I did my first fell race this weekend. Organised by Mercia Fell Runners, it was a 5k race with about 350m of ascent targeted at Novices only – those who had never done a Fell Race before. There were 78 entries and 58 participants who headed to Church Stretton to give it a go. Lots of nervousness before the start, talking to a number of people who had turned up – with about 60% of them women. There was a definite reluctance to have tried this sport through a more regular race, with concerns about being able to do, but…
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Ah, my time is done, the Games are over and now to reflect on the time I spent as a volunteer as part of the Commonwealth Collective.   After failing for 2012 but getting in for 2017, (You can read all about my experience at the World Athletics in 2017) I decided to try and be part of another multi-sports event – the 2022 Commonwealth Games held in my local city Birmingham.  Recruitment I registered as a volunteer in September 2020, when covid was hitting everything and this was hope for the future, that things would change. I got invited…
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Optimism October 2016. I’d filled in the form and finally hit submit. After failing to get selected to volunteer at the Olympics, was trying again for the World Athletics Championships, heading to London in the summer of 2017. And so the wait started. The numbers being talked about were 15k applications, 10k interviews and 4k volunteers to be chosen. Would I get through this time? Finally, in late November, I got the yes..for the interview. Off I went, for some ‘team building’ activities and a chat. I’d applied to be part of the marketing/branding team giving my experience. What do…
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I’ve watched the Lord Mayor’s Show for years on telly, but despite living in London, it’s one of those events that I’ve never watched live. Like Remembrance Sunday, London Marathon, Trooping of the Colour etc. But I’m slowly working my way through them. The Lord Mayor’s Show is one of the oldest of the big London events in origin, with the website stating it has its origins with King John in 1215, when the elected Mayor of City of London was made to come along to the next door City of Westminster to swear allegiance to the Crown. And so…
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Taekwando was one of the original tickets that I had. Well, not me, one of the two tickets that my sister had received in the very first ballot. The second event was later that day, diving. So down she came from the Midlands to make a day of it. First up was the Excel Centre, setting off early to brave the transport. No issues with transport, no issues with security meant we were there early. With the Excel, with plenty of different sports taking place, they herded you into holding areas, where you could get food and drink and wait…
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I went to the Opening Ceremony last night. At this point, everything is slightly blurry! So much going on when you’re in the stadium that I don’t think the brain settles on one thing to remember. I was entranced with the umbrellas, slightly bored with the parade, clapping with glee at some of the flying athletes and in awe, and tears, at the flame lighting. I loved the ceremony, even if it ran way over, providing anxiety about getting home! ON walking in, for the warm-up show, this is what was greeting us. None of the pastoral scenes from the…
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My final event of the weekend was one of the first ones I booked – the showjumping at Greenwich Park. Getting there I’d decided to eschew the most obvious route, which was DLR to Greenwich and took the overground to Blackheath. Again, as with almost every trip I made, there were no issues. A long walk, but no issues! Guides were plentiful on the walk, pushing you across the heath to the entry point. This was way at the south of the venue, on the heath, before you entered the Greenwich Park area, but served its purpose. A few queues,…
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For my second event on the middle Saturday, I dashed out of the Olympic Park, jumped on the Jubilee Line and headed right across London to see some Football. Here’s a sport I could easily see for 9 months of the year on the TV and would find it easy to find a match to go to every weekend but I’d only ever been to one football match before (Celtic vs Ajax in the Champions’ League). But as it’s the Olympics AND I’d never seen Wembley Stadium, thought it would be good to add to my list of sports. The…
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Once the Olympics had started I decided I hadn’t got enough tickets. My sister was sharing the one’s she’d got in the initial lottery, I had bought some in the follow up lottery and from the EU site. But now I’d been to my first event, I’d seen the empty seats and LOCOG were releasing new tickets everyday. it was time to turn on my lucky clicking finger and get searching on the convoluted ticketing database. There was such a demand created for tickets that everytime some were released, the site ground to a halt, putting people in queues, with…
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My third Olympic sports trip was to see the beach volleyball. There’ll be no legacy from the construction of this area – for some reason, beach volleyball takes place in the heart of government, right next to Downing Street on Horseguards Parade. There was obviously some interesting thinking going on when this decision was made, but it paid off, the location is gorgeous! The whole of the Mall is cordoned off during this part of the games, which can’t make getting around London by car too easy, but makes it easy to get to the event. Volunteers were everywhere, dotted…
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Saturday was the first of my eight events (that I currently have…I’m looking for more!). It was a day at the tennis, Wimbledon, somewhere I’d never managed to get to when the Championships are on so I was really looking forward to the opportunity to take a look at the place. First impressions – small! A lot smaller than it feels on the TV. Then how well put together it is. It’s obviously a permanent structure that has developed over the years and it knows how people move around it. It’s just been plastered with Olympic branding. Getting there was…
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Did you watch it? 27 million people in the UK are reported to have watched the show, the biggest UK TV event in the 21st century. At £27m, that’s a cost of a pound per person, pretty good value I think. You’ll have noticed that last week I went along to the technical rehearsal and had a sneak peak at some of the elements, but we didn’t see it all, so I tuned in on Friday ready to watch the whole thing. My initial reactions too the pastoral scenes were fed, in part, by the media. It was cute, it…
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Our office is in Southwark and on Thursday 26th July it was perfectly placed for the torch relay. Just after 10am,t he torch was due to go right by the office. Some crowded the windows for an overhead view. Caroline and I decided that we needed a ringside seat. So 45 mins before, we headed outside with our chairs for a meeting – and, to be fair, we actually did have a meeting, before packing away and getting ready for the torch to come by. Right on time, the sponsor buses made their way past And then finally the torch..just…
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I’ve been quite lucky with my Olympic tickets. Following my initial disappointment of not getting any tickets in the initial ballot, my sister asked me to accompany her to her Taekwando and Diving events. I also got a ticket in the resale, – for people who did not get any in the first round – and I’m off to the Modern Pentathlon. I then did some digging, realising as we’re EU members, I can buy tickets from any EU agent. Off to take a look at Cosport, as recommended by a NZ friend (they’re official agents for US, Canada, Australia…
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I’m still on the reserve list for the Olympic volunteers. I’m not happy about it and I’d rather be taking part, but one compensation I did get was a ticket to the Opening Ceremony Technical Rehearsal the Monday before the games start. This was to be a major test event for the ceremony and for all the transport and organisation around it. So how did it go? Transport: Travelled in from London Bridge to Stratford; returned Stratford to Waterloo. Had no real problems either way. Getting there was straightforward – although the station may not be a easy to traverse…
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I’ve been out and about the the few days…a Gamecamp was held at the weekend, then I went to a book reading and finally another installment London Bloggers Meeting Gamecamp 4 The fourth round of Gamecamp, it had, according to the numbers I totted up, 225 people passing through its doors, the largest ever. My involvement this time was less than in previous ones, (holidays and work getting in the way), but I spent most of the day on the door, so at least met (briefly) almost everyone who turned up. I did squeeze in a few sessions. The first…
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Started releasing talks in 2006. as talks grown online, the audience has gone fromn 1000 people in a room to 100m around the world it changed the organisation, from conference for an elite audience to thinking about how to serve the global community. So everything rallied around the notion of ideas worth spreading. A complete turnaround Will now be opening up API, to allow developers to build Ted apps, to continue with the philosophy of radical openess. The idea of having people running TED events makes lots of people nervous for us; most organisations would find the levels of openess…
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Thanks to F1 Fanatic, I got a couple of tickets to the preview showing of a photo exhibit of Rainer Schlegelmilch’s FQ photos. Called the Golden Age of Formula 1, it has 44 prints from the early 60s through to 2003. Some gorgeous images there, showing how the sport has changed. Well worth a visit if you like good photos, even if you don’t like the sport. Jo came along with me and decided to purchase a couple of the prints. (pointing to her orange sticker that declares ‘sold’)
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You may have noticed a stream of blog posts live-blogging the F1 FOTA Fan Forum last Thursday. This was the first event of its kind for the sport, coming out of blog comments on James Allen’s website. It was first come, first served for places and 150 of them were taken up within 24 hours. I saw a lot of tweets about people travelling from UK and further to attend, but for me, it was just an 10 minute tube ride (and an understanding boss to grab an extra long lunch). Santander, the sponsors, has obviously put a lot of…
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This is live blogged at the Santander F1 FOTA Fan Forum. It will possibly contain errors and missed sentences. For the full story, make sure you catch the videos later. Updated 4/7: added video Luca Coliani Tony Fernandes James Allen Martin Whitmarsh Jock Clear Paul Di Resta ?? How are the new teams? TF: we are pleased, we got there late, building 5 months, remarkable job. every race we have improved. we deserve to be there, we are closing gap. it has made a little bit of excitement, a few dreams come to. FOTA tries very hard to help new…