• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
Kaizen Partnership

Kaizen Partnership

Specialists in Consultation and Engagement

  • Home
  • About
    • Who we are
    • Our Values
  • What We Do
    • Community Engagement
    • Community Research and Consultation
    • Trainings and Workshops
    • Resilience Training
    • Young People and Schools
    • Free Workshops on Community Engagement
  • Projects
    • Past Projects
    • Case Studies
    • London 2012
    • Testimonials
    • Newsletters
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Show Search
Hide Search

Gamesmakers, Olympic Ideals & Legacy

August 2, 2012 By kaizen_superadmin

Everyone is in agreement that the London 2012 Gamesmakers are doing a sensational job. They are a fantastic tribute, to themselves; to the British and non-British people who live in this country; to the spirit of volunteering and to the Olympics itself.

To set the context for this blog, I have been managing Olympic programmes for 4 years and am not an unbiased bystander to this whole thing:

  • I am currently managing the Waltham Forest Welcome, the Olympic volunteering programme for the Waltham Forest, one of the host Boroughs
  • Kaizen delivered all the training for the Hackney hosts, and the core and team leader training of the Hackney Olympic Volunteers
  • We also delivered another large Olympic training programme, for 3 years.
  • I have been a member of the LOCOG Changing Places Programme Board for the past 3 years.

Modern Olympics are dependant on volunteers to be their life-blood; and the volunteers are consistently excellent role models and hosts.

If we apply the core Olympic principals to ourselves as Gamesmakers, then this role involves not only being the best that we can be, but also building on the achievements of the fantastic volunteers in past Olympic Games. It is this second aspect that is interesting me right now as it feels like we are absolutely nailing the first aspect.

I think we can lift the bar on Olympic volunteering. So what could this look like? I would love to sit down with some other Gamesmakers and see what could be possible/what we want to be possible

There are somewhere over 100,000 primary volunteer Gamesmakers, and probably an equal number of secondary volunteer Gamesmakers.

Let me clarify what I see to be the difference:

  • The primary volunteers are all the Gamesmakers, whether LOCOG, London Ambassadors, Local Borough Volunteers, Ceremony Volunteers, transport volunteers, police volunteers, volunteers associated to other 3rd sector organisations (eg religious institutions, school staff, business volunteers; and others who work directly on the Games in one way or another.
  • The secondary volunteer Gamesmakers, are the husbands, wives, partners, children, parents, friends, employers and colleagues who are enabling the primary volunteers to do what they are doing. They are the invisible Gamesmakers but no less important for that. You can’t have 100,000 of the primaries without perhaps several times the number of secondary. While the primary volunteers get all the glory and thanks, I do think it is very important that we don’t forget all the people who enable and support them.

I have heard that this is the largest civil mobilisation of volunteers since WW2. That’s an amazing thing, and it ought to be surely possible for us to find ways to harness that energy and network post September 12th.

There may well be succession/legacy plans in place for the Gamesmakers, but I haven’t seen or heard of any. If there are not plans then now is the time to at least start the conversation – so we can transition post Games.

I think it is our responsibility as Gamesmakers to take ownership and lead the process. I am certain that we have the knowledge, skills and experience within our body to do this.

So what could this look like? I have a few thoughts but would be interested to be part of a wider group of Gamesmakers to chew this over and see what comes out. Here are 2 ideas, one immediate one longer term:

  • Gamesmakers could start and manage a campaign to collect donations of Olympic pin badges to raise money for charity (or to establish the organisation I mention below). The badges could then be auctioned. 100,000 Gamesmakers could surely collect 200,000 of them (and probably way, way more). What if spectators could show their appreciation for the Gamesmakers by donating a pin badge to our campaign. Imagine how many badges that could bring in. If they auctioned for an average of £10 that could raise millions.
  • London 2012 Gamesmakers could establish an International Gamesmaker Federation, to include volunteers from all past and future Olympic Games. We could co-initiate a global day of volunteering to involve Gamesmakers from across the world.

These are 2 ideas, I am sure that many, many more will come if we ask ourselves the question, what can we do to raise the bar?

If we can carry forward the Gamesmaker energy and passion into a post Games process then we would genuinely have created an extraordinary legacy for the UK and opened up a new dimension for Olympic volunteering. This is the very first Games with widespread social media activity. We have opportunities to mobilise and connect that have never been there before.

This is the Olympics, and for most of us we will never have this chance again. Lets squeeze every drop of benefit and magic that we can from it, and embody all aspects of the Olympic ideals.

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. divingbrit Derek says

    December 11, 2012 at 9:25 pm

    Just seen this post, in a small way we are doing something,ellies elite,a gamesmaker facebook page now re branded as Love London Gamesmaker Legacy,has almost raised £10,000 to send a young Paralympic hopeful to Rio, (He was chosen on the advice of getkidsgoing charity).

Talk to us about your engagement needs: Contact Us

Kaizen Partnership

Looking for how to reach us? Give us a call on 020 8133 1089, email us at info@kaizen.org.uk, send us a note using the chat box at right, or use the contact form!

  • Home
  • Blog
  • Testimonials
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT REJECT
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.

The cookies we use are:

CookieTypeDurationDescription
Akismet cookiesWe use Akismet anti-spam service, which collects some information about visitors who comment on our blog pages. If you choose to leave a comment on one of our pages, the information we collect includes your IP address, user agent, referrer, and site URL (along with other information directly provided by you, such as your name, username, email address, and the comment itself).
Google cookiesLike most websites, this site uses Google Analytics (GA) to track user interaction. We use this data to determine the number of people using our site, to better understand how they find and use our web pages and to see their journey through the website. Although GA records data such as your geographical location, device, internet browser and operating system, none of this information personally identifies you to us. We send a partial record of your IP address to GA with the last few characters or “octet” removed, this reduces the ability for anyone to use this to identify an individual. Disabling cookies on your internet browser will stop GA from tracking any part of your visit to pages within this website.
tawk.to cookies
If you use the tawk.to chat plugin to chat with us, the following three cookies will be used:
TawkConnectionTime : previous registration time stamp
Tawk_<propertyId> : socket connection url
__tawkuuid : domain restriction values
These cookies are only necessary for the tawk.to app. If they are disabled, you will not be able to use the chat app, but will not affect any other interaction with our website.
Necessary
Always Enabled

Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.

Non-necessary

Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. Disabling these cookies will not affect your experience on our website.

SAVE & ACCEPT