidence, but the website interface is fundamentally user friendly. The bulk of the work will need to be done in November (preparing for track & field) and May (preparing for cross country).

Before registration opens
Many calendar entries and accompanying details can now be Duplicated using the "Save and Duplicate" feature. Older calendar entries will have to be created from scratch. To preserve formatting, click on the "Source" button and copy that HTML code into the new event.

You can use the "Recurrence" feature of the Calendar to enter practices in bulk. Practice details can be copied forward in a similar manner within the current season (e.g., every Tuesday contains the same details). In all cases, be sure to set the "Recurrence Ending Date" to the current season to avoid eternally recurring. Once you get the hang of it, this process is more tedious than difficult.

*Double check copied-and-pasted content for any out-of-date links. Replace with "link coming soon" or ask the coaches for the new one.*

Note: sometimes protocols change from one season to the next, so you might want to doublecheck the most recent season, versus a full year back in that sport. Let us know if you ever have questions.

Throughout the season
Coaches will forward updated meet/event information to you via email for updates to the calendar. This is typically a matter of making sure that timing and other details are correct on the Team Calendar and in the Team Googledrive.

For now, coaches can continue to update the Team Calendar directly with any last-minute schedule changes.
 

Public Relations Coordinator(s) (Facebook Page)
Purpose: The purpose of public relations is to share our team's story and preserve it for the future. When local organizations sponsor our programs, it is important to show how the Nighthawks program makes a difference in our student-athletes' lives and contributes to the local community. Team supporters love being tagged in Facebook posts! With misconceptions out there about home schooled students/teams, this is a wonderful opportunity to shine. Additionally, prospective team members learn about our team through our recorded story. 

Facebook posts (approximately once per week during the season and occasionally in the off season).

Notes:

Registration Paperwork Team
Purpose: Maintaining records and applying for the privilege of competition each season involves a remarkable amount of correctly completed paperwork.

Must be detail oriented.

Read all instructions for the season's paper forms and come with yours complete. Ask questions if needed!

Team Registration Meeting helpers:

Day after registration (afternoon) helpers: Meet to organize paperwork and ensure that all is correctly filled out and complete.

Registration Team Lead (additional responsibilities):

Uniform Management Team
Purpose: Uniforms are our biggest financial asset. Caring for these is good stewardship of our resources and spares families from having to purchase their own.

The program directors will continue to work with the vendor to choose uniforms and team clothing items.

Uniforms

Pre-season

Uniform Try-On Day(s)

Early Season

Post-season:

Spike Exchange (optional)

This is an optional duty for someone who wants to provide this opportunity to our student-athletes. Verify with the coaches that the athlete is physically ready and that the spikes are appropriate for the athlete's typical event, with the understanding that the shoes will be returned to the team when outgrown, graduated, etc. See https://www.homeschool-life.com/2515/custom/65488
 

Team Tent Transport
Purpose: We participate in outdoor sports, and shelter makes life much more comfortable in imperfect conditions.

Store and transport the team tent--it's big (65" x 24" x 24")--to and from meets. You will need a large trunk or truck bed or have space to fold seats down. Must arrive at team setup time. Team members will help onsite with moving, setup, and takedown. 
 

Team Store Committee
Purpose: The Team Store is the source of team clothing and gear beyond team-issued uniforms. The priority is to offer items that allow us to arrive at meets looking sharp--it matters! Beyond that, items can be chosen for practice wear, fun, etc.

Team Store

Specialty items. To reduce costs, we collect orders manually.

Facility Care Crew

Purpose: With so few facility options, it is critical that we care for borrowed spaces and leave them as good as or better than when we arrived. Some venues no longer rent to home school groups due to disrespect and damage, and we want to be the exception--"Nighthawks Were Here" should be a good thing! Our program's future and our team's reputation depends on this.

This job could be covered by a group of student-athletes and/or parents, and anyone can take the lead/coordinator position. Feel free to split up into different days, weeks, etc.--whatever it takes to get it done.  

TRACK & FIELD

After practice: bathrooms & facility floors

Look for anything else that needs to be done. If you see anything that needs extra attention, repair, etc., let the coaches know. When possible, find something encouraging to say to a facility staff member.
 

Multimedia Team
Purpose: Everyone loves photos and videos! We use them for team publicity, thank-you cards, end-of-season banquets, and more.

Team Lead and Contributors needed.

Important Tips

Action Shots. The goal is to get at least 2-3 pictures of each team member (athletes and coaches) sometime during the season. Don't try to get multiple photos of everyone every day.

End-of-Season Slideshow

Team Picture Day (note: this has been occasionally delegated to the Appreciation Coordinator)
If needed, Coach Jennifer can do the photo-taking and hand off the data for editing and uploading.

End-of-Season Banquet Team
The purpose of end-of-season banquets is to celebrate as a team family a job well done. Each student-athlete makes a unique contribution to the team and is individually recognized by the coaches.

The Athletic Director will reserve and make payment for the Community Room at Hanover City Hall.
Randy Russell is our contact--see hanovermn.org.

Before the Banquet

Banquet Setup

After the Banquet

Team Dinner Hosts
The purpose of team dinners is to provide affordable camaraderie outside practice and competition. Not all team members can afford post-race dinners out, which is why we try to limit those. But the kids LOVE the team dinners! This is also a great opportunity to model healthy choices.

Guidelines
We will open several volunteer slots for this so that the hosting team can work together to choose dates and sites--and decide who will serve when and where.

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