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The Morleys, Olympic volunteers

A once in a lifetime experience.

We started our Olympic journey last year when John and I discovered that, whilst we might not be up to competing in the Games, we could contribute in our own small way to this fantastic event as volunteers. We felt it might be a once in a lifetime experience.

John opted for the Drivers Team and will be based at the Stadium driving VIPs, press and other personnel to venues and I went for the Medical Team and have an Administrative role based at the Olympic Village in the Medical Centre.

Orientation

We attended an Orientation Meeting at Wembley Stadium. Jonathan Edwards, Seb Coe and Eddy Izzard were amongst the presenters who told us more about the Gamesmaker journey. It was quite impressive to learn that there were originally 225,000 people who applied and out of these over 70,000 had been selected. We have been amazed how far people are prepared to travel to take part - I have met people from Cardiff, Guildford, Manchester and even a lady who has been flying over from Gibraltar for her training events.

'Cool!'

We are currently attending further Training events which are role specific. John is getting used to driving round London and learning about the Olympic routes. I am shortly to receive role specific training at the Olympic Village. All of our family and friends are, I think, proud of us and are looking forward to hearing all about it. My granddaughter said it was cool when I told her so I think that is praise!

We are both looking forward to being part of this great event for our country.

I like to read...

I have loved reading books for as long as I can remember. The first books that really sparked an interest were the Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh books. I loved their simplicity, warmth, humour and adventure. The next books that inspired me were anything to do with Greek mythology, the stories of Perseus, Zeus and Aphrodite took me away on adventures. I think these books really ignited in me the desire to read and I started to appreciate what a good book can do for you.

Later on I discovered the historical writers – Jean Plaidy was my favourite. I think I learned much more from these books about history than I ever did at school. This is what always amazes me about reading books. I might not remember the titles or the plots but over the years I have learnt so much – be it in little snippets – just from reading books. How many of us regular readers can be heard to say – “Now I read in a book somewhere ….”