National Volunteer Week 2025

As part of National Volunteers Month and National Volunteers Week April 27-May 3, Swim Ontario would like to thank our hard working volunteers who give their time and commitment to help our sport and community on a daily basis. We will be highlighting many of our wonderful volunteers over the next few weeks.

It takes time.

Quite a bit of it, too, and lots of enthusiastic work with a focussed commitment and some luck thrown in. It’s one of the recipes for a success story.

That describes the efforts of Mike Blair. For him, also toss in the word “builder”.

It’s a word that involves a fair bit of explaining. For Blair, let’s start with planning. Then include items like development and structure analysis. Mention building, and it’s not just restricted to heavy work construction.

Blair, though, is familiar with that career as well. As a youngster, he was fascinated by a huge schedule located at on-site trailers. Tagging along with his father, who worked in construction, that’s where he would glare at renderings that involved the work of builders.

As a resident of North Bay, Blair has been involved in a different type of growth. This involves awareness, developing and strengthening relationships and the growing lists of volunteers to drive successful swim programs for young people.

Take a few minutes and have a conversation with Blair, who earned an Environmental Engineering degree from the University of Guelph, and what becomes evident is that he is a caring individual.

He might also be described as an architect of sorts. In his case, it’s more along the line of creating, developing and maintaining a certain culture that contributes to people wanting to commit to something larger than themselves.

Blair’s fulltime job is with the large multinational engineering firm GHD, which provides an assortment of services that include advisory and digital to energy and environmental. He works as a senior project director, building and supporting teams in delivering large scale, complex multi-discipline infrastructure projects for both municipal and private clients.

Strong people skills mixed with wisdom and success. That makes Blair just the right person for another huge responsibility. He devotes much of his time to an array of duties as president of the executive board with the North Bay ‘Y’ Titans – the only swim club in the city.

He’s also a swim official and is inching closer to reaching his Level 4 status. In Canada, Level 5 is at the top of the chart. That includes overseeing the lives of hundreds of young people on the pool deck, eager to improve their swimming skills. So, where does the husband and father of two, find the time to make everything click?

“It’s about bringing people together, building communities and nurturing relationships,” said Blair, whose swim club has 60 athletes. “I do what I do, volunteering and officiating, because the smiles I see at every swim meet, mean so much to me. By being at the pool, I can make that day, for many, so much better. For me, that’s a big reward.”

Whenever he gets the opportunity, he’s out working on ways to motivate people to get involved in various club functions – including swim meets and following their own official’s development journey. Swim meets are critical for financially supporting the club programming. Without them, and the officials required to be at them, the club would not survive.

What may not be known outside the swim community is that for meets to function, a large group of close to 100 volunteers and officials are required to put on a meet.

“(Swim) teams are reliant on volunteers or we’re just not able to function,” said Blair. “When my kids started swimming, I wanted to help. I saw it as a responsibility, rather than just be a spectator. Swimming is not a drop-off sport.”

Volunteering for Blair started 20 years ago – and he doesn’t regret it for one minute.

“I try to lead by example,” he said. “My job is to leave whatever I get involved in a little better off than I found it in the first place. We need to continue to build a positive culture, spread the load and empower people to help where they can. When it comes to volunteering, it can’t be about self-recognition.”

Blair, and the eight other members of the Board of the swim club, work hard to promote the importance and necessity of volunteering. The focus is on being replaced by others with even better ideas in the future.

“Ultimately, I want swimmers in our region to excel in life, strive to be the best and use opportunities that are available to them,” he said. “It’s all about the great good of the community – giving back and making a difference.”

April is a month when people recognize the major impact of volunteers like Blair. It’s National Volunteer Month - a time to celebrate and highlight the contributions of millions of people in Canada. People who have made, and continue to make, a major impact on the lives of others by volunteering their time to improve life in communities across the country.

In Canada, National Volunteer Week is from April 27 to May 3 and the theme is “Volunteers Make Waves” – an opportunity to highlight the power and impact of volunteer efforts.

David Grossman is a veteran multi award-winning Journalist and Broadcaster with some of Canada’s major media, including the Toronto Star and SPORTSNET 590 THE FAN, and a Public Relations professional for 50+ years in Canadian sports and Government relations.