T.J. Mulligan

Speech Writing

Dr. Lloyd Rohler

February 8, 2010

Orientation Speech

Good morning everyone! My name is Gray Lambeth and I would like to be the first to welcome you to the 2010 YMCA Volunteer Orientation. I would like to thank each one of you for being here today and deciding to volunteer for this terrific organization. It is only because of the people like you that the YMCA has become one of the nation’s leading volunteer organizations. I know that most of you are excited and ready to begin, but there are a few things that we need to go over before we can get started.

In order to adequately prepare you for your volunteer work, we will have training sessions from Monday to Friday this week starting at 9 AM. Each one of you will be expected to attend every session as they will last approximately three hours. Because of this, we encourage you to get a good night sleep and a filling breakfast each day before you arrive. We only have a short amount of time to cover a lot of material so be sure to arrive fifteen minutes early every day this week so we can get started right at 9 o’clock.

You should also dress in athletic attire which consists of tennis shoes and shorts as we will provide you with your YMCA t-shirt tomorrow. We will ask you to wear this shirt each day so be sure that it is clean as you are representing the YMCA each time you put it on.

The goal of our training sessions is not only to train you to become good volunteers, but we also want to instill a sense of team pride in each one of you. Unity and teamwork are just a few of the principles that our founder George Williams valued when he started this organization all the way back in 1844. Although that was over 150 years ago, these values still remain true in today’s YMCA and that is why we will do a variety of activities to try to instill them in you.

Some of the activities that we will be doing will include a trust fall, a ropes course, the blind-folded maze and the air bridge. Most of you probably do not know what each of these activities consists of, but they will help us form cohesiveness and teamwork. Besides that, they are also a lot of fun.

Once we accomplish this, we will then teach you some of the skills needed to become a successful program volunteer. Some of these skills include: leadership, management and situation control which will be taught to you by some of our current program volunteers. They will also teach you some procedures and safety information as the safety of our volunteers and members is always our number one priority. Therefore, we need to be prepared for certain situations and take the necessary precautions just in case an emergency does occur.

With all of that being said, I hope that each of you is as excited as I am to get this year’s Volunteer Orientation underway. Each year, I watch a group of volunteers slowly grow closer and mature as the week goes on, and I look forward to seeing that transformation in each one of you. Volunteers are the heart of every YMCA and that is why I would once again like to thank you for putting in your time and effort. It is only because of the thousands of volunteers just like you, that we have achieved as much success as we have. Thank you so much and I look forward to seeing all of you here tomorrow.