A busy weekend - Part 2

Sunday morning, i got up at 7.00. First shock to the system, especially for a girl who has pretty much been travelling non stop for the last 2 weeks and hasn't has a proper lie-in in ages.


Crawl up to Stevenage, north north north London, sort of the equivalent of Basingstoke for those who know, even more roundabouts and less soul, if possible. Let's not even mention the closing of Finsbury Park station for flooding reasons (This month of April has broken all records of raining. horrible.), which was where i was supposed to switch over,nor the 15 min wait in the freezing corridor at the station before pick up time.


But hey!! still here to tell the tale, right?


So we get to the John Lewis warehouse, and i discover that thankfully there are about 20-25 of us sacrificing their Sunday to....FILL UP 7500 GOODIES BAGS for the Paralympic Athletes.






The 25000 Olympic bags were done on Friday afternoon and Saturday (all day).


target is 4000 a shift (5 hours) so it s no fooling around...












5 or 6 elements in each bag, amongst which lovely home-made pennants made by kids, sewing circles, retirement homes, you name it, from all across the UK...Beautiful and also quite moving, each being unique and full of little messages to wish the athletes the best of luck.

So we're off, everybody regroups in teams of 4-5 people and settles in packing, wrapping, putting on the palettes, putting into storage, counting etc...every gesture boring and repetitive but you can't let go as the whole chain of people depends on you and your rhythm. I met some great women and with some chit chat, speculation about delegations, the whole thing was super pleasant. In the afternoon, i chose to be a runner, ie making sure everybody has plenty of stock and getting bags from one place to another. and my, that was exhausting and super super intense.

We did so well and finished at 3.30, a whole 4 hours before the official end of the shift. The poor afternoon shifters only worked for about 30min before we wrapped it up!!

Great sense of accomplishment i can tell you...




Tomorrow i pick up my uniform!!!

A busy weekend - Part 1

This last weekend of April was Olympic for sure and full of good surprises.

Saturday, Module 4 of Training, City Edge, Dalton : I got there 40min late because of the bus taking double the amount of time it had predicted. felt super sheepish sneaking into the full room. Any way...we learned all about Doping, Ticketing for Athletes and Team Officials, a whole new raft of acronyms and weird vocabulary ( a life saving glossary is on its way says Barbara, our boss...fervently praying here), how to deal with media requests, how to use Social media before during and after the Games, and quite a few tips and tricks about Cultural Awareness. This last part what quite fun, we learned all sorts of "strange" customs, lots of laughter and quiproquos on the international tables ( they all are!)

AND AND AND AND : we learned that on Module 5  we will know to which delegation we have been assigned....not only the continent but the actual country..whoop whoop!! and that is in 3 little days for me!!! 

Of course, once she had sad that the volume in the room went u quite a notch as people started to compare dates and the preferences they have been given...a french girl, Christelle on my table is not at all on the same day as me, but i seem to be on the same day as "english only" volunteers, so i m completely confused. it feels like Christmas again, can't wait for the surprise!! 

next comes Sunday....

99 days to go!

Yes everybody noted yesterday that there were 100 days to go...i prefer the double digit!


and it feels like i have just about 99 days of training coming up...


2 days next week : 
        Module 4 
        AND
        Gift bag packing somewhere super north of London


2 days the week after : 
        Module 5...i find out which continent i'm assigned to...whoop whoop 
        AND 
        UDAC session :i get my uniform and accreditation...whoop whoop whoop!




It 's getting super real. i 'm loving it.

UDAC - u d'ac?

Silly pun i know. 
About 10 days ago, Stella McCartney revealed the Team GB outfits for the athletes..
.


Now please compare with the volunteer uniforms



not quite the same designer huh?


Anyway, i booked a slot in May to pick up my Uniform and Accreditation at UDAC ( Uniform distribution and Accreditation Center)...and here comes some criticism (no i don't live in Lalaland all the time) : the slots they offer are only on week days and only between 10am and 5pm, which means most of us actually have to take a half day off just to pick 2 tee shirts, 1 pair of pants and some accessories. Now i realise they have constraints and restrictions, but surely, some weekend  or evening pick up dates could have been arranged?




Moving on...

Welcome welcome!!!

This blog is about to step up a notch ...I am pleased to introduce you to my first ever guest blogger :

 ELKE FABIAN !!!

Current status : 
London Ambassador for the London 2012 Games 
AND 
Special Character Speaking German, Subdivision 44 in the London Olympics Opening Ceremony






No pressure Elke... :-)

Driving in the UK

So a couple of weeks back i received am email from LOCOG inviting me to do some online assessing of my driving skills...




Which i started to do at the office quite offhandedly, and then realised that i actually needed to devout a bit of time to this...not only are signposts in the UK different but weirdly the tests really micmic reallife situation and you can t just blag it.




Result was...OK!! not brilliant scores but i seem to have passed the online test.



I now just have to actually drive a car in the UK...this is a girl who loves public transport and therefore hasn't really needed any car in the last 3 years. NO PANIC, all will be well.




I will have a full day of driving test sometime in way for us to become familiar with the Olympic lanes, the official cars we will be driving and how we should behave in general. I'm guessing a lot of common sense, but hey it can't hurt.




It's really funny how i bear in mind the fact that Gamesmakers and particularly my group are supposed to be sensitive with the information given, it makes me deliberately erase some information that i've typed and suddenly my blog feels a little boring.


ah well....

All is on track

Yesterday, March 30th, the end of the IOC, after reviewing the facilities and organisation, said the following: 

London Ready to Host 'Outstanding Event,'

Remember Athens and the near fiasco, seem like we will avoid it! yi haaa,

If the organisation of the actual volunteer training is anything to go by, i really believe the IOC is right: it is ever so smooth and flexible (well 90% of it :-))

Last Saturday, i went to Module 3 which focused on Village training, ie get to understand how the Olympic village functions ( I would like to remind you that is where yours truly is going to be based this summer for 5 weeks....OMG) what it does and doesn't deliver and mostly to emphasize that is really a "home away from home" for athletes. there is no press or public allowed in the 3 villages so athletes can really relax and have everything mostly within walking distance. The Stratford Village in London ( where i ll be) will be converted into flats after the games. They showed us how they have been furnishing and modifying the housing to make this work, fulfilling the needs of the IOC and the athletes in the meantime...quite clever if i may say so myself!!

They also did a team exercise where we had to build the tallest tower out of 20 pieces of spaghetti, a marshmallow, a piece of string and some scotch tape....that was super fun, and my team came in second best, at the astounding height of 68cm...Try it at home, it s fun and makes your brain work.

actually quite a bit has happened so i ll put up another post in the next couple of days....