Join In Legacy Volunteer Rio 2016

*Originally published on www.joininuk.org/author/chris-thorn but that page has been deleted and it now diverts to www.sportandrecreation.org.uk/pages/volunteering *

Back in 2010/11, I remember seeing an advert fronted by Eddie Izzard, asking the British people to get involved and get behind the upcoming London 2012 Olympics by applying to be a volunteer, to help run the Olympics and Paralympics.

At the time there was quite the public backlash against the London Olympics - budgeting issues caused by the 2007 global banking financial crisis, subsequent recession and the newly elected 2010 Conservative government austerity policies depleting local services all around the country; building worries regarding the long term use of stadia; terrorist fears (the 7/7/2005 Tube and Bus bombings were the day after the celebrations when London beat Paris to be hosts); and worries that the entire city public transport system would collapse under the volume of visitors.

Being a contrary fellow for my 28 years on the planet thus far, I wanted to fight against this negativity and join the team of underdogs faced with the task of hosting the greatest show on earth - almost literally in my back yard. (Stratford only being 20 minutes by train from Chelmsford.)

I've volunteered in sport since the early 1990s; playing and captaining my school and local club football and cricket teams as a child, a young adult and as an adult when I was elected in 2006 to be captain of my local village amateur cricket club's 2nd XI, Broomfield CC. This involved running youth and adult training sessions; preparing the wicket by mowing, rolling, raking, repairing, watering and marking out the cricket square and pitch; maintaining the pavilion, running the cash bar, monitoring the tea ladies; collecting cash from players and parents and organising the logistics of having only two adult playing car drivers to transport eleven players and kit to Burnham-on-Crouch on V festival weekend; reporting back all the relevant match details to the League results representatives and uploading scorecards to the club's website; participating in committee meetings and AGMs; all the while persuading 22 people to give up their weekends to play competitive, amateur cricket in a picturesque setting and have some fun.

After five years of spending five days a week helping to run my cricket club, I knew the Olympics and Paralympics would be a doddle! After completing my application form online and attending an interview session at the Excel in July 2011, I was selected to join the SVR - the Sports Viewing Room Team, in the Athlete's Village, in rooms above the Fitness Centre, adjacent to the Dining hall. We were tasked with recording all the games footage from up to 40 TV feeds onto DVDs for athletes and coaches to request copies of, for training purposes. For example, team sports with group/knockout rounds could come and watch DVD footage of themselves or prospective opponents in our designated meeting rooms, but mostly people seemed to just want a souvenir of their event, especially if they were the first ever Olympic medalist from Burkina Faso and we would find the session with the medal ceremony recorded just for them.

We were open for a week before the opening ceremony, to log DVD session requests and meeting rooms for those athletes and coaches who had arrived into the Village early. I made friends with a few other volunteers in my small team and we made sure to eat our food quickly so we had time to wander around the village during our breaks, just taking it all in - seeing nationally famous athletes scurry after world famous athletes from another sport for selfies; TV crews in the plaza shopping area trying to interview the newest British Gold winning hero struggling with a hangover; watching big biceped henched hulks leave the gym trying to chat up svelte blonde Scandinavians with tiny tubs of ice cream from the street vendors. The most exclusive all inclusive holiday resort in the world.

We worked long hours as the SVR became more popular as the Games went on and word got around that this was all Free - apparently in 2008 in Beijing there was a fee to the national delegations. I love being busy and ticking off to-do lists, especially the final to-do list item so I can step back from my completed work and say 'No More Jobs'.

The Paralympics were even more inspiring; the goodwill built up from TV, media and capacity crowds towards us purple cladded Games Makers was apparent even on busy trains and walking through Westfield shoppers, with the usual miserable phone dawdlers or very important and angry people with suits and briefcases barging into you actually now being a bit more considerate of personal space and the odd smile, too.

We were even busier in the SVR with all the ability classifications for each event, and being on the floor above the gym but only having one elevator was frustrating at times, but we got through it and I was really sad when it was all over, but so proud that I had been part of that team of underdogs that stood up against all the negativity and successfully put on the greatest show on Earth.

The Legacy Charity Join In was set up to continue all that goodwill for us Games Makers to invigorate grass roots sports around the UK. I remained subscribed to their email newsletters and was sent further big event volunteering adverts for the 2013 ICC Champions Trophy, 2014 Tour de France, 2015 Rugby World Cup, Anniversary Games, The Ashes and Six Day London Cycling.

I was also sent an email with a Join In Charity code for the Rio 2016 Olympics application, on the off chance that if I could save enough money, be selected by Rio and make travel and accommodation plans myself, to apply to be a Join In Legacy Volunteer Blogger.

Out of 70,000 London Games Makers, I was the sole Join In Legacy Volunteer Blogger to report back from both the Rio Olympics and Paralympics, and I received a lot of positive feedback on Facebook and Twitter for my blogs. Being assigned Village Workforce Operations I was working in the Athlete's Village for three weeks before the opening ceremony, and I know how important my blogs were for some people who had not yet made up their minds about travelling to South America to be volunteers for the Olympics and Paralympics, so I am immensely proud of them and had the Join In webpage link on my email signature and CV.

However in June of this year I noticed that this link no longer worked and found out that Join In had been revamped, rebranded and repackaged as the Sport and Recreation Alliance and all my blogs, and the blogs from ten other Legacy volunteer bloggers, had been wiped from their website.

I am republishing these blogs now, on 5th December 2018, as it is #InternationalVolunteerDay and the deadline for applications to volunteer at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics is coming up in a few weeks. I am also searching for full time employment in Sports Events and these Blogs are a fantastic portfolio of the excellent work I can do in high profile environments.

I hope you enjoy them :)

From: Chris Thorn <chriswyc@hotmail.com> Sent: 12 June 2018 To: info@sportandrecreation.org.uk Subject: Join In Rio Legacy Blogs Moved or Deleted??

Hello,

I was the only Join In Legacy Blogger in Rio for both the Olympics and Paralympics, and I have noticed that my Blog link www.joininuk.org/author/chris-thorn/ now redirects to the newly branded Sport and Rec Alliance home page. I cannot find my name or Rio Legacy on your search engine.

Has the Blog been deleted forever (not much of a Legacy less than two years after Rio 2016!), or has it merely been moved to another webpage???

Thanks

Chris Thorn

CV and contact details www.linkedin.com/in/chris-thorn-b38aaa130/

Charity Blog from the Rio Olympics and Paralympics www.joininuk.org/author/chris-thorn/

@C4Countdown Octochamp http://wiki.apterous.org/Chris_Thorn

From: Join In <joinin@sportandrecreation.org.uk> Sent: 12 June 2018 14:43 To: chriswyc@hotmail.com Subject: RE: Join In Rio Legacy Blogs Moved or Deleted??

Hi Chris,

Thank you very much for contacting the Alliance. We thank you very much for contributing to Joinin.org.uk in the past. I am not sure if this was done through the Alliance or the Join in team, but we do apologise if you did not receive our communications regarding the closure of the joininuk.org website.

The joininuk.org website with its resources, blogs and opportunity finder were a great legacy of the Games. As you may know, in 2016 the Join In Trust passed the baton of putting volunteers into grassroots sport to the Sport and Recreation Alliance.

We currently have a streamlined version of the website in the volunteering section of the Alliance website. But we also have standalone content on our Volunteer Opportunity Finder (doit.life/join-in) for volunteers and our Volunteer Finder (doit.life/sport-and-recreation) for clubs and groups to recruit.

The joininuk.org website is offline and we are able to retrieve the blog if you wish. But in terms of its current ‘live’ status, we are in the process of downloading all the pages and resources. At that point we will then be building out our 3 platforms based on our audiences with that content and new content.We would make sure to contact you if we were to reintroduce it to one of our platforms. But, we are working as a team to figure out what content will be where.

Hopefully that is helpful in understanding. If you would like a copy of that in the meantime, we are more than happy to send it to you. We apologise again that you were not aware that it came offline.

If you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

The Sport and Recreation Alliance