Olympic Volunteering: The Story from Bidding to Legacy.
Authors: Smith, K., Holmes, K., Lockstone-Binney, L. and Shipway, R.
Conference: CAUTHE 2017 Annual Conference: Time for big ideas? Re-thinking the field for tomorrow.
Dates: 7-10 February 2017
Abstract:Volunteers are integral to the delivery of mega events and increasingly, achieving a sustained positive legacy of volunteering participation in the host city is a desirable outcome for the event organisers and the wider host location including policy-makers and community organisations. Using the sustainable event timeline (Holmes, Hughes, Mair and Carlsen, 2015) this paper compares and contrasts the volunteering legacy of the Sydney 2000 and London 2012 Olympic Games. Drawing on secondary data and interviews, it highlights the extent to which an event organising committee engages with the host location’s existing volunteering infrastructure across the bid, event planning, event delivery, transition, and legacy phases. In the case of Sydney, volunteering legacies were sector-driven (bottom up approach) whereas in London they were instituted by more formal bodies (top down approach).
Source: Manual