Mikkel Larsen, a researcher at the Sport and Recreation Alliance, writes about his recent volunteering experience at the Olympic boxing test event in ExCel.
Last week I did something I had never done before and chose to take a week off from my day job. Not to spend it relaxing next to a pool in some sunny country, but to spend it working at the Boxing test event inside ExCeL in London’s Docklands.
You might be surprised to hear that now the week has passed, I still think I made the right decision!
I don’t have much of a background in volunteering, although when I was younger I helped out in the odd tournament at my local badminton club. My dad was treasurer of the club, so you could argue that it wasn’t always ‘volunteering’ in the strictest sense of the word! I would therefore say that signing up to be a London 2012 Games Maker is my first volunteering experience on such a large scale.
It has to be said that I’m one of these people who doesn’t need much encouragement to become truly excited about London 2012. I know that my passion, especially for the smaller sports, is at a level which most people might find a little obsessive. But at the test event I was lucky enough to meet people who were just as excited about the prospect of London 2012 being just around the corner as me.
I met people who, just like me, took a week out of their normal lives to treasure the fact they could one day say that however small their role, they played a part in making London 2012 happen.
I am a true believer that London 2012 will be everything that it is being hyped up to be – not because we are being told so by billboards, but because every volunteer so far has made a real contribution to making it an outstanding success.
When the London 2012 Games move out of town and the Olympic and Paralympic Torches are passed on to Rio, the enthusiasm for volunteering might actually be the greatest legacy that London 2012 can leave.
London 2012 might be my first big volunteering experience, but I’m already contemplating volunteering for the Badminton National Championships next year.
If the Games Makers programme results in just some of the participants starting down a new path of volunteering in the future, then we have all at least gone some of the way to leaving a long-lasting and valuable legacy for sport in Britain.
Find out more about the London 2012 volunteering scheme
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