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Mr Mead's Grand Day Out

As a reward for the RGS staff’s Three Peaks Exploits in June 2011, raising £20,000 in memory of John-Paul Stevens and Judy DeGelas, the Child Bereavement Charity very kindly offered one member of the RGS staff team a place to take part in an extraordinary and unique Charity parade. The venue? None other than London’s new Olympic Stadium! The member of staff to represent the RGS? Myself. Although the significance of the occasion - or should I say date? - was not lost... It was April 01.

But this was no joke. I actually had a ticket for at least something to do with London 2012 and would get an opportunity to do something that not many others will – walk around the stadium on the soon to be hallowed track. So with high hopes of potentially meeting a few Team GB athletes – Jessica Ennis in particular - and maybe a few other famous names whilst at the same time setting a new stadium/RGS record for the 100m. Suffice to say that I was not to be disappointed. The London Organising Committee has been busy. Very busy...

The first thing that strikes when one arrives at Stratford Station is the cheekiness of it all... What do you see first? Is it the Stadium? The Aquatics Centre (Aka the Sting Ray)? The Velodrome (Aka the Pringle)? No. Westfield Stratford Shopping Centre!  You actually have to walk right through it to access the Olympic Park! And so after having resisted the urge to have an ‘Olympic Starbucks’ or ‘Olympic Wagamama’, and having negotiated the airport style security checks, I finally arrived at Park.

At first I wondered ‘what on earth?’, because the temporary stands either side of the Aquatics Centre are the first thing you see and they are just plain ugly! But this negative feeling soon subsided into one of amazement. Quite frankly, the Olympic Park is stunning and having been and seen the venues for Beijing 2008; I can honestly reveal that we Brits have a lot to be proud of. What strikes you is the scale of the park; it is a huge site! But at the same time all the major venues are within easy walking distance. It is also obvious that LOCOG have spent the money around all of the venues and not just plugged it into one or two ‘showpieces’.

The Olympic Stadium is no ‘Bird’s Nest’ or Wembley, but it is extremely impressive. After being locked up in a holding pen for 90 minutes, I then walked onto the track on a beautifully sunny afternoon and it certainly had the wow factor. Unfortunately walking around the track with thousands of others made my aforementioned stadium record attempt impossibility, and I was also amused to see various people pretending to start a race at the finishing line, but the experience was something I will never forget. I was walking on the track where hopefully Mo Farah will win the 5000 or 10,000m; the track where man may break the 19 second barrier for the 200m; the track where our real teams might actually get the baton around! Like many others, I also couldn’t help but pull off a Usain Bolt style pose and I have a photo of the moment to cherish.

It also emerged that of all the various challenger groups representing charities for various feats, we, the RGS, had raised more money than most – by about £15,000. I myself did not notice this but people in the stands heard this over the tannoys and I guess it hit me what we had done in memory of Judy DeGelas and J P Stevens last year. I also wished, and still wish, dearly that the entire Three Peaks Team could have walked around the track and not just me.

I don’t have any tickets for the Games in the summer and it is something that is a bit of a sore point. But like many others I’ll be roaring on Team GB via the TV. For those of you lucky enough to have tickets, you are in for an almighty experience. When you think about it, we really can be GREAT Britain.