G'day from Oz

Well after a couple of long flights finally made it to the other side of the world. Currently holding on by my fingernails to stop me falling off.
Completely uneventful travel out here, apart from the torrential rain on the way to Heathrow, wow didn't it come down, and yet still there are loads who forget to turn their lights on while driving through it.
Had a nice lunch before the flight a chicken burger and a pint, as you do. Then the first flight to Dubai was off and slightly delayed. Hey ho, we left an hour late, but made up time on the way, so landed in Dubai 20 mins later than scheduled.
The transfer was fun, had to go up and down in a couple of lifts and then a train to go to the departure gate. Not so well signed that we didn't go up and down in the same lift a couple of times first.
Finally we were on our way, for the incredibly long section.

Watched 2 films during the first flight, Paddington 2 and The Shape of Water, a strange but haunting film, a bit fairytale like, with a few bits that just left you scratching your head going WTF! And only watched one film on the 2nd part of the journey in between lots of eating and napping. They certainly did feed you well. The film I chose to watch was 3 billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri. I thought it was one of the most brilliant films I have seen in a long time, very moving and funny in places at the same time.

Anyway finally got to Sydney and was met by Sue, who with Darren and little Jos are kindly putting up with me for a few days with a remit to show me the sights. Well obviously there are a couple that will be essential tourist bits, but I know they'll have places they like to go that are less touristy and probably much nicer for it.

With the 10 hour time difference at the moment (changes this Sunday) I'm not sure if I'm early for bed at 15.30 UK time or late for bed at 01.30 Sydney time.
I'll let you know in the morning.

So all arrived safe and sound and ready for the next bit of the adventure.

Toodlepip for now chaps.

Heading for a Land Down Under

Baugull nyungai, Jingeri, Jingiwalli wahlu
(Good day, Greetings, How are you?)

Just practicing my Yugambeh for my upcoming trip. (That's the local aboriginal language for the area)

I want to break into song (Down Under - Men at Work) as in a few days I will be heading off to the Gold Coast, in Queensland, Australia to volunteer at the Commonwealth Games.
As usual it took me plenty of time to make that final decision to commit. I always have a great sense of excitement in applying, then there is the wait to see if there will be an interview and then the long wait to see if selected for a role. And then the realisation that I've actually been offered a role on the other side of the world. Ooops.

This interview was a little different from the normal, turn up and speak to an interviewer face to face, or an over the phone discussion, as not being able to get to Australia, we were invited to do an online "one-way" interview process.
Sat in front of the computer the questions appeared on the screen and we had a bit of preparation time, before we recorded our video answers and uploaded them onto the interview system. There was an option to re-record the answers, but I felt that answering in one hit was more like being face to face, and if I wanted to change my answer I did so as part of the process.
Whatever I said must have been enough to make them think I would be a suitable addition to the team and I was offered a role with the Athletics Field of Play at the Carrara Sports Stadium.
I accepted and then started to think about what I should do.

Those who remember my Rio deliberations will know how much thinking I put into that before making my final decision. This really wasn't much different, though perhaps a little quicker.

A couple of other volunteers were deciding about taking on an AirBnB for the duration of the games, and eventually we found a house not far from where we were all volunteering. Though not as close to my venue as in Rio, it sounds like a lovely place in the suburbs. Accommodation sorted.

Visa next (very easily done online) and then the fun finding flights, which I kept putting off while not being able to decide how long I wanted to be away and how I wanted to structure my time. Seeing we never get notified of shifts very early it is always tricky planning the details.

I then got an email changing my role from Field of play to "Sports Presentation Team". I'm intrigued, as the information on the role isn't overly specific. So it will be fun to find out.

Shifts arrived for 7th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th April, all afternoon/evening shifts, so leaves daytime free to explore a little, but does pose the transport home late at night issue. Time to fire up the Uber app?
I contacted a flight specialist who put a package together for me with Flights out to Sydney, then to the Gold Coast a couple of days later, a hotel in Brisbane after the games and a fight home from there. (Believe me it took a lot longer for me to make a decision than it did for her to find a suitable package......what do you mean you're not surprised?)

Really lucky too, that friends from my running club had moved out to Sydney a few years ago, and they have very kindly offered to put up with me for a couple of nights while I am in Sydney. Though I think maybe my departure from them on a 7am flight (with me having to leave them early hours of the morning) might mean I have to sneak out quietly.

So now comes the important gathering of things I need to take and can't live without. Time to sort out my ipad to update the blog while I'm away, find my travel adaptor and make sure I have enough stugeron to help me sleep on the flights.
Time to start a few lists then.

Will be updating as and when.
Catch you soon

It's Snow Joke

Birmingham March 2018, IAAF world indoor championships.

All ready for a nice few days volunteering, and then in came the snow courtesy of "Emma" otherwise known as the "Beast from the East" with its cold Siberian temperatures and snowfall leaving most of the UK completely blanketed in the white stuff, and as usual the UK services being completely unable to cope in all sorts of areas including transport.

My journey started on Thursday morning with a 7.40am Megabus from Southampton to Birmingham (my pride at getting a £5 fare there and a £1 fare back on Sunday was immense - That'll be the accountant in me then)
The snow started late Wednesday evening, and by morning it was laying with no sign of disappearing.

The journey North through whitened landscape took around 4 hours, and once off the bus I headed to the Arena, to meet up with another volunteer (Karen) and find out about collecting my accreditation and then uniform for the championships.
Once that was sorted, I had some lunch and then headed to find my hotel, where I changed into my nice new uniform and headed back to the arena for my first shift.

After a short briefing, Karen and I were located at a backstage area, near Press entrance, athlete post event exit and the "Clean athletics" testing areas. Quite a busy place to be, and you needed to be on the ball as people were able to come at you from 5 different areas and my job was to make sure that they were actually meant/allowed to be there.

We had a lot of head-scratching when we realised that athlete accreditation included numbers for areas 8 and 9 and all the areas we had around us were 2,3,5, so once they left the track and had been through the media and kit collection areas, technically we couldn't allow them to go anywhere, except back up the stairs into the public areas. Not ideal for athletes who are "in the competition zone".
This we pointed out to some of the management team who scuttled off to make some adjustments.
Sometimes things look fine on paper, but it isn't until you start working with a system that you realise that a few tweaks need to be made. This happened a few times, but we managed to get it all working nice and smoothly after a while, and we started to recognise faces, plus could use our common sense in a few situations.

Being backstage is brilliant, though most of the time you tend not to see the competition, you can

hear it all going on, and get the sense of excitement in the arena itself. Sadly with the weather getting even worse, people were finding it hard to travel so while the athletes were local and catered for with transport, many volunteers didn't make shifts due to lack of trains etc. Most of our volunteer shifts were running with no team leaders and almost half the numbers we were needing. But as with every challenge we did our best and managed. Many adding extra shifts to cover for those who couldn't make it in.

With snow spikes attached to the walking boots to get me to and from shift. The thermal long johns and base layers (almost as much as trekking in Nepal) helped keep me warm during shift and I kept moving around and dancing to the music being played in the Arena. I think it kept many of the photographers, security staff and even athletes and kit carrying volunteers amused as they came through the area. In fact one of the security guys who works on that point at the Arena regularly, Leon, gave me a book he had been given by Craig Revel-Hallwood after the latest Strictly tour. Leon called me the dancing queen and thought I'd appreciate the book. What a lovely guy.

All shifts blend together after a while, and being moved to a different location initially on shift 3 put me at the access to the Arena where the TV presenters had to come through, so I had to check Colin Jackson, Michael Johnson, Gabby Logan and Denise Lewis through. Backstage gets pretty busy with loads going on all through the day, even during competition time, so there is always a need to be on the lookout, and we had a few police officers came through trying to check out whether we were enforcing security properly. We did get to know who they were after a while so tended to make sure they got extra checks, but to have done that with everyone who passed by us would have caused major hold ups. Even so we managed to stop people who didn't have the correct accreditation and had a lot of frustrated team managers we had to send off in different directions, which again we mentioned back to the management team and they reviewed their access controls again.

As with every volunteer role there are issues, some are bigger than others, and some people make more of them than others, but it is always nice to be appreciated for what we do. Sometimes we do wonder whether those that organise the events have ever actually worked at the lower end of the system to see exactly how things work in practice as opposed to in theory, but they did have a lot on their hands with coping with the weather and a large number of no show volunteers who just couldn't get to shift, even volunteers who had to step up and take on team leader roles were struggling to find people to cover some duties.

I was lucky to be sited inside the Arena (even if cold) unlike many of the spectator services team who were outside in all weathers directing people. Some as far as the Main train station, negotiating the building works going on in the centre and outside in all the blizzards. Kudos to them for sticking at it, and for their team leaders bringing them in to warm up on a regular basis. Hopefully when we get asked to feedback to them about our experience they'll be able to take some of the comments on board.

Meanwhile time to prepare for the next one. I suspect the Gold Coast will be a lot warmer and have some very different challenges.