By Luke Giffen:
Hello again,
Luke here. Has it really already been 3 weeks since last time we talked? Time is really going by quickly but don’t worry; I have a lot to tell you. As Geordie mentioned in his previous blog, we are still working towards compiling each team’s “Team Size Calculator.” As there are 9 sports and 69 countries attending the games, you can imagine it has kept us pretty busy. We’ve been very fortunate so far to be speaking with many helpful contacts around the world. Who knows, maybe these relationships we are building will help us as we move forward in our professional careers. Currently we are working on filling in the official events log for the Commonwealth Youth Games. We are inputting each team’s participants and which events they will entering. This is the main job we’ve maintained, but we’ve been fortunate to have a few more exciting things pop up as we’ve gone along.
About two weeks ago Team England and Team Wales sent 4 delegates to the Bahamas to conduct a site visit. At a site visit, we show the delegates the facilities for the games as well as the planned accommodations for their respective team’s. As you can expect, a lot of questions pop up which helps us move forward in planning the most successful games yet. Team England and Team Wales were with us for two days where we showed them around the island and treated them to traditional Bahemian lunches and dinners. This past week two of Team Australia’s delegates came for their site visit. During the visit we were all treated to a true Bahemian breakfast of stew and white grits. All things considered, I think they are very pleased with the progress we are making. Frankly, so am I. They are on their flight home as I write this.
The team sporting our new Team Australia hats with their two delegates, Danusia and Tim
Last week we were able to sit in on our first press conference of the games. It was very interesting to see all of the influential people for the event giving their take on how they think everything is going. We even got a shout out on TV by Romell for doing a great job. Guess our next stop is Hollywood..
Chairman Wellington Miller speaking at the press conference
About one week ago we helped Drumeco Archer, whom I mentioned in the previous blog, with his marketing campaign. I’m fortunate enough to have a drone and a GoPro on the island so we helped him get some aerial videos and pictures for his “Who’s Next” Campaign. The campaign is quite simply looking for who’s the next great athlete. The team is focusing on helping inner-city children in the Bahamas in order to help give them a chance to play and potentially even compete.
The last thing I wanted to touch on was what we’ve been doing outside of work. Geordie’s parents were able to come visit for about a week and we were lucky enough that they rented a car. We ended up driving out to the western side of the island to Clifton Heritage National Park. This area has an underwater sculpture that houses Ocean Atlas, an 18 foot statue weighing over 60 tonnes. Naturally, we purchased a ticket and snorkeled out to see it in all its glory. It was an incredible experience that we shared with the massive schools of fish that seemed to follow us around wherever we swam.
Ocean Atlas
I don’t think I could leave this blog on any story better than that so I’ll sign out for now..
Until next time, here’s a Youtube link to some drone footage from where we are staying: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itPC_xbv6uo&feature=youtu.be
Luke