More volunteering

I went for an interview last week at my local Ealing Volunteer Centre, hoping to be a 'London Ambassador' for the Olympic Games. Looks like I just missed Boris who visited a few days later saying, "How tremendous!" it all is. And I must say, the process was surprisingly well organised. Apparently there are 10 volunteer centres aiming to recruit 8,000 Ambassadors from 16,000 applicants. Mind you, as only half of the applicants have been turning up for their appointments at Ealing, that increases the odds of being selected to start with ! We were split into small teams and firstly had to speak on several topics each for a few minutes and then role-played dealing with stressed out tourists - "Calm down, dear, it's only the Olympics!" Then we had to locate a range of tourist attractions on the London map and apart from sticking Tower Bridge on London Bridge station (?) our team did pretty well at that. So will I be steaming out to one of the 33 Olympic information 'pods' come next summer ? I'll keep you posted.

Also last week, literally in the heart of London, the first St John's Waterloo Festival themed 'War and People' drew to a close. Enjoyed by over 1000 people, six days of concerts, theatre, dance, walks, art and poetry were all initiated, conceived and delivered by a brilliant team of willing volunteers including myself, responsible for branding, marketing and promotion. The first night's Southbank Sinfonia concert was thrillingly recommended by Time Out and we're already planning for next summer's Festival to be themed 'War and Peace'.

Meanwhile, back in Ye Olde Hanwell, hurrah! We have succeeded in keeping Hanwell Library open - see my February post. But Ealing Council have warned us that it may only be for another year and that they are about to start consultations with volunteer groups with a view to them helping run and maintain local libraries. Aaah, so that'll be that 'power to the people' mantra that Cameron keeps preaching - in other words, we all do even more for free whilst supposedly embracing our new-found local 'People Power'. I'm not convinced by this blurring of amateur and professional boundaries but maybe I'm just a cynical and sometime, weary volunteer.