30 Apr Volunteers needed for upcoming events across Torbay

Volunteers make the world go round. Fact.

It is difficult to envisage a world without volunteers, except to say it would be a much poorer place without them, with fewer organisations, groups and events.

Thankfully, volunteers are everywhere, working at every level to ensure that lives are enriched, sports are played, money is raised, and events go ahead.

It can be surprising to realise just how much volunteers deliver until you sit down to organise something that relies upon them, so much so that something would not exist without them.

The annual English Riviera Airshow relies on volunteers, and organisers are once again looking for enthusiastic volunteers and supporters to join the crew and help make this year’s event a huge success.

Planning is underway for the two-day flying spectacular to return to the English Riviera on Saturday 31 May and Sunday 1 June 2025, with a ‘Take Off’ opening night event on Friday 30 May to start the weekend – but it can’t be done without volunteers.

Volunteers are crucial to the smooth running of the event. They help with everything from selling programmes, collecting donations, helping with the ground crew, offering information to the public, and acting as marshals.

As with previous years, organisers are being as flexible as possible, and you can sign up to volunteer on your own, with a friend, relative, or perhaps your local community group. And you can choose how long you want to volunteer for, whether it’s just a half day or the whole weekend.

But that is by no means the only big event that requires dozens of volunteers to ensure its success; that is taking place in the Bay this year, and there are quite a few.

A few weeks ago, Rowcroft staged the Big Tackle, which involved an eight-mile walk around Torquay by more than 1100 people who raised more than £110,000. But that would not have been possible without an army of volunteers ensuring it all went smoothly and everyone was kept safe and supported.

Later this year, the suicide prevention initiative, the Baton of Hope, comes to Torbay, and planning is underway to enable more than 100 people to carry the Baton in a relay from Torquay to Brixham via Paignton and then back to Torquay.

Suicide survivors and those bereaved by suicide are being offered the chance to carry the Baton in honour of their own survival or in memory of a loved one lost, and the uptake in the Bay, where suicide figures are higher than the national average, has, not surprisingly, been high.

The tour will be passing through 20 towns and cities, starting in Blackpool on 1 September and ending in London on 10 October. Torbay is the only location in the South West to host the baton tour on Tuesday, September 30^th.

What the public will see and remember will be a parade of baton bearers and the celebration at the end of the day in Princess Gardens, what they will not see nor remember will be the more than 100 volunteers who will be making it all possible.

They may well be wearing high-viz jackets to ensure the safety of the walkers, but all eyes will be on the Baton and those who have the honour of carrying it. The volunteers, as important as they are, will be all but invisible. Job done, they will remain in the background.

Without them, the Baton of Hope event could not take place, as it will be the volunteers who will be ensuring the safety of all involved and making sure it all goes smoothly.

On paper, it looks simple – a walk from Princess Gardens up to the Town Hall, then onto the High Street, the Lyceum Theatre, Melville Street, Rock Walk and Torre Abbey Gardens, with the Baton changing hands every 200 or 300 metres. But that is a lot of roads, a lot of roads and a lot of traffic. Cue the volunteers keeping everyone safe.

Repeat the exercise in Paignton and Brixham, add a train ride and a dash back across the Bay by boat before a celebration event back in the Princess Gardens, and you get the picture – it needs a lot of volunteers.

Please get involved by emailing Matt Dart – [email protected]