Games Maker Day 6

Well a little later than expected (...only 3 months later) I am finally getting a chance to update my blog!

"Surely you won't remember" I hear you say... well fear not! Every single moment, memory and conversation captured is still as clear as day!

So, day 6.. Wednesday - I  had Tuesday off (yaaaaaaay) hence skipping a day on the blog!

Today we arrived as usual for our morning briefing under the lip of the aquatics centre roof. We were greeted by the ever so loud and flamboyant Mary (Staffing Manager) who instigated her usual morning "hokey kokey" dance followed by her own version of "heads, shoulders, knees and toes"!

Today we were given a horrible colour so as in true GM style we switched (again) to Pink with Michael as our Team Leader. Pink was Britannia Row - we were stationed by the Copper Box which held Goalball. We were at the end of the bridge and supposed to be in charge of controlling the traffic flow, as well as the normal CDM Games Maker duties of giving directions to venues, toilets, ticketing queries and of course not forgetting the big bowl shaped structure a.k.a. The Olympic Stadium! :-) We seem to be answering many, many questions every day and we must be close to nearly 2,012 questions!

As you can see from the photo I took above, the Copper Box (situated behind the big RUN sculpture which is a piece of the "Art in the Park") is not very copper looking - it is more black! One of the most common questions when stationed near the Copper Box seemed to be "Why is it called the copper box?". Well, it is called the Copper Box as the top half of the Copper Box is clad in 3,000 sq metres of external copper cladding which has been recycled. As it ages it will have a unique appearance that will develop a rich natural copper colour.

Just where we were was right by the programme stand so all day we could hear this young lady shouting "get your programmes" it was just like being on a market stall really. I think by the end of the day I was going to be dreaming about the special offer on programmes. The crowd control is probably one of the hardest things as you can imagine trying to get thousands of spectators to move to / walk down one side of the bridge right by the BBC studios was no mean feat especially when the security guys weren't exactly helping.

We all went off and had our lunch breaks. As the temperature was slowly increasing there began to be a sever lack of cold food selections in the workforce dining area - this lead to me having the same thing for about 4 days... Falafel and Humous Salad, followed by the obligatory Banana, bottle of drink and of course the trusty Nature Valley bar!

At the end of our shift we all decided to go for a drink one of the bars just outside of the park. We ended up going to the outdoors Heineken bar which had a large screen showing C4's coverage of the Games. There was a few of us so we sat down on one of the picnic bench tables as you can see from the photo below.

We stayed for several hours and had many conversations with passers by, spectators, staff and even athletes from Cameroon. Towards the end of the evening our party size was dwindling and there was just Laura, Matt and I left. We chatted and spoke to the Athletes from Cameroon as you can see below.

We then got chatting to various members of the RAF and Royal Navy. It was so surreal just turning round and having conversations with the Armed Forces. Sometimes you forget that they are just "normal people" too! They were drinking Pimms and we pitched in and bought them a couple of pitchers just to say thanks for all that they have done over the London 2012 Games. Many people didn't realise these serving members of the armed forces gave up their leave and time off to stay at Hainault and commute down to Stratford every day at 4.00am on coaches to man the security gates - they often worked over 16 hour shifts with very few breaks!

All in all it was another great day and ended off nicely by spending time relaxing and chatting to various people who were also very humbled by all the volunteers efforts at the Games.

Until next time and thanks for reading... x

Game Maker Day 5

Well today was a pretty awesome day too actually!

It all started off early again actually. Easier today though as it was Monday and the trains are back to normal. I must say though, that it's the only Monday I've ever worked where I have been happy to work on a Monday. :-)

We got deployed to blue team again which was a bit disappointing as we fancied a change, however, after the briefing we saw our old team leader Michael who was short so we moved to his team (we were going to move anyway as we didn't really want blue) which was pink which is Britannia Row in Sector 4. This area of the park is one of the busiest as you have to come past us to make your way to Eton Manor, Riverbank Arena, Basketball Arena and the large screen also known as Park Live.

It started of with Laura and Lou on BOH access point Alpha and Matt and myself on BOH access point Bravo. We chose to cover these first so we could get it out of the way and over and done with as quick as possible as this is fairly boring - for those of you that don't know it involves checking the acronyms on people's accreditation to ensure they are allowed access to this BOH area. We then went for breakfast and I spoke to a few people I had met on previous days and it was nice to catch up with them.

We got back to our area and Matt and myself were by the bridge which was quite busy. We dealt with the usual queries from spectators and guests and this helped pass the time. It was exceptionally busy today on the park as there was actually 5,000 selected Sainsbury's staff that had tickets for several events throughout the day. This was as a sort of reward and recognition thing for around 5-6 staff from nearly every store over the whole country apparently.

We suddenly got a quiet period between venue ingress and egress and Matt and myself took the opportunity to go and visit the Coca-Cola sponsor showcase (The Beat Box) - it was designed by Londoner Asif Khan.We asked how long it would take and they told us 20 minutes and eventually the showcase team persuaded is to go in. I can't really describe it. It was great and very interactive and especially good for kids. You start by walking around the outside and you touch and play with the interactive panels that make up the structure.
These interactive panels play sounds that make up part of the Mark Ronson ft. Katy B sound track used to promote and advertise the games and Coca-Cola. Once you get to the top after recreating the soundtrack you can have your photo with the Paralympic torch with the Olympic Stadium as the backdrop - best of all it's free! On the way down you go past the name of several torch bearers and some of the future flames which vary from actors, performers, doctors and architects! At the bottom you are given a limited edition aluminium bottle of Coca-Cola which you drink whilst celebrating the future flames in the circular room whilst listening to the move to the beat song.

We spoke to Michael and the other sector 4 team leader and had a general chat about the volunteering and Paralympics in general - this was good as we got to chat to him for quite some time and also about several of the other team leaders. The other TL then has us a ticket for the athletics. Michael offered it to Matt and myself. I then said to Matt that he could go as I would be seeing some athletics on Thursday night. He had a great time and even saw the David Weir victory ceremony. We heard the roars from the stadium whilst we were in the workforce canteen, it sounded incredible.

The afternoon was fairly busy too, we started off in the same area as earlier on that day which was good and the afternoon went really quickly actually. There's a rule that we aren't really supposed to give out maps to spectators for some reason. I think it's to do with being a sustainable games. Anyway, I gave out the most I've ever given out yesterday. I seemed to be handing them out to everyone who walked past at some point. For some time now we'd seen an American sitting on a bench about 50m away from us. He went to get lunch and Michael our team leader went and spoke to him. He came over with him to Laura, Lou and myself. It turns out he was John Register an American athlete who won Silver at the Sydney Games in 2000 for long jump. John used to participate in the Olympics until he severed an artery and eventually had to have his leg amputated above the knee. He took part in swimming just 18months after his operation and then eventually built up enough strength to take part in long jump. We got to see Johns Silver medal and hold it. He then let us wear it and pose for photos. This was a bad idea as once the four of us had it members of the public started queuing up to have their photos with him. It was quite ironic as I don't actually think they even knew who he was! Anyway he left as he was presenting at a nearby hotel later that afternoon.

Eventually it was time to go home and our relief came to take over. We were all looking forward to this point as most of us lot have got a day off on Tuesday. Yaaaaay!

Our relief were having their briefing and Michael said we could leave. Matt and I thought we should walk back through the gardens on the way back up towards Stratford gate as it was less busy than going across and down Britannia Row. As we got half way across the bridge a spectator came running over to us and shouting about a little boy being badly injured. The first thought that ran through both mine and Matt's mind was "oh my god the kids fallen into the river!" but thankfully we didn't have to jump in after anyone. There was a little boy down below lying on a bench with a severe cut to his forehead. I ran towards the nearest security marshal with a radio as I didn't have one on me at that point. She radioed through to the VCC. Matt and I ran down to the scene to help out before the first aid team got there. But there was no first aid in sight. I ran back up to the closest first aid which was med centre alpha up by street market and showed Tim the medic where to find the boy. We left the wheelchair and ran back down. I then ran back to collect the chair so we could take him back up safely and look at his injury more closely. On the way up, Rhys, the little boy was crying so I gave him my one an only limited edition Coca-Cola pin marking 500 days to go until the games. He was chuffed and automatically stopped crying. Matt and I made our way back up stopping the crowds and people walking in the path and once in the med centre filled out our LOCOG Incident Report Card and checked if him, the parents and his little brother were okay. Once we found out they were we headed off home around an hour later than we should have.

And that's the end of that eventful fun packed day... I'm looking forward to having tomorrow off and doing very little at all. Although I say that now but I'm sure I'll end up keeping myself busy and watching all the latest sporting events on Channel 4 in between the numerous ad breaks they seem to be cramming in every 5 minutes!

Games Maker Day 4

Day for was supposed to be my second day of late shifts! Seeing as I had enjoyed the early starts and the buzz that was around the Olympic Park in the mornings I decided to change all my shifts to early apart from the final Sunday (9th September) as this was the Closing Ceremony and this would mark the end of London 2012! 

So yet another early start, which by now I didn't really mind as I have done a few now. It started of with me waiting for a few others before we checked in. As this was a Sunday there was a few travel problems so we didn't actually arrive until about 7.15, however, I still had to leave at pretty much the same early time to make my connections. We got placed on orange today which is Sector 6. So this was from the Acer sponsor showcase all the way down to the Eton Manor walk which is towards the wheelchair tennis. We headed off on our 20 minute walk over to the information point to meet our team leader for the day. This was Phil, a nice older gentleman who seemed to be well knowledgeable about the area we were working in. We started off by going for a quick reccie to see what was in the area, we walked around Street Market to see what this had to offer so we could correctly inform the spectators and guests if they asked us. 

It was raining today so as usual we go issued with the horrendous plastic "Next" branded ponchos - these didn't last long as the rain was just a quick light shower for an hour or so and then it was time to take of the jackets as the British sun came out again this morning. As you can see we had great fun getting Laura back into her poncho after she had her photo with the marching band. 

A couple of hours had passed and it was our turn to go on our break so we headed over to breakfast. As usual on the way stopping to help anyone who looked lost/wanted photos taking or just general information about the park. It was a bit of a surprise today too - we had Matt and Alice on our team again which was nice as we all know each other quit well now as we've been together a few times previously. It's good to be with a few familiar faces as you get to know people, have a laugh and enjoy yourself. Upon returning to post we got to see the marching band among a few other acts around the park. 

During this stage of the whole Games Maker experience I have done most of the various positions available. These are ticketing on Stratford Gate (Blue), Ticketing and Way-finding on Greenway Gate (Green), Info Point on Greenway Gate, Crowd Management and Venue Ingress and Egress across the Olympic Park. The two areas I haven't worked on yet are Orbit Circus (Sector 2 - Red) and World Square (Sector 4 - Yellow).


After heading over to the information point to pick up some maps we picked up the large Mandeville cardboard cut-out. I carried this around Sector 6 and this gave the little kiddies a chance to have their photo with it, along with a few adults too I must add! I got spotted by the medical team and they asked if we could take it over to see a couple of kids in Medical Centre Alpha. After pleasing the kid the team of first aiders got to work on "fixing up" Mandeville. He wasn't too well so after picking him up in the Medical buggy he was whisked into a treatment bed to be seen to. He had his blood pressure and temperature checked and after a few minute he seemed back to normal - maybe this was something to do with the kind people from Cadbury's Chocolate bring round some Heroes for all the volunteers! :-)

 Anyway enough of that.... after lunch we spent the afternoon chatting to spectators, directing people, answering queries etc. and we got wind of the fact there was a day pass ticket working its way round our team of 20 odd Games Makers! This automatically made our ears prick up. We would ave the chance to go and see some live basket ball action in the Basketball arena. Eventually it got round to my turn after the others and when I got to go in this was absolutely incredible. No way at all does the Basketball arena look temporary - it the the largest temporary venue on the park and is ten stories high! Once inside the atmosphere was electric. The crowds cheering, the teams chanting, the noise was amazing and there wasn't even a competition on at the moment, they were just warming up! The teams were Canada and Germany who were about to kick off before I made a swift exit to allow both Alice and Matt the chance to come in before we had to go for the day. I left and let Alice in with the ticket, once Alice was out I waited for Matt and we headed back towards Stratford to make our way home.

Another fairly busy day today which ended on yet another high as we got to see some Basketball action in the Basketball Arena.

Until next time people and thanks for reading Day 4 of my Games Maker journey!

Games Maker Day 3

Well today was another early start where I headed off around 4.15am. It seemed strange getting on the tube today, it felt like there was a lot less volunteers on the tube and a lot more Friday night drunks on the first tube home from their wild night out in town. This morning I met a couple of other Games Makers at Cherry Park check-in where we pleaded to be put on a more lively site such as yellow, however, this team was already full so we got stuck on blue - a first for the other two but a second time for myself and Alice.


Surprise surprise... our TL for the day was again Michael. we strolled down to our gates for the morning and we were on lanes C & D (I would have taken a photo but no one is allowed to take photographs in the PSA). By the time we'd had our briefing it was time to open up. Our TL had to pop off a few times and he asked me to explain the breakfast situation to all the 16 Games Makers on our team. We had a very quiet start that seemed to pick up very quickly until the point whereby no one on our team got to go and have breakfast except from those who went very early before the busy period and those who complained to Michael or myself in his absence! This was a bit extreme as it wasn't actually a suggestion from Michael, it came from the Security Group Leader for our lanes.

Anyway, swiftly moving on... after a morning of scanning tickets at the PSA, resolving spectator queries and manually entering the ridiculous print at home tickets that don't print correctly it was nearly time to think about shutting a few lanes down. Ours was a fairly quiet lane compared to others in Stratford Gate so ours started to close at 11.00am.

Before the final lanes closed there was a lady with her 3-4 year old excited son who was bought over to me by one of the other team members as Michael was busy and I had his radio - the ticket was reading as "refund" which I knew by this point meant they had been refunded and re-sold. So not to upset the little boy I offered to take them over to the Box Office to find out the whole story with regards to these particular tickets. I left it in the hands of Box Office who were trying to find any spare tickets available for them to purchase instead as they'd made their way all the way from Norwich.

After all our lanes closed we had the chance to go and get something to eat and have a bit of a sit down in the workforce break area. And as our lanes didn't open again until 3pm we didn't have to go back until then!

After lunch there was about 6 of us (Michael, Louise, Laura, Alice, Matt and myself) who went for a bit of a wonder around the park. We went into various showcases to see what they were all about in case anyone asked us. It was interesting that you can actually view the past energy data and energy consumption for each venue since it was built if that your kind of thing!? We then tried to blag our way into the Stadium, however, as boldly as we walked up to the security gates we got refused entry as our accreditation doesn't say STA (Stadium). It was worth a try though as you never know! Hopefully closer to the last day the games makers will get a chance to go and view it inside. Well those who haven't had a chance to get tickets anyway. Then we went and had a bit of another sit down, this time in the public areas near Park Live. This was good, we got to see various sporting events on the large screen. By this time it was getting closer to 3pm so on our way back towards our team leader we stopped off at the Coca-Cola pin trading centre. Now this was a whole new experience! We are new to the whole pin thing, however, we had a brief explanation inside as to how this works so we got going. We selected 2 pins each and I chose one of the Velodrome and another one of me holding the Paralmpic torch! :-) (photo above) On the way out we said goodbye to a couple of people and that was us done for the day.

Until tomorrow....

Games Maker Day 2

Today was my second day at the Olympic Park. It was also my first of two early shifts! This involved a very early start at approx 3.30am before I had to leave to get there on time. Seeing as tubes and trains don't run until later I was supposed to be getting three/four buses to my shift travelling from Wimbledon all the way to Stratford, however, I somehow managed to persuade my Dad to drop me off at Waterloo on his way to work. It was completely out of his way but hey-ho he didn't mind and I think he felt like he was doing his bit to make the games happen my dropping me off. I then jumped on the very first Jubilee line train of the day for the short 20minute ride to Stratford. I was completely surrounded by other Games Makers on the tube. It was almost surreal as everywhere I turned there was just a mass of red and "poppy" coloured uniforms. Once we arrived at the station there was even more all eagerly making their way towards the check-in areas. I wasn't so keen and eager as it was still only like 5.50am and I hadn't woken up properly yet.

After doing the usual business of checking-in and going to grab a drink from the workforce area we congregated under the aquatics centre roof for our morning briefing. After this we split up into out own individual teams  - ours was green for the day which was Greenway Gate. I had already had some previous experience of being on a gate, however, there was quite a contrast between Stratford Gate ad Greenway Gate. So much so that there is something like 95% of spectators using Stratford and the remaining 5% using the Greenway, Eton Manor and Victoria entrances. It started painfully slow and Suzi (another GM I had met) and I were on the end gate doing ticket entry scanning, I think over a 1.5hour period we didn't scan one single ticket. After having our break for Breakfast at 8.15am I moved down to join one of the other teams which was being led by a team leader called Michael. This was much more fun and I must say I met some pretty cool people today. We kept smiling throughout the day and the banter was flowing throughout the 6/7 of us standing down directing people under the bridges into Orbit Circus. At one point we all got a complete bollocking from another team member from the info point for giving out Olympic Park maps instead of the newly branded Paralympic maps! Of course, this became the joke of the day and we would think of every little thing whereby we could bring up the maps as part of a conversation. The main person involved in this was "Map Boy" a.k.a. Ben and Michael our team leader. We also played little games between us and this involved slipping in random words into conversations with spectators/sponsors/forces etc. The words were: trousers, hat, hair, sausage and saveloy. I think in the end it was between Michael, Ben and myself (I even got double points for slipping it into a conversation with a police officer)! :-) By this point of the day I was glad I had joined part of Michael's team as the whole experience of volunteering is about having a laugh, getting to help the spectators etc and making them feel like part of the games. 

So a few hours passed and after lunch it was another quite period where we went back to Greenway Gate. We scanned a few more tickets (the first of the day for me), directed a few more spectators and even got to look after things on the Info Point at one point which I'm sure was much of a disappointment for "stressy" when she found out we covered for her! As the late shift came on duty at 1.30pm they'd had their main briefing and they came over to join us at Greenway Gate around 2.45pm which is when we started to get ready to head off home at 3pm. We got checked off by our team leader and off we went... another fairly quiet day at the Olympic Park but it's all part of the experience!

On the walk back through the park we had to stop several times for Laura who wanted her photo taken with every man in uniform starting with the "Policemen with big guns". I'm sure tomorrow she'll be after the armed forces or some other sort...

As we were exiting the park we walked through the new Stratford Westfield Shopping Centre avoiding the snipers on the roof of Holiday Inn (picture below) where we were on the look out for every "freebie" possible! We started off at The Body Shop where Games Maker's get a free tub of body butter, I though to myself don't worry that's one Christmas present to cross off the list! We then waited for Louise who was in a rather long loo queue and I saw the Swatch watch shop, we looked at the other London2012 watches which all retail at £38.00+ and the guy came over and said that ours as part of the GM uniform are worth much more due to the rarity as there's only 70,000 (ish). Whilst waiting he even cleaned mine and removed some scratches from the clock face - now that's what you call good service. Next stop was the Nivea stand - all we had to do was take a photo (picture below) to get a free "goody bag" for Men or Women. I am yet to investigate further as to what was in this bag. Finally, we stopped off at the Samsung stand on our way out to the tube. We managed to get all four of us (Laura, Louise, Ben and myself) into a photo and we got this made into a pin badge (photo below). 

Three of us are all on early shifts tomorrow so we arranged to meet outside our check-in area in the morning so we could get in the same team again as its always nice knowing a familiar face - especially at 5.45am!

I'm on my last early shift tomorrow morning - 5hours, 15minutes and counting until it's time for my alarm to go off so I bid you goodnight! Thanks for reading. 

Games Maker Day 1

WOW.. It's finally here! Day 1 of being a Games Maker for the London 2012 Olympics.

My first day wasn't too bad, I didn't have an early start as I was working at the Opening Ceremony. The team I am part of is Event Services (EVS) in the Common Domain (CDM) which is the biggest staffing team at the Games - we look after all the "common" areas of the Olympic Park such as the areas between all the venues, entrance gates, access control points etc.

When I picked up my uniform from the Uniform Distribution and Accreditation Centre in West Ham earlier in the month, I was given a Paralympic Volunteer Oyster Card to travel to and from my shifts. This is great apart from the fact I live just too far out of the Zones 1-6 where this is valid! I had two options - I could pay and get the train from my home town or I could drive to Wimbledon where I usually work, leave my car there and use the free travel courtesy of London2012 and TfL. I opted for the easier and slightly cheaper version on leaving my car in Wimbledon. I then made my way to the train station, got on the fast train to Waterloo where I hopped on the Jubilee line for my short trip to Stratford.

Upon arriving at Stratford I realised I was completely surrounded by a sea of purple and "poppy" clad volunteers all making their way to the Olympic Park. I followed in suite and once through the initial accreditation checks made my way to check-in for my shift. Ahh.. seeing as the Opening Ceremony hadn't even started and there was no spectators in yet I realised that everyone was only just coming on shift and obviously, as you can imagine, there was a very long queue of volunteers waiting to check-in and get that all important meal voucher! After standing around in the rain for quite some time in various queues we were all assigned a team and my team for the day was the blue team (Stratford Gate).

I had already started talking to a couple of other volunteers in the queue and we headed down to get some lunch and go for our afternoon briefing. This is where the volunteers are told about the daily schedule, any planned events, special instructions etc. Today they talked about the Opening Ceremony plans and at the end our staffing manager was making jokes about the Paralympic Torch running 2.5 hours late! After the briefing we headed down to our area where we got assigned a post - or should I say a task. Our team leader was a gentleman called George. Also in our team were 2 ex-Olympic team leaders (no names mentioned!) who too thought they could take over and tell everyone what to do. It got quite annoying and the few GM's that I'd already spoken too found them annoying as well to the point we made our own way down the Stratford Walk to meet and greet spectators. This involved directing them to the nearest facilities, taking photos of them in front of the Stadium and the rather controversial structure that the majority of people don't like a.k.a. the Orbit. At one point I was filmed in the backdrop to APF interviews (a french company) - still yet to find the footage thank goodness!

After the crowds came through it started to dwindle down quite a bit and George came to see the 4 of us and told us to go and have dinner. We eventually found the Aquatics/Water Polo workforce break area and stayed there until it was time to come back. Upon arrival back at our post there was hardly any crowds left entering the Park, no sign of any of our team or our team leader so we went for a walk down the bridge E which was closed to the public due to the Athletes parade. We stood around there for about 2-3 hours and managed to see the whole entirety of the Athletes parade as they made their way into to 80,000 strong crowd inside the Olympic Stadium. It was really great to see such inspirational athletes being so cheery and happy about representing their country in the Paralympic Games. Half of the time I think we spent trying to work out which country was which by deciphering the shortened country name and looking at the flag on the placards - which is easier said than done! However, we were with another volunteer called Cameron who I'd met right at the beginning of the day in the check in queue - he was probably the best out of us all at naming the flags/countries (it maybe something to do with him being an International Relations student that helps)! :-)

The other good part of being down at the athletes parade was getting to talk to some of the athletes themselves. We had various different athletes from different countries and sports come and talk to us. A few of these were: a guy from the Colombian Track and Road cycling team (Diego German Duenas Gomez - Photo right) and two members of the USA 7-a-side Men's Football team (Adam Ballou and Jerreme Wade) who are both taking part in their first ever Paralympics. It was nice to get a chance to chat to them and we wished them luck in their competitions and they took a few photos before they where briskly whisked along to go into the Stadium.

At the end of the athletes parade we made our way back to the Stratford gate for egress via the workforce break area to grab a coffee to warm up as it was a pretty cold night. Upon arriving back at the bridge all posts had already been covered, there was no sign of our team leader and several of us had to make our way back so we didn't miss our trains etc.

We said goodbye to the GM's we'd been with most of the day - I'm not sure if I'll see them again as some of us are on early shifts and some on late shifts.

I then made my way home and there we are... the end of day 1! Already looking forward to my second shift on Friday despite the fact it means a 4am start! (I'm writing this late, it's now Thursday night at 23:46 and I should really get some sleep now before my early morning.)

Until next time....