Jukolan viesti as an Example of Voluntary Work in Sports

Authors

• Tero Viljanen Jyväskylän yliopisto

Abstract

Jukolan viesti is the world’s biggest orienteering relay and was awarded the 2008 Sport Event of the year in Finland.  The very first Jukolan viesti was held in 1949 near Helsinki. Jukolan viesti has separate classes for men and women with seven men in each men’s team and four women in each women’s team. Nowadays there are approximately 1,400 to 1,500 men’s teams and 900 to 1,000 women’s teams – altogether 14,000 runners in the whole competition. The organizing club of Jukolan viesti changes every year, and the competition has been organized in every part of Finland, even in the North in Lapland. The name Jukola comes from the novel ”Seven brothers“ by the Finnish national writer Aleksis Kivi. his article examines how Jukolan viesti is organized and how the organization system looks like. The association organizing Jukolan viesti is called ”Kaukametsäläiset”. Kaukametsäläiset was founded in 1948 with its main tasks to organize Jukolan viesti together with orienteering clubs and to respect the memory of Aleksis Kivi. Nowadays, 95 % of the organizing work for Jukolan viesti is done by volunteers of which there are approximately 1,500 every year. Organizing Jukolan viesti is a five-year project of 100,000 working hours. The main source for the article is an interview with the president of Kaukametsäläiset, Reimo Uljas. Other sources include common literature about voluntary work in sports and different kinds of material related to Jukolan viesti. The conclusion of this work is that Jukolan viesti is a great feat of strength by Finnish sport volunteers; it will hardly have any difficulties in attracting volunteers also in the future.