15th January 2013 03:56
The majority of the near 800 volunteers who will carry out their important duties at the Göteborg 2013 European Athletics Indoor Championships gathered on Monday for their first meeting ahead of the 1-3 March event.
600 of the 786 volunteers who will work in competition, accreditation, security, transportation, media, communications, hosting, support areas, came together at the Svenska Mí¤ssan -- where the market square will be during the championships -- just 45 days before the event for a meeting with the main project team.
Hanna Andersson, volunteer manager for the European Athletics Indoor Championships said, 'The kick-off is important for everyone to get together, feel part of a team and get a consistent picture of what is expected. The benefits from this meeting are that our volunteers will feel great commitment and have real fun during this mission and will perform their best.'
The volunteers come from throughout Sweden and five other countries, speaking 31 different languages and are aged between 18 and 79 years old.
For many, it is their first volunteer assignment, while a lot were volunteers during both the 1995 World Athletics Championships and 2006 European Athletics Championships.
'It is the mix of people that is our recipe for success. Those who have experience of the previous track and field championships, they are sitting on invaluable knowledge and both for other volunteers and us in the project team this has been very useful,' said Andersson.