Last Friday I attended my latest Olympic volunteer training day - but that's not what I want to concentrate upon in this post. I came back to headlines about bus drivers demanding extra pay and threatening to go on strike which set me thinking about the cost to many of the volunteers. Some of the people I met on Friday had come considerable distances - Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, York. One person I talked to has already agreed to rent a flat in Croydon for the duration and will be giving up her earnings as a pharmacist for the pleasure.
So, I ran a quick calculation - suppose it costs a volunteer £30 every time they come into London and that person is giving up work valued at, say, £300 per day they will have paid quite a hefty cost (opporunity cost, much of it) by the end of the process. For someone who has attended an intial interview (1/2 day), undertaken training (3 days), collected their uniform and accreditation (1/2 day) and done 16 full volunteering stints (a full day, each - all my shifts are 10 hours) then using the above costs the overall value is some £6630.
So, bus drivers, train drivers, underground workers and anyone else aiming to squeeze extra cash for, yes, probably working harder - just think about the rewards for London and the country as a whole, and think about what the volunteers are giving up to make the whole exercise a success.
There - it's off my chest.
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