A London 2012 Olympic Games Maker shift rota belonging to Gavin Jones, Games Maker, Cardiff, 2012

Disgrifiad

The shift rota of Gavin Jones from Grangetown, Cardiff, for the London 2012 Olympic Games. Gavin volunteered as a Games Maker at the London 2012 Olympic Games. He was interviewed as part of the VCS Cymru Chronicle Project and described his selection, training and experiences.

Gavin explained planning the logistics to ensure he arrived on time:
"But then as soon as I got the green light it was a whole lot of other logistics to sort out because you weren’t guaranteed accommodation, or anything, you had to find all that yourself and also work out your travel plans because they didn’t lay the travel plans, at first, for volunteers. Luckily my brother lives in Luton which isn’t quite, well it is if you’re an airport, but it isn’t really in London, but it is on the commuter belt. So I got in touch with him and said, “Can I come and stay with you for two weeks of the year” when in fact I only see him about twice a year anyway [laughs], so I was going to be sharing a house with him for two weeks. And I thought that I really couldn't get my head around the London transport system and the times and everything, especially travelling from Luton. I said, “Could you do me a favour, could you work out my times and everything.” Because they sent through the shifts and the shifts were, I didn't know, I didn't know what to expect with the shift times or everything, but they ranged from two o'clock in the afternoon to eleven at night but the real killers were at the 5:20 am times till three o'clock in the afternoon and you also had to be there half an hour before the start of the shift so I had to work out how I was going to get there, and it was normally well over an hour train journey from Luton to get anywhere near London so… So yeah my brother came back with the times and he said. “Look, you can, you can get the airport train that goes through at four o'clock in the morning [laughs] and that will get you there, and then it’s, that’s it, you’re on the route."

The Olympic website explains:
“London 2012 volunteers are called ‘Games Makers’, as they are helping to make the Games happen. The Games Maker recruitment process began in September 2010, with the London 2012 Organising Committee receiving more than 240,000 applications.
"Up to 70,000 people were chosen to become Games Makers and they will take on a wide variety of roles across the Olympic venues during the Games: from welcoming visitors to transporting athletes, helping out behind the scenes in the Technology team and making sure the results get displayed as quickly and accurately as possible."
(Source: www.olympic.org/news/volunteers-helping-to-make-the-games-happen, accessed 26/2/17.)

The private collection of Gavin Jones.
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