Sector volunteering chiefs win role in Olympics

Life-Time UK Alliance members will advise London Organising Committee

Lobbying by a coalition of charity chief executives has won them a role as key advisers to the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, which will recruit and train about 70,000 volunteers.

The Life-Time UK Alliance, whose members include the chief executives of the Media Trust, Volunteering England, v, Timebank, YouthNet and Greater London Volunteering, will meet Locog officials regularly to advise them on how to recruit and manage the volunteers.

Earlier this year, the alliance wrote to Locog asking for a formal role in the volunteering programme for the 2012 event. Kerry Tweed, chief executive of GLV, said she wanted the alliance to persuade Locog to give volunteers a good deal on travel and accommodation expenses. She said it was considering whether to hold a conference later this year that would find ways of joining up Games-related activity across different regions.

"We need to make the most of the opportunity of working closely with Locog on quite a tight schedule," Tweed said.