An Olympics volunteer and member of library staff

 

Along with 2442 others, I have been lucky enough to have been selected as a volunteer to directly support the athletes for the London 2012 Games, in my case specifically as a National Paralympic Committee Assistant (NPCA). I have been assigned as part of the 12-strong group to help the Japanese paralympians, who will be arriving with approximately 240 athletes and officials. I had hoped to be attached to this team; the chance to brush up my language skills was just too good to pass up!

Supporting the team

The role itself is to support the athlete’s team leader with whatever local support he/she may need, to get both athletes and officials to their events in peak condition, on time and at the right venue. The tasks can range from sorting out minor accommodation niggles, transporting people to/from airports, restaurants, shopping malls, to translating on their behalf to sort out problems. Will I get to see any events for free? Sadly, no: although I will be at both opening and closing ceremonies, helping to get people into and out of the stadium.

Training

Training has covered diversity and inclusion, communication, responsibility boundaries, acting as a team …. all activities that equally apply to library work. As NPCAs, we are expected to be inspirational, distinctive, open, alert, consistent, and above all, work together – should be an interesting time!

The hardest training session so far has to have been the first driving course – driving an unfamiliar car between the venues, with a driving assessor observing me from the front passenger seat, whilst chatting in Japanese to the 3 back seat passengers who had been instructed to keep me distracted with conversation the whole time – now that’s stressful!

Get the facts!

This is the third Games held in London: the other 2 were in 1908 and 1948, each held in very different times to our own. Reading about these is fascinating: for recommended reading, try The First London Olympics 1908 by Rebecca Jenkins or The 1948 Olympics : how London Rescued the Games by Bob Phillips. Sports facts such as bicycle hockey featured in 1908 (never to reappear), and that the 1948 Olympiad was the first to be shown on TV ….. but very few people had sets at the time, so viewing figures were low. How times change!

Ask around friends and colleagues – you may be surprised to find out how many of them are also involved in the Olympics, and they, too, will have stories that they will cherish for a lifetime. I will never compete at the Olympics, but this is my small contribution.

This article was taken from What’s New @ Herts Libraries July 2012: http://tempuri.org/tempuri.html