The Story of a Glasgow 2014 Volunteer

In our latest blog, friend and former RNIB colleague Adrian Hare shares his experience of being a volunteer at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.

Our thanks to Adrian for taking the time to write about his experience and give us all a little insight into the organisation, management and fun of volunteering as a Clydesider.

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My Glasgow 2014 volunteering journey began around 18 months or so ago, when I applied via the Glasgow 2014 website to become one of their volunteers, officially known as Clydesiders.

What inspired me to apply to volunteer was a love of sport, and a love of Glasgow itself.  I had missed out volunteering at London 2012 despite living on that Game’s doorstep due to being involved with the Paralympic Torch relay.  I was therefore determined not to miss out this time around.

I applied through their website and thought nothing more of it.  That is until I got asked to attend an interview up in Glasgow during the middle of 2013.  Then there was another nerve-wracking wait to find out if I had been accepted.  Imagine my joy when I got an e-mail to say that I had been successful.

To put the Glasgow 2014 volunteer requirements into context, this was bigger than London 2012 for volunteers.  They had 50,000 applications from around the world (I had heard of people travelling from Australia and New Zealand), they interviewed 25,000 and selected 15,000 lucky individuals.

Move on a year and we are coming up to the games.  The training has been done, the uniforms have been sorted out and we have all arranged our travel and accommodation and have received our shifts, although these have been changed at least once between issue and the games themselves.

I was working within Spectator Services, and as its name suggests, I was involved with being the face of the games at two of the stadiums, Celtic Park and Hampden Park.  I had the honour of being on duty at both the opening and closing ceremonies and so saw the Queen, Rod Stewart and Susan Boyle (don’t laugh at the last one).

Being disabled, I was a little unsure about how they would accommodate volunteers with special needs.  However, I needn’t have worried about this.  I can honestly say that the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games were one of the most inclusive sporting events that I have ever attended.

Walking around Celtic Park and Hampden Park, I can hand on heart say that I have seen a number of volunteers (we were officially called Clydesiders) with various special needs.  From people with learning difficulties to those in wheelchairs and those who are blind or partially sighted like myself - I have been partially sighted since birth.  I saw several people in wheelchairs working the same shifts as me as well as people with white canes and guide dogs.  What was very impressive was that they were working the same shifts as everybody else, and they were in the same public facing roles as everybody else.  One of my team leaders for one shift was in a wheelchair as well, and we had lots of fun finding our way around with a blind bat pushing him, neither of us having a clue where we were going.

There were lots of good points, but also some less positive areas.

The good points were a great atmosphere amongst the volunteers and everybody helped each other.  This was combined with the attitude of the venue management teams, the games organisers, etc, who were determined to make the games and venues as inclusive as possible.  This gave volunteering the image of being inclusive and that everybody can be a volunteer.

What were the less positive things?  First, although financial support was available, this was very hard to access and to be honest, did not really help at all.  We were left to fend for ourselves when it came to travel and accommodation and this had to be funded by us (the same as with London 2012).  Also, the volunteers were left a little underwhelmed when it came to break time.  We were only given sandwiches over the days we were working, and they were the same fillings every single day.  Quite often they did end up running out of food for us, but that was perhaps not such a bad things, as we had stopped really eating anyway.

If I was to be asked if I had enjoyed my time in Glasgow for the Commonwealth Games, it would be a resounding YES!!!  I love volunteering and love being involved with sport.

I also loved the inclusive nature of Glasgow 2014 and have made many friends whilst there, hopefully I will remain in contact with a few of them.

Adrian Hare

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In our next blog (coming soon) guest writer Mel White shares her reflections on the differences between the volunteering movement in the UK and Australia when it comes to mandated volunteering as part of workfare schemes. Watch this space!

NCVO gives evidence on Olympic Legacy around volunteering

In response to a recent posting I made on LinkedIn sharing a news article from Third Sector about the volunteering legacy for the London 2012 Games, Mike Locke of NCVO kindly shared with me the transcript of evidence he recently gave to the House of Lords Olympic and Paralympic Legacy Committee.

You can access this twenty page transcript on the Committee's website where you can also access RSS feeds on the Committee's work and sign up for email updates. Interestingly Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, is due to give evidence to this committee on 22nd October 2013.

You can also watch Mike giving evidence to the committee via the video below.



What do you think of Mike's evidence?

What would you add to what he said?

Did the committee ask the right questions?

How would you have answered them differently?

Sports volunteering - fair game?

The other day the lovely people in the volunteering team at The London School of Economics (LSE) shared their latest blog post with me via Twitter. In it they argue against volunteering at the forthcoming Champions League final - it is well worth a read.

The argument against volunteers at the Champions League final seems to be that football is a wealthy sport and so it should pay people to do the roles being advertised. This implies that there is a degree of exploitation at work here, with volunteers engaged in order to keep costs down and profits up whilst players received £millions for what they do.

I can understand that position. We’d generally say that volunteers doing the same roles as paid staff in - say - Tesco would be exploitative. In fact, that’s been a common objection to some of the compulsory work elements of the government’s Work Programme. But are these roles at the cup final the same as those done by paid staff? It doesn’t seem so.

And why object to these when no football match in the country - Premier league included - can take place without the involvement of volunteers in safety critical roles in the form of  first aiders from St John Ambulance?

A further point that the team at LSE make is that in some circumstances volunteering at big events like this is OK because whilst the event may be organised by a profit making body the people taking part aren’t well paid professionals. Therefore it was OK for volunteers to work at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, even though they were sometimes doing the same jobs paid staff were also doing. Whilst this may be true for the majority of athletes, what about the likes of Ennis, Bolt and Phelps (millionaires all) and the need for LOCOG to make as much money as possible to ensure the games didn’t lose money?

To me, it doesn’t make a difference if its the individual athletes making lots of money, the sport making lots of money or nobody making lots of money. There are two reasons for this:

1. Volunteering in the for-profit sector is recognised as not universally a bad thing. For example, volunteers work in private hospitals and care homes doing key roles that staff would never do, enhancing patient care and providing a service everyone should expect whether they are cared for in public, private or voluntary sectors.
2. Sport in this country lives on the support of volunteers. Coaches, officials, players, families, people who wash kit, transport kids, provide catering, run the club finances etc.. 

Big sporting events - be they Olympics, Commonwealth Games, football matches, Tour De France stages, the ICC Champions Trophy this summer or anything else - give an all too rare opportunity to showcase the importance of volunteering to sport, to society and to celebrate the efforts of our nation’s great volunteers.

Last summer’s Olympics saw the UK public getting an insight into how essential volunteers are to life in this country, how volunteers underpin the fabric of everything we take for granted. The visibility of volunteers and volunteering was massively enhanced. Shouldn’t we hope for that same effect at the Champion’s League final - and work towards supporting it to happen - rather than sitting on the sidelines crying foul?

What do you think?