We have been to Coventry, Manchester, Newcastle, Weymouth, Nottingham Leeds, Kent, Cardiff and, of course, London Town.
Each day has consisted of starting the morning at a local McDonald's store (since they are the presenting partner of the volunteer programme) where we have been meeting with local MPs, Mayors and Mayoresses, as well as local residents who have read about our impending visit in the local paper and come down to find out what it's all about, and of course everyday McDonald's customers.
After consuming way too many Sausage and Egg McMuffins, we have then been heading over to the local library to meet with representatives from the local Volunteer Centre. This half of the day is also about letting people know that they can get online at their local library to apply from 15 September, if they decide being a Games Maker is for them.
There have been radio interviews, newspaper interviews and photoshoots! The people we have met have been brilliant – these are our potential Games Makers from all over the UK!
In Coventry, our star for the day was one local girl, Sarah, who had recently volunteered for the first time at a local sporting event and loved it so much she is now hooked and desperate to be a Games Maker. She was our poster child for the day, pictured in all of the local papers looking at the Games Maker website.
Onto Manchester, where a whole crowd of amazing people who want to be Games Makers came along to the library. Some had come from as far away as Blackpool and Blackburn as they knew we were going to be there and wanted to chat to us face-to-face. Honestly, they were some of the most genuine and excited people you will ever meet.
All currently volunteers and many of them from sports clubs – including Harry, who has already applied to be a specialist for Taekwondo, and Linda, who has been into athletics since she was a kid and now runs an athletics club in Blackpool (among a million other things). She was praying for a place in the Olympic Stadium and I tell you what, if you want a blueprint of a Games Maker, Linda is it. I even took her address to send her a badge as she was so adorable (don't worry I told her there is 'no preferential treatment' when it comes to applications, etc etc!). Then there were Rita and Bob who came all the way from Blackburn and have already sorted out their accommodation in London as they want to be in the middle of all the action.
Beautiful Newcastle was sunny and lively and being in the busiest McDonald's in the country outside of Oxford Circus gave us ample opportunity to spread the Games Maker word.
Points for the most enthusiastic stops so far though go to Weymouth, Kent and Stratford – local residents came out in force to find out about how they can apply to volunteer at the London 2012 Sailing venue or in one of the many London venues. These were the people who were most excited about staging the greatest show on earth.
Nottingham and Leeds were friendly and intrigued as this was mostly educating people about the fact that this is not only a chance for Londoners to get involved.
Now there's only Cardiff left to go and it promises to be as fruitful as the other stops, with more press coming down than anywhere else and great locations for us to set up our stand.
The roadshow has been a tiring, demanding but thoroughly enjoyable and rewarding experience. It shows how much the people of the UK are behind what we are doing – and while it also highlighted that we have a bit more to do in terms of explaining exactly how people can get involved and how exciting this is for the whole country, it has proved to be a most worthwhile roadshow.
Now off to soak my aching feet...
In the meantime, if you think you've got what it takes to be a London 2012 Games Maker, visit the website – applications open tomorrow!
