The Queensland Parliament’s Report No 4 in September 2025 ‘Inquiry into volunteering in Queensland’ summarises the volunteering challenge.
‘Volunteering is vital to Queensland’s economy, society, and disaster resilience, yet it is under threat from declining participation and systemic barriers.’
People volunteer for many reasons. For them to keep doing so, individual motivation must trump the dis-incentive factors – time, bureaucracy and others.
This presentation shows how one SES group uses the tools that the SES possesses, together with easily accessible technology in both challenging and routine events to provide the incentive that keeps people volunteering.
Big events are an easy opportunity. Moggill SES Group provides the safety organisation for the Brisbane Kokoda Challenge, which bills itself as Australia’s toughest team endurance event held on Australia’s East coast. The events are part of a programme that inspires youngsters to achieve remarkable things.
For the SES, it is a terrific opportunity to practise skills, use initiative and support the community. Planning for it is based on four principles:
•     Use volunteer time to best effect
•     Empower initiative through technology
•     Communicate clearly about what to do.
•     Make it fun!
The presentation illustrates these principles through the lens of the Kokoda event. It covers event planning and shows how detailed instructions for each individual ensures volunteer time is best used. It shows how technology empowers initiative and enables coordination of effort by SES volunteers who will never all meet.
It then shows how the same principles can be applied to the regular training nights that are key to building volunteer capability – defined here as the integration of equipment, knowledge, and culture.
It concludes that technology, initiative and fun can provide the motivation that sustains volunteering, and that simple, long-understood measures can also generate enjoyment that becomes its own incentive.