Olympic standard piss taking...

[Gob]

borrowed from another forum I infest...

My daughter volunteered to help at the London Olympics as, despite dozens of our friends and family applying for tickets, we have been unable to obtain any, and she would love to be there.

After three trips to London, at her expense, she has been accepted to help for six days a week, for three and a half weeks, at the paralympics. She will be issued with one t shirt, one pair of trousers which must be worn at all times and a pair of trainers.

The accommodation on offer is a tent at £15. per night, with no cooking facilities, so eating out is the only option.

Showers are £2. each.

She could stay with us as we live 20mins by train from Stratford but that would cost considerably more than the campsite.

She will take two weeks holiday but will also require unpaid leave for the remainder.

Free travel is available within London for volunteers.

[alice]

Apologies, I don't understand the issue, if there is one.

Is it the fact that a volunteer has to pay for their own food and accommodation?

My son had to pay all his travel, food and accommodation, and some administrative costs, for his overseas volunteer programme.
Apart from my son's experience, my much less dramatic experience with violunteering has been things like assisting at school events, or sports activities, or charity events, or animal shelters, or other causes i thought interesting or worthy and had the time and resources to be involved in at the time - all these have been completely at my own expense; some have involved travel and those associated costs. A couple of the charity events gave us TShirts to wear which we could keep afterwards, but that's about the most I've been given.

That's been all for a vastly different events and organisations to the Olympics, but still - for me it's the same in the sense that volunteering usually means something you do for no (obvious) reward. And so I'm not being aergumentative, but genuinely don't understand the issue. Do volunteers at events like Olympics etc usually get their food and accommodation provided?

[Gob]

Fair comments Alice. I must admit I found it astonishing that people were being expected to volunteer, pay exorbitant rates to camp, not have food laid on, and to be charged for using a shower, esp when you take this into account;

Ticket prices for the London 2012 Olympics will range from 2,012 pounds ($3,246) for the opening ceremony to less than 20 pounds ($32) in a strategy designed to ensure all venues are filled, organisers said.

[alice]

Fair comments Alice. I must admit I found it astonishing that people were being expected to volunteer, pay exorbitant rates to camp, not have food laid on, and to be charged for using a shower, esp when you take this into account;

Ticket prices for the London 2012 Olympics will range from 2,012 pounds ($3,246) for the opening ceremony to less than 20 pounds ($32) in a strategy designed to ensure all venues are filled, organisers said.

$3000 for a seat seems a ridiculous price for a sporting event. Surely that takes the opening ceremony outside the affordability of the average person?
But I see why there would be an issue then, knowing they're charging that sort of cost for some of the tickets.

My understanding of the Olypics is that the host country usually ends up in the red in actual costs - taking into account the costs of winning the Olympic bid, and then building suitable venues for the events, and suitable accommodation for the athletics, and sorting out the security, administration and whatever else is required to put on the Games, plus whatever costs it takes to do the opening and closing ceremonies etc - and that it is then hoped the costs, and more, will be recouped in the tourism $$ the Games generate - during the games themselves, and then the flow on effect afterward. That's not something I'm 100% sure of - just something I vaguely think I remember reading.

So do they use volunteers to try to keep the huge costs of hosting the Games down?
My experiences with volunteering usually involve non profit and/or charity organisations - struggling sports clubs, or animal welfare efforts etc. I'm not quite understanding the use of unpaid volunteers for a commercial venture such as the Olympics, except to consider that possibky - logically - having to pay that number of people (or supply food and accommodation for them, I guess), would end up making the cost of hosting the games prohibitive.

And I know volunteers were used for the Sydney Olympics, but I don't know what the 'perks' were, or if food etc was provided for them

[The Hen]

It is my understanding that the uniform (one per person) and entry to the event they were volunteering at was free for the Sydney Olympic games. any food or accommodation was up to them.

Sounds like whining Poms to me.

[Gob]

The 70,000 volunteers for the London 2012 Olympics have been effectively told to disconnect from any Olympic discussion in their social networks – in stark contrast to the encouragement being given to the competitors to make 2012 the “Twitter Games“. Updated rules issued this week have laid down a number of rules for people to follow, and it leaves almost no room for them to make any genuine comment.


What upsets me is that these people are all volunteers, and that there has been a huge push on the part of the London Olympics Organising Committee (LOCOG) to get this unpaid army in position. Without them, the Games would simply not be able to go ahead.

And now they are being told what they can and can’t talk about online during the Olympics – in short, they can’t talk about much. Look at three of the points that LOCOG are demanding, and my thoughts on the implications:

…not to disclose their location
Which rules out quite a lot of social media. Foursquare is the obvious one, but how about all the pictures taken with a smartphone, many of which are geo-tagged? How about Facebook and their push to also grab location data? HTML5 allows a mobile browser to identify its location and report it back during an action. Does that count?

How about a “Mum, I’m going to to volunteer at the Handball semi-final?” and she posts that online?

…not to get involved in detailed discussion about the Games online
Really? In what time-frame? While they are on duty? During the two weeks of the games? From now until the end of the Olympics? It reads as if there is to be no discussion at all. And these are the people who you have to assume are eager supporters of the Olympics and would want to be involved in discussions, who would be positive in their outlook, and would have a unique perspective.

…they can retweet or pass on official London 2012 postings.
But you can repeat what the powers at be have cleared and magnify the official statements. So that’s okay then.

I understand that there have to be rules, but the volunteer army that LOCOG have put together are not the same as employees (who would fall under a company’s social media policy). The Olympic games are meant to be about inclusiveness, about sharing across borders, and bringing out the best in people.

But with these rules, I wonder if the Olympics have an inkling of just how connected the games are going to be, how much activity there will be online, and how much conversation will be going on. And those most keen on the games have had their voice

[MajGenl.Meade]

"After three trips to London, at her expense, she has been accepted to help for six days a week, for three and a half weeks, at the paralympics"

Isn't that usually held after all the big boys and girls have gone home? And can it be that they could not buy tickets for the paralympics - there's usually plenty of room available in the stands.

It was a shock to learn that 20 minutes by train from Stratford would cost more than 15 pounds a day + 2 if she takes a shower. They may live (perhaps) in Shenfield or Billericay and I would have thought a day return would be less expensive - I've been gone for too long and am living in the past

Meade

[Gob]

From the same guy;

. I don’t suppose your jamborees ban self catering and have professional caterers or ready pitched tents with beds costing £100 per night per person, (check their website) No caravans or campervans allowed unless hired from one particular company. This is a massive money making enterprise for many people and a severe financial hardship for many who simply want to be involved. My daughter still hopes to volunteer,I still hope it goes tits up.

Another poster adds;

Thats awful, Im working at the olympics, normally from East Midlands. But i'll be there on behalf of the Forces, We get full pay, accom, and food. So if they can do that for all the troops, you'd at least expect decent accom and food. After all Holiday inn seem to be donating alot to the olympics according to their adverts.