CSSC Member Sue Carter's personal insight  to her role as a Selection Event Volunteer

My Selection Event Volunteer involvement started back in January 2011 when I was contacted by the London Organising Committee of the Games( LOCOG) after submitting my application to be a Games Maker, and offered the opportunity to participate in the regional selection events for volunteers for London 2012. I assume the experience I have in my current job role working for the MOD, which involves competence based interviewing on a regular basis, identified me as a suitable candidate to assist LOCOG with the huge recruitment campaign for 70,000 Games Makers. After having an interview myself and then completing a training day I was considered competent for the role and couldn't wait to get started!

So on a very cold day in March I arrived at the Sailing Academy in Portland for my first shift, feeling slightly nervous, not knowing what was ahead of me for the next five hours of interviewing. I soon realised that all the other interviewers were feeling just the same, but the LOCOG team quickly reassured us that we'd all be fine and to enjoy ourselves as we would be interviewing some great people with even greater experiences to tell us about. How true that turned out to be, but more of that later. The whole process of how a potential Games Maker was taken through the initial administration of confirming their identity, watching a couple of videos (including a very funny Eddy Izzard sketch) and then the interview was very streamlined, adhering to a very tight timeline. We had 30 minutes to interview, score and hand in the paperwork, ready for the next candidate. I never thought I could interview in such a short timeframe but it soon became surprisingly easy to comply with the process. Something I've learnt for when I next conduct interviews for business reasons! If you were lucky you got a coffee break, but free time in between interviewing was rare. Occasionally there were other administrative tasks the LOCOG staff asked us to help with which gave us a break from back to back interviewing. Although we were unable to claim back any kind of expenses, we were given lunch, plus as many Heroes chocolates as you could eat care of Cadburys, one of the main sponsors! I also fell under the spell of the merchandise area set up as a retail shop, lots of London 2012 things to buy.

I did four shifts in total at Portland, spread over a week, would loved to have done more but all the interviewers enjoyed their shifts so much we were fighting to volunteer for more! I got to know some great characters from my fellow SEVs, so much so six of us created a group known as the "Portland Six" who went on to participate at the Plymouth SEV event in August, (that event was even busier than Portland and we completed three consecutive days of interviewing, my record was fifteen interviews in one day!). Plymouth was the last regional event, but interviews continue to be held at the Excel Centre in London for the rest of this year and into 2012.

The quality of Games Maker candidates was outstanding, the majority showed a great passion for the Olympic ethos, representing Great Britain and wanting to show the rest of the world what a great job GB can do when it comes to putting on the greatest sporting event on Earth. Interviewing so many people made me realise how much sport in this country relies on volunteers to help with coaching/judging/running events. I heard many exceptional stories of commitment in the volunteering sector from all ages. Of particular note were the volunteering experiences described by the younger Games Maker hopefuls in this country, it was inspiring to hear about it all. Although from very different backgrounds everyone shared an enthusiasm for London 2012 and I like to think that this is what being a Games Maker is all about. I very much hope I get selected to be a Games Maker (and yes, before you ask - I had to have a Games Maker interview too!).