London 2012 blog

Wow well, this is my first blog for LOCOG (and first blog ever I think). First, a little bit about me. I have just finished my second year at the University of Hull doing British Politics and Legislation Studies and managed to gain an internship over summer with LOCOG’s Government Relations team.

I've been here now for just over a month and am really enjoying it, a bit scary at first moving to the mother of all British cities and working/living on my own, but I have just about settled in.

Part of my job here is to head up a number of small projects - one of which was the West Midlands Drop-in last night; where we invite MPs to literally drop-in and voice any questions or queries they might have about London 2012 Games. This is also a great chance for them to meet their Regional Coordinator team and helps us to reassure MPs that the Games are not just going to benefit London but the country as a whole, with business opportunities through CompleteFor and Pre-Games Training Camps being set up all over the UK.

This was the second Drop-in  I have done. The first was the East Midlands Drop-in, which went very well with a number of MPs turning up and having their photo taken with Olympian Jonathan Edwards.

Read more of “Dropping in on the West-Midlands”

Pride '08 provided the latest setting for the LOCOG smiling staffers tour of London community events, with six of us working at the rally in Trafalgar Square on Saturday.

Our friends from the LDA brought their roadshow, asking what Londoners wanted to see in the Olympic Park after the Games, and we worked alongside them to make sure that any questions people had about the Games themselves could be answered – from Games venues in the City of Westminster to plans for development at Eton Dorney, the Rowing venue.


As the afternoon wore on and we burnt in the beating sun along with the crowd, the party-goers started to enjoy the entertainment on stage and became much more attracted by the stickers we were giving out as the photo shows:

Read more of “We get proud at Pride”

Last week our new Head of Diversity and Inclusion Stephen Frost asked those of us who were in Beijing or going to Beijing to consider one of six elements – disability, belief, age, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation in the context of China and the Games. For me there was no choice but to make it a challenge, so I resisted my natural choice – age! - and went for disability. Now I don’t profess to be an expert in these areas and it may be that if one of our disabled colleagues writes a future blog that is more insightful but anyhow, here is my small contribution.
Last Sunday I spent the morning at the Summer Palace north of Beijing. Stephen’s plea was fresh in my memory so I approached the visit thinking about accessibility. The Palace is located in an area of hills, palaces and shrines all set around a large lake. It is one of the most visited tourist sites in Beijing, so an early start was essential.

The entrance looked formidable: As with most ancient Chinese structures is a 30 centimetre high step in between the door uprights that makes access difficult. But on enquiry they showed me a side entrance for disabled visitors with ambulant restrictions.

Read more of “Summer Palace”