After 20 years of working in sales and marketing across the south of England, Allan Duncan was ready for retirement. However, six months in, he soon found that the sunset lifestyle was missing the crucial ingredient: purpose.

Seeking out a way to enable him to use his knowledge and experience, and to get him out of the house, he came across Sported’s Volunteer Consultant opportunities.

“The truth is I wanted to keep my brain ticking and to get out from under my wife ‘s feet,” Allan admits.

“Sported were looking at the time and I just fitted in. Met Gil Robertson [Regional Manager for South East England] and we got on like a house on fire.

“I thought to myself, I’ve been working for over 20 years, I can offer these skills. Obviously it’s a different market when you’re dealing with Sported groups, but the basic marketing and sales training is still there. So I thought ‘why not just use my knowledge instead of just throwing it away?’.”

Sported is the UK’s largest grassroots sports charity, benefiting a network of around 5,000 groups and clubs in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Volunteer Consultants like Allan are a core part of the support that Sported offers. They provide experience and expertise in a range of areas, with Allan having worked with groups on marketing and business planning.

“The majority of people I was helping were all giving up their own time, so I felt, if I can help them, because they’ve already given up their time, I can maybe make it a bit easier for them,” Allan said.

“I believe in the old Chinese proverb which is ‘if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish you feed him for life’. So all I do with all of the charities and clubs I work with is I coach them into developing their own marketing plan.”

One of the groups that Allan has been working with are TransHull CIC, a community organisation who offer a supportive, safe and welcoming space in Hull for the LGBTQ+ community.

The group were in need of some support in developing a business plan as a number of their projects were concluding and they were on the lookout for what would come next, and how they would resource and fund it.

“It’s tempting to write it yourself, but if you’re going to help them, you’ve got to get them working,” Allan adds. “So I was working closely with them developing their plan with them not for them.

“So the first thing is you sit down and say: ‘what do you what are you looking to do, how do you want to be seen or what do you want to be achieving the next three years?’

“Then you go, ‘how are you going to get there?’ And the last question, which is daft one, is ‘how do you know when you’ve got there?’

“Because you’ve got to set targets and see where you are. So we did as much as you can future proof, so you have short term objectives, long term objectives etc, but you have to have your own written and developed marketing and business plan.”

For Allan, whose professional expertise has benefited countless communities, he finds it a two-way benefit, getting something back himself from what he provides to others.

“It’s made me look at charities differently,” he concedes. “I think if you’re not involved, you think of charities ‘oh yes it’s all lovely dovely’, then I realised just how much work’s put in by the charities. So it’s given me a new outlook and realising that if you give you get something back.

“It’s not just the thank yous etc, it’s where I can see I’ve been helping some of the clubs or some of the charities, and you can see them moving forward. You think that, and maybe it’s a bit of ego, you think ‘yeah, I was part of that, I helped that.’

“You build up relationships and you see where you’re working with the groups how things are being achieved and growing.”

To volunteer your time with Sported and our network of nearly 5,000 grassroots sports clubs and organisations, sign up to become one of our Volunteer Consultants today.

Member groups can access the wealth of experience available through Volunteer Consultants by reaching out to your local Sported Team.