Volunteering at Tbilisi EYOF 2015

The introduction

Well, volunteering for Tbilisi EYOF 2015 was great, as a whole, though I didn't really want to be a volunteer in the first place. I thought it would be much responsibility and we wouldn't have fun at all, you know, but I was wrong and it was good that my sister encouraged me to go ahead and be a volunteer.

Tbilisi Sports Palace

At first, we had this thing, we were brought to Tbilisi Sports Palace and we were to be volunteers there and we had to see what was where and they explained to us everything _ what our rights and responsibilities were and where all the stuff was and where the delegations would be and where we would be and everything. We saw the inside of the Sports Palace _ the things that spectators usually don't see, you know what I mean, because we had to know everything about it and so that if anyone asked we would answer them correctly and guide them or whatever. It was good to see the whole Sports Palace without people all emptied and stuff. I really liked it.

We saw volunteers room, too and there we say for some time waiting for our leaders to be free so that we would arrange or next meetings or what we would do. It turned out, that I wasn't going to be in Sports Palace, but I was transferred to Didube Venue, so that I had to go there, too, and see what was there, because during my volunteering I would be there meeting delegations and stuff like that. I haven't yet mentioned that I was a medical volunteer, so I had some different responsibilities than the other volunteers, you know.

Didube venue

So, there were 7 of us, I guess, that were to be on Didube Venue, so we had to go there that day. Our leader would take us there, as we wouldn't find it easily. Well, we went there, saw some stuff. It was newly built and everything there was made just some time ago and finished just some days ago, I guess, so everything smelled like new and there was dust almost everywhere, though the ladies working there had already washed and cleaned the place many times. But you know, after renovating there's always so much dust, that you need to clean everything many, many times for everything to be normal again.

I must say, that those days were very hot and that day was very hot, too, and we were really tired and stuff. But then they said that we should have to go back to that Sports Palace and we didn’t really want that, of course, but then if we got there, there would be conditioning and there wouldn’t be that hot, so we went there. We had this idea of decorating our room in Didube Venue and make some beautiful place for us there, because we would have to be there for some days and the room was just empty and there was nothing really, so we would have some nice pictures or stuff like that and when we got in that room, we wouldn’t feel empty , you know. So I told the others that I would prepare some stuff for that and I had these colourful papers and all the other stuff from other volunteers in Sports Palace and I would cut some things out from them and make some things and bring them to Didube Venue the next day. I did that, of course, and, I must say, that I was doing that the whole day and late at night, because I wanted everything to be ready for the next day and I would bring those things to the venue. I made the Tbilisi EYOF symbol, Olympics symbol, basketball and some other things and they were pretty beautiful, if you ask me.

The next day I took my crafts and brought them to the venue. Well, maybe the other volunteers didn’t expect that and they were pretty amazedby those things and we hung them on the walls and everyone helped and it was cool.

The other thing I want to say is, that our room was pretty cool after we brought some tables and benches and drawers there. It was so cool inside the room that one wouldn’t want to leave it. We also had this teams’ schedule hung on the wall and everything was just great. So, we could control who  was coming and going and when and stuff like that and when there was another team coming, we would know that and we would meet them and we would be prepared. Everything was ready for delegations to arrive.

Well, we had volunteers for everything. There were two volunteers for meeting the delegations and leading them to their dressing rooms and then to the courts. There were us _ me and another my coursemate _ we were medical volunteers and we had to provide ice cubes and first aid, if necessary and we would call for emergency service if we thought there was some emergency situation and stuff like that. There were volunteers for checking which delegations came for their practice and which didn’t. There were also volunteers for any questions that delegations had. So, as you see, we had all our responsibilitiesand we would have to do our job very well, because it was our country’s prestige and our prestige and stuff like that, you know.

So, every day we had to be on Didube Venue at 7 a.m. Sometimes even earlier and sometimes a little later, it depended on the schedule and when the first delegation came. Of course we had to be on our place some time earlier than the delegation came, so that we would have prepared all the stuff that was necessary for meeting the delegation and their practicing. First of all, we needed to know that the ice cubes were in “good shape”, secondly, we needed to count the balls and take them to the practicing court. And of course, the courts should have been clean and we had to make sure that they were cleaned by those ladies who worked there. There were also supervisors coming and meeting with us and looking around and seeing whether everything was okay or not and all the other stuff. 

Well, the first time was pretty exciting and kind of messy, I guess, because we had our first delegation and while we knew what we had to do, we were still under pressure and we felt more responsibilities than we actually had, we wanted everything to be perfect and our meeting with the delegation to be a success. Well, I must say, that it all went as planned and there was no mistakes or misleading or something like that. Everyone was pleased and satisfied with everything and we were really happy to see the delegations practice and all the other stuff, you know. We made sure some of us stayed with each delegation so that if they needed something they would tell us and we would provide them to them. There were two practice courts in the first floor and two other courts on the second. The downstairs courts and one upstairs was for basketball and the one on the second was for volleyball. There were both girls and boys teams practicing at our venue. Well, mostly there were boys, because officially of wad supposed to be boys' practicing place and the girls had another venue to practice. So it was kind of surprising when we saw some girls teams coming to us. They were both basketball and volleyball players.

To be honest, there were many teams coming for practicing and we didn't really have time to rest. Sometimes there wasn't even time just to go into the volunteers' room. However the whole process was still satisfying and nice. There were delegations from Turkey, Germany, Spain, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, France, Italy, Georgia, Russia, Latvia and others. A you see, there were many delegations coming throughout the day.

We had lunch menus, too, of course, and that was a really good thing that we had them, because otherwise we wouldn't even have time to buy something outside in markets or somewhere and we would just die there.

Photo gallery