THE value of volunteers, particularly Wagin Woolorama volunteers, is something close to Maxine McKenzie's heart.
When she moved to the district in 2014 and applied for the role of secretary, she didn't know much about it.
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Her first Woolorama was in 2015 when Malcolm Edward was president and she met the spirit of Woolorama.
"Being in a new position and not knowing anyone or anything it felt like I was being carried on the crest of a wave," Ms McKenzie said.
"The people just came from everywhere and made the show happen and it was a remarkable experience to be part of that.
"Woolorama is a well-oiled machine that happens every year using the collective pool of knowledge and experience that makes the magic happen."
Ms McKenzie said while the appearance and essence of Woolorama had remained a constant, the Wagin Agricultural Society had always strived to make Woolorama fresh, well-managed and compliant with the legislation surrounding community organisations.
This year the committee has responded to new workplace health and safety requirements and the increasing difficulties in recruiting and retaining volunteers by appointing Ms McKenzie to a new volunteer co-ordinator role.
During her term as secretary Ms McKenzie was instrumental in rewriting the constitution when legislation was introduced forcing all organisations to bring these complex documents up to date.
She is now reviewing the organisation's roles and responsibilities for all positions documenting standard head stewards operating procedures in all sections.
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This time, working in a voluntary capacity, her first aim is to work with each head steward to demystify their Woolorama volunteer magic by finding out who actually does what job and develop a volunteer register.
This will enable the many individual volunteer contributions to be recorded and recognise the people and their roles, which in turn will feed into the risk management planning to ensure the appropriate duty of care plan is in place for all volunteers.
Woolorama spokeswoman Amy Kippin said the role had been derived from 2021 when they ran the event under an enforced COVID plan and there was a requirement to identify and train all volunteers.
"We realised we had hundreds of volunteers who came in and did their bit over the weekend and didn't have any record of it," Ms Kippin said.
"At the same time we also found some needed a little bit more support, and often it was a quick fix that could make their task easier."
It is hoped the co-ordinator role look closely at how Woolorama engages with volunteers and improve their long-term retention rate.
Woolorama president Paul Powell said the committee believed it needs to look differently at how they viewed their volunteers.
"It is a general belief volunteers are on the decline but it may be we haven't been looking in the right pool," Mr Powell said.
"We tend to be looking for younger people and wondering why aren't the young ones coming through.
"Perhaps that is at the expense of not tapping into the resource of older people who are looking for something to do and have many of the skills already."
They acknowledge Woolorama is a great platform for young people to come in and develop skills whether it be leadership skills or their passion and skills within the section they are interested in.
Regardless of what volunteers are seeking, Ms McKenzie said it would be interesting to start the evaluation.
It will be her task to help people new to town and other longer-term residents to engage with Woolorama saying a big part of the role aimed to make people aware of how they could be involved.
