‘No secret’ some long shifts for volunteers
GOLD Coast Commonwealth Games bosses promise any volunteers doing a 12-hour day will be given the next one – and possibly two – off.
Games organising committee (GOLDOC) chairman Peter Beattie admitted a “tiny percentage” of the event’s 15,000 volunteers may have to work a 12-hour stint.
“We’ve never hidden that – I’ve said it ad nauseam,” Mr Beattie said yesterday.
“The reason for that is ... take basketball, it might have a game in the morning and a game in the afternoon. But all these shifts include breaks, they include lunches.
“If you don’t won’t to do it you don’t have to volunteer.”
GOLDOC was inundated with 47,000 volunteer applications, three times as many as it needed.
Mr Beattie said an average shift would be eight hours including meals and breaks.
Mr Beattie said GOLDOC would work with volunteers who have bought tickets to ensure they get to see anything they have booked.
GOLDOC CEO Mark Peters said anyone working a 12-hour shift would be given the next day off.
“You wouldn’t be rostered on the next day and possibly even the day after too,” he said.
Mr Peters said the main health and safety concern with such event volunteers – particularly the sports fans – was ensuring they didn’t stick around “beyond what they should”.