Match One

Hi to anyone that reads this. I know I have not been very good at keeping up with this, but here is the latest journal entry I have for my school project. Don't mind the appendix references, obviously my blog isn't going to have an appendix. Enjoy.

Wednesday April 11

Today is really the day! For me this day has been 3 months working here, and over a year of waiting at home, in the making. For others (the Chairman of World Cup Barbados, Inc.) it has been a 10 year process to get to this point. The excitement is in the air when you step on site. The early start of 5:30 definitely dampens the energy a bit, but the truth is that every person involved in this process is noticeably excited for the first ball.

Cricket in Barbados is not just big business, it is life. Maybe not life and death as it is in Pakistan and India, but it is as important here as baseball, basketball, and football collectively are in the US. Almost every conversation leads back to cricket, even in church services. With a culture like that it only makes sense that the first official World Cup match, in such an important stadium as Kensington Oval, would generate excitement, even if the two teams are a struggling England and a small time (minnow) Bangladesh. It was fun and exciting for me to be a part of it, and was exactly why I chose to be a part of this process.

The day started off well with my co-supervisor Lisle organizing our volunteers. Breakfast came late, but our ladies handled it well, eating on the run with little complaints. We only had 5 out of 7 show up to work, but managed to place people in the positions that were most needed and made the most sense for their personalities.

When I originally was given this stand, Hall and Griffith (see Appendix for pictures), I was somewhat disappointed that it was the smallest stand. I felt as though I was being given the easiest task and that Kaye did not trust my abilities. As my workload increased leading up to the matches I began to enjoy the fact that my stand was so small and would be less of a hassle than the other multi-thousand seat stands. If I had only known then what I know now, that's all I can say.

I will list the issues and then discuss the resolution, or attempted resolution. Dirty seats (pigeons nest in the ceiling of the upper section in my stand, you can easily understand exactly how the seats are so "dirty") in the upper level of my stand; a ticket being issued for a seat that does not and has never existed in the decades old stand (built in the 1960s, refurbished somewhat for the World Cup); a leaking toilet, ceiling, pipe, that created puddles and minor floods on three of the four levels of the stand, including an approximate inch of water covering the floor of an entire suite by the end of the day, which flowed off of the suite balcony to the seating section below; a power outage putting a stairwell intended for suite-holders' use into complete darkness.

The resolution to the dirty seat problem has not been completed yet. The cleaners say they clean the seats, yet when I check, the seats are still obviously not clean. The cleaners blame the pigeons for making a new mess once they have finished cleaning, but I find it hard to believe that the pigeons are able to make the same mess in the same place twice, let alone three times.

The ticketing issue was resolved by an understanding fan that moved over a seat, allowing the man with the phantom seat to sit with his wife. The stand was not completely full today, so this was not an issue, but if the section became completely full this would have been an issue that I would have passed on to ticketing resolution, which is the proper procedure.

The flooding issue was addressed by continuously requesting maintenance and cleaning services until some action was taken. It was not until the end of the day that I was finally told that the problem was bigger than something that could be fixed during the match, and that the only resolution to the current problem was to have the cleaners continue to mop up the water. Fortunately no one complained too much about the water and the spectators were not upset. I raised the issue of response time and lack of information with the Chief Venue Development Officer after the managers' debriefing later in the night.

The power outage was a temporary problem that affected a majority of the stadium. It was fixed in roughly 15 to 30 minutes, but during that time I worked closely with the security personnel and the security supervisor, Rhonda, in particular, to create a safe solution to the problem. As best we could we diverted spectators from the stairwell, advising them that it was safer to use the other stairwell just opposite that one. For the spectators and service providers that still chose to use the stairwell we positioned a security guard with a flashlight to light the way. Once the power came on the issue was fully resolved. There was not a single injury due to darkness.

Every one of these resolved issues was resolved with the assistance of our Venue Communications Center, or VCC. The VCC has become an integral part of the process, as it allows service streams that are on different radio channels to communicate through the volunteers at the base stations. After today I have total confidence in the VCC and will rely on them to assist me in the coming matches.

The day ended early with Bangladesh being bowled out for only 143 runs (some teams have made 300+ runs, which obviously takes much longer; See Appendix for a brief introduction to cricket.), and England only needing to make 144 to win. The English took longer than expected to win, but eventually scored enough to win, with one of the final sixes being hit over the player's pavilion, onto the concourse (see Appendix for pictures).

In the past few days I can honestly say that the most useful course has been the HR course that I took with Dr. Pantera this past fall. The skills I learned in the class regarding problem resolution have been invaluable to me. I continue to use them daily, and with usually good results.