Hi all,
So as you are all probably aware, the Chevron City to Surf for Activ was held last Sunday, August 28. It was a record breaking event with approx. 42,000 participants!! As i mentioned in my last post, I was allocated a management position for sponsorship signage. I was required to be on hand from last Tuesday, however for the week preceeding this, I was unfortunately hit by the flu and a sinus infection. As much as I tried to be of use, I ended up in tears (yes, in front of the whole office) and was sent home to bed! The Wednesday, however, I felt 100% better and was sent immediately down to City Beach Oval where the bump in was well and truely underway!
Signage had begun arriving so it was my job to record what had arrived from each sponsor and ensure we had enough to suit the Master Plan that my supervisor, Alicia, had prepared. It was then my job to redesign the plan to suit what we had received. This was a MASSIVE task as boxes and boxes kept being delievered right through until the Saturday, and there were so many different types of signage, poles, bags and bases- which the majority of were not labelled!! Very frustrating.
So Saturday night I sat with Alicia and had a final run through of the master copy and made (very) last minute changes. I also sat with the event director (and most dedicated, hard working man I have EVER met), to go through on course signage allocations, and which of my crews would have which sections to do. I already had reliable crews for Esplanade Park, the start at St Georges Tce, and the 4km start at McLean Park, but after they had to let one of my crew leaders go on the Saturday, I had to step up and take on the role of driving a ute (complete with a flashing orange light!!) and putting out on course signage on the Sunday morning. This was a daunting experience but worked out okai in the end (except when the marathon runners started running past us when we were mid way through putting up signage- oops!).
Saturday night I finished up around 8pm, and had to be back down at City Beach by 3am. By this stage of the week I, along with every other road and signage crew, was well and truely shattered! Words can't explain what working 70 hours in 5 and a half days does to you!!! But we all troopered on and got all of the signage out without any major issues. There were small things, like one of our sponsors sent us some Subaru feather flags- which clearly weren't meant to be there!! Other than this, we rushed around doing last minute things like putting signage at the main stage, putting all the feather flags up at the finish line, and I was answering calls from my crews with questions (my phone was ringing before I even got there at 3am!!).
Upon returning to the finish precinct, participants had well and truely begun crossing the line and the festivities were underway! I hovered in the events office and assisted with the radios, lost children, general queries and a bunch of other things (including a trip to the marathon recovery tent- I don't recommend going in there, it's rather sweaty and smelly!!). The day was going perfectly until the call came across the radio regarding a collapsed man at the finish line. As the news would of informed you all, sadly a half marathon participant passed away. My deepest sympathy goes out to his family, friends and fiance. Unfortunately, as Georgia mentioned in her earlier blog, the media thrive on these stories, and it's difficult to control what is said on the news and written on online news sites, which is a shame, as the 'facts' they provide aren't necessarily true. However, as we all learnt, this is all a part of dealing with events, PR and media.
Upon the conclusion of the event, all my signage crews brought back the masses of signage (unfolded, some on poles some loose- it was a SHAMBLES). We finished up at about 4.30pm with a beer and a seat in the sun, then went home for some much needed sleep, before returning at 8am Monday morning! This is when the clean up begun, and I had the tedious task of folding every single piece of mesh signage, and the feather flags, and checking off what had been returned against what had been delievered. This took until 5pm Monday, with a large crew of very helpful road and signage crews helping me, and one lovely guy describing the signage area as looking like a 'brothel'. That started a word war, but made our day much more enjoyable as we were all laughing and having fun whilst working. I had to return Tuesday morning to finish it all off and load everything into the truck which we then took to a warehouse for sponsors to come and collect.
I was informed that this was the first year EVER that every single piece of signage had been returned, and I was greeted by extremely appreciative and congratulating managers in the office on Friday!! This was such a great feeling, to know the big bosses recognised and acknowledged my hard work.
I know this has been a very long blog, but to be honest, no amount of words or descriptions can do this job, or event, justice. It was a long week with an extreme amount of work, and I even found my inner boy (hi vis work gear, driving utes, having an appetite of a man, getting filthy sock tans and yes, shamefully my language became worse as the week went on!). But the most rewarding thing to come from this whole experience was my satisfaction that I've found what I want to do for the rest of my life. And for this I can't thank the crew at City to Surf enough for giving me the opportunity to take on such an intense, important role. As much as I whinged and moaned about being exhausted and shattered, I had the best time imaginable, made some life long friends, and even networked my way into being offered a job at another event that will see me travelling Australia and getting paid!!
Until my next (and final) blog, thanks for reading :-)
(I've added a pic of a little bit of memorabilia they gave each of us)
Sarah Ball
14262784
(bentley campus)
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