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Over the bank holiday weekend I have been working at the UK School Games as a volunteer at the volleyball competition. A couple of years ago I was asked to use a statistics system for volleyball called VIS, which is developed by the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB). I originally used this at the World Championship Qualifiers in January 2005 and have since used it again at the National Finals last year. VIS is a good system of statistics but the software often gets a little bit flaky and so we've had problems using it in the past. This time the statistics went very well and by the end of the competition I had managed to train up 7 new people in using the system. The overall competition was run really well, and I would definitely like to be involved in something like that when I was younger. The idea is to replicate as close to an Olympic environment as possible, including an athletes village at Warwick University.
Over the weekend I stayed with my friend Matt in the officials hotel, the Britannia Hotel, Coventry. For anyone who's been to Coventry, you'll know its pretty much a concrete jungle that looks awful! The hotel is no exception and from the outside it looks like a large concrete block. The inside is nicer, although some of the rooms were in need of a little modernisation. Most of the clientel were old people and we had heard that earlier in the week a bingo night was being run - not sure why old people want to go to Coventry though! The food at the hotel was great, large buffet meals for breakfast and dinner. Cooked breakfasts and lots of options for dinner meant we were fed well all weekend. I also rented a car for the weekend from Hertz at London City Airport. I've never been to the airport before and its not large but has all the facilities needed. The hire car was nice - they even upgraded me for free (only to a fiesta) - and everything seemed to go well. Overall the weekend was a great success with the VIS statistics providing live scores on the www.volleyballengland.org. VIS seems to be getting used more often in england as we are starting to see the benefits of using it at such large competitions - sadly we did have some problems with explaining to referees how to make our lives easier, but then again I think they were mostly just older men scared of change! |
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