Motorsport UK, the governing body for UK motorsport held its first Officials Learning and Development week at the end of January with over 2,000 participants joining the online webinar series for the first time.

Normally run as a series of seminars across the British Isles at the start of the season, the current restrictions have moved the informative workshops online – with nine webinars held across the Learning and Development Week (23-29 January).

The week commenced with four sessions across the opening weekend, with Motorsport UK CEO Hugh Chambers introducing each webinar before bringing the volunteering community up to speed with the latest developments at Motorsport UK. This was then followed with a recap on the current guidance, work behind the scenes, updates to rules and regulations and the state of restrictions and progress in each of the devolved nations.

Made up of clerks of the course, stewards, timekeepers, scrutineers, rescue and recovery crews and event organisers, the delegates were then invited to further specific sessions related to their discipline or line of work in the following week.

Across the nine webinars, 2,042 members participated with the Motorsport UK panels directly answering over 800 questions during the workshops. The organised sessions were well received by the community, with over 90% feeling like they gained further knowledge for the year ahead.

Following the online group webinars, members are now invited to undertake the independent course and survey on the Motorsport UK Learning Hub. Following the completion of the course, the information will be automatically added to the members licence record and a certificate can be downloading confirming attendance.

“We are delighted with the feedback we have received from our first Officials Learning and Development Week,” said Officials Pathway Manager, James Betchley. “The current circumstances don’t allow us to hold our usual seminar series, and we have missed the yearly meet-up with many of our members. However, with our inaugural webinar series, we have been able to reach much more of our community and talk to them directly, by tailoring different sessions for different groups.

“One of the biggest advantages of holding the seminars online was the ability for our members to ask questions during the session, and these were answered by a panel of senior Motorsport UK representatives as well as highly experienced members of the motorsport community.”

“I really want to thank all of the Licensed Officials who have engaged with the learning week and have undertaken the supporting modules on the Learning Hub. We will take on board all of the feedback to ensure that we continue to improve the learning and development opportunities we provide for our members.”

The Learning and Development team would like to thank everyone for their continued support. There will be more sessions held by Motorsport UK to help train all volunteers with webinars for club officials next on the horizon.