My time as GAMES MAKER! Part I

Training to be a Games Maker

My journey as Games Maker started in November 2010 when I applied for the volunteer job through the website. It took ages to fill in the information because all the other 250,000 applicants were online at the same time! That how it felt like, anyway!

I did not hear anything before the January 26th of this year, when I received a phone call asking if I would still be interested in the position of NPC (National Paralympic Committee) Assistant? - Of course I would, that was the greatest thing happening to me on that day even though my friends from Finland, Switzerland and England were gathering to celebrate my Hen Night in London on that weekend! Altogether 70,000 volunteers were accepted to make the Games successful.

The training started at Wembley by Orientation followed by 5 modules of role specific training, 2 sessions for driving training and then the last but not least visiting the Olympic / Paralympic Village before the Paralympics started. All modules and training were interesting and reasonably well organised. Although LOCOG (London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games) did not pay any expenses to and from to the training venues, I was still determined to participate. My husband (fiancé at the time) was nagging me about the costs and LOCOG taking "mickey out" of us volunteers, because there were not even proper meals provided during the training sessions. Ho hum, I didn't care...

The most memorable training session was the driver training when a professional driving instructor was commenting each individual's driving abilities. I asked whether anyone had failed the driving training and the instructor told me, that there have been several people that LOCOG has made decision not to allow to drive during the Games because of so poor performances. These are the same people who normally drive their cars on UK roads... Anyway I was told that I drive "absolutely beautifully" - I am glad he did not see my parking, though!