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!