LEN EUROPEAN AQUATICS CHAMPIONSHIPS
As the regular supplier of Stewards and Security staff to the LONDON AQUATICS CENTRE since the completion of the 2012 LONDON OLYMPICS we were put on notice as soon as the event was programmed in to the Centre’s busy schedule.
This was going to be a 21 day event with in the region of 20,000 competitors and 40,000 spectators from all around Europe, the greater majority of them having never been to the Centre before and a large proportion being non English speaking.
A major part of our responsibility was to control the movement in, out and around the Centre in sequence with the time of the event that they were participating in, or specifically wanting to watch. We knew this would bring a multitude of challenges as we had to comply with capacity restrictions which were finely calculated in order to allow competitors and spectators to flow in and out in time for the specific events to operate on schedule without any competitors missing their slot or spectators missing an event that they may have travelled from the other side of Europe to see.
Apart of our pre event planning was to establish staff with multi lingual capabilities and to organise their deployment in such a way to maximise the benefits that they brought. This proved to be very useful in helping a number of visitors to the event.
An added feature to the Security of the event was a late concern of demonstrators encroaching the poolside. To counter this a special team of water confident WSSL security staff were covertly deployed in strategic positions and were ready to act as necessary in order to prevent any disruption to activities.
With the number of staff involved and the shift times varying it meant that on many days we delivered 4 or 5 full Safety Briefing sessions. A dedicated member of the WSSL team took responsibility for the planning of the up to date briefing notes and the assembly of staff prior to their work commencement. We were very confident that all staff had the most up to date awareness of event requirements and Safety procedures prior to the start of each shift.
We also needed to consider the welfare of our staff as a number of the pool area positions subjected staff to warm/humid working conditions. A rotation of deployment overcame this situation and enabled staff to enjoy comfortable working conditions. Further, full consideration was given to the long hours each day that the venue would be operating and a shift system along with a full refreshment and rest marque for staff was provided. Over the course of the 21 event days we utilised in excess of 100 staff who manned over 1000 shifts and achieved in the region of 10,000 man hours of work.
The event was a HUGE SUCCESS and the CEO of LEN, Tom Chambers said ” I am very satisfied with all that the WSSL team have done” and then said to James Wise “Your guys did really well, it couldn’t have been better”
