I was along on Saturday, along with James, Dan and Isla, for the semi-finals of the London Handball Cup. Handball is a sport I had never seen or even thought about before (along with the majority of the UK, I expect) but it’s an Olympic sport, and this event was a test event (part of the London Prepares series) for next year’s Games. Particularly exciting for me was that the event was taking place in the Handball Arena, a new permanent venue that is in the Olympic Park itself – so this was an excellent early chance to walk through and experience this huge newly transformed area of London, ahead of next year’s Games and the presumed general opening of the park to the non-ticketed public sometime in late 2013 or early 2014.

The tournament was over four days (Thursday to Sunday) with six women’s teams, and on Saturday the semi-finals and the 5th/6th place playoff was taking place. Unfortunately, the new Great Britain team was in the latter playoff – and lost to Slovakia 17-22. The other game we saw was the Angola vs Poland semi-finals, which was tied at 22-22 after normal time, resulting in 10 minutes of extra time being needed. Being such a close score, things got pretty exciting at the end.

Handball was a pretty easy game to pick up for spectating (the event guide helped) and the new arena is great. The seating is multicoloured, to provide the illusion of the arena always being full of spectators even if it is half empty. Everything’s brand new and – although the seating is rather uncomfortable, it was OK for the two matches (an hour each) that we stayed for. This being a test event, there were a few hitches – one notable one being the scoreboard, which displays an impressive number of stats, freezing up. The wrong team also got a point scored after a penalty, although this was presumably human error.

It was a bleak, windswept and chilly 1km walk from Westfield Stratford – the entry point – to the arena itself, but it did mean a walk right through the park (between temporary security fences) crossing numerous wide bridges and passing the Water Polo arena (temporary) and almost underneath the front of the Aquatic Centre. There is quite a lot of landscaping going on, and the odd tree here and there, but also large areas of hard paving, unfortunately reminiscent of the area around the O2 or Surrey Quays but I am sure necessary to cope with the huge volumes of people next summer. Hopefully the post-games conversion work will do a lot to break up the windswept plazas and soften the park area.

One particularly odd bridge had soft paving made up of multicoloured circles, rather lurid and jarring, and presumably soon to fade to murky brown with the weather over the winter. Surely some nice Portland granite would be better, or red brick – presumably much more expensive though. If the Barbican Estate can get large expanses of paving right, then why not the Olympic Park?

Still, it’s going to be a fascinating new part of London to explore – eventually.

I was invited along this morning to a “Games Maker” selection event, i.e. an interview session for volunteers for the Olympic Games in London next year. Should I be accepted, I’ll be in a Security team, which sounds like it means standing at Stratford Station pointing people through the shopping mall to the Olympic Park, or possibly telling people to stand in line for the park entrance screening – hmm.

Anyway, the interview process itself was quite unlike any I’ve had before – some of the quirks can be explained by the fact that LOCOG are apparently needing to interview over 100,000 people.

The interviews were on the 19th floor of a skyscraper in Canary Wharf – chosen presumably because of the stunning view north to the Olympic Park, which is looking encouragingly complete these days. I guess some interviewees have found the drop from the 19th floor a bit much, because we were asked if we wanted an interview “pod” away from the windows…

The process is timetabled to take 90 minutes, but I was in and out in just over 65 minutes – although I did arrive a little late. On arriving in the interview area, you are welcomed by a person at a desk, given a wristband (red, white or blue) indicating your interview time, and a programme. Then a second desk checks your passport and takes your photo. On both desks there was a large box of sweets, which at the time seemed a little odd – however Cadbury is one of the major sponsors of the volunteering program (along with McDonalds) and I really should have been a little more boldand nabbed the rather nice Creme Egg “Twisted” chocs that were in abundance.

Stage three is an exhibition – a map, some panels and screens – best of all is the aforementioned view to the park. Then there’s a short film to watch, where Seb, Tanni and Eddie Izzard, + a Cadburys guy, encourage you to be motivated for the interview itself. Despite the efficiency and formality of the whole process, Eddie’s section is actually quite funny – “We don’t want you to be just talking about cheese – now if this was an interview for a cheese competition, you’d be sorted.” Finally, the interview itself – the interviewer read strictly from a script – when I failed to understand the final question, he simply read it out several times! He also was glancing around quite a lot which was a bit disconcerting. To be fair to the interviewer, he was under quite strict time pressure, and also I think he himself was a Games Maker, i.e. volunteer. He was also an extremely polite and nice person, which is presumably why he had landed that role.

Finally you end up back with your fellow interviewees in a small room with a board on it where you are encouraged to write a “thought” on a whiteboard. Apparently the whiteboard fills up and is wiped each week – which considering there must have been a thousand comments on it, makes you realise just how many people are going through the process. There was also a small Olympic shop, although no one in my group went in it. I already have my British Team mug thanks to the John Lewis Olympic Shop in Stratford City.

…and that was it! Very organised, very slickly run, very slightly overbearing, but considering the numbers of people involved, about as good as it could be. My fellow interviewees probably represented the average demographic of London, with an average age probably mid/late 30s, mainly professionals and about half women.

I have no idea if I’ll be accepted. I wanted to phrase all my answers to the questions in relation to my volunteering and organising of various orienteering races, but the interviewer tended to steer me towards classic work-based scenarios. I guess I will find out in a few weeks. It sounds like I won’t be the one handing the towel to Usain Bolt, but you might see me with an Olympic map, pointing people in various, hopefully correct, directions.