For Shawn McCormick, volunteering is a year-round job. In the summer, the regional director for Atlantic Canada with Toronto-based RBC Life Insurance Co. supports young paddlers. In the winter, he devotes his energy to helping young hockey players.

Sitting on the sidelines is not an option, says McCormick, a resident of Dartmouth, N.S.: “Somebody has to do it. If you’re going to be there [watching], why not be involved?”

McCormick’s active involvement with the Senobe Aquatic Club — the largest paddling club in Nova Scotia — began last year, when the non-profit organization was looking for someone to chair a committee to send two rowing teams to the 2010 National Championships in Regina. The goal was to enlist 28 paddlers and two coxswains, then transport them and two war canoes to the event.

Goal accomplished. The teams went on to take top honours in the 1,000-metre races — considered the “big” races of paddling events. Says McCormick: “We won gold in men’s and women’s war canoe.”

Getting to gold involved organizing several fundraisers, traditional and otherwise. Efforts included the tried-and-true bottle drive and the more appetizing sit-down pasta dinner, at which the fundraising committee also ran the bar. In the end, there was approximately $5,000 in the coffers, a major contribution to the $700 airfare each participant had to pay as well as the $500 per person in admission fees and other expenses.

McCormick will return as chairman of the paddling club’s nationals committee next season. He also is now on Senobe’s board of directors. Not a paddler until recently, McCormick is also training to take part in the Masters Paddling Championship — for “older people,” McCormick says — which follows the Nationals.

During the winter, McCormick offers his organizational skills to the Dartmouth Whalers Minor Hockey Association. For two years, he served as vice president of the Atom division; then he spent two more years as vice president of the Peewee division. “When you’re the VP of a division, your main responsibility initially is to oversee tryouts,” McCormick says. “In the first 14 days, you spend 80 hours organizing. The rest of the year, you’re the sounding board.”

This year, McCormick is serving as executive vice president. Next year, as president, he will lead the starting lineup.

McCormick has been lacing up his skates since age five and well into his teens. “I played as a kid,” says the winger, “and I still play.”

McCormick’s sons — Ian, 13 and Colin, 16 — play, too, a primary reason for McCormick’s involvement. His efforts for the DWMHA have been honoured by the RBC Local Hockey Leaders program, which every year recognizes bank employees who donate their time to hockey programs. The RBC program names one volunteer from each region across Canada and selects a national honoree. The 2009 honoree was McCormick.

RBC also donates $10,000 to a local hockey cause selected by the recipient. McCormick allocated his money to a local centre for hockey training.

How does McCormick fit all this in? “You just find the time,” he says. “You’re either up early or up late. It gets done.” IE