MY GLASGOW 2014 JOURNEY - PART 1: How it all began

I will include random pictures of my favourite parts of Glasgow.
This is one of me and the world famous Armadillo.

This is a five part series of blog entries about my own personal journey with regard to the 20th Commonwealth Games which took place in Glasgow this summer. It is merely a reflection of my own experiences and how I felt from first knowing about the prospect of the event taking place to completing my duties as a Clyde-sider volunteer. Please note that the text transcript within my blog entries may not be exactly as the description I provide in the audio, but should be interpreted in the same way nonetheless. Enjoy!

I was intrigued by the whole bidding process and whether Scotland would have the Commonwealth Games taking place within our own country. I actually remember before hand watching the news and finding out that Glasgow beat Edinburgh to become the host city in terms of the bid for Scotland to have the Commonwealth Games. I remember being a bit disappointed because I'm an Edinburgh lad and I was a little bit biased and I wanted Edinburgh to have it. But Glasgow got it and I lived with that.

I remember one of my first memories of my interest in the Commonwealth Games was when I went to a lecture during my time at university in Aberdeen (at Robert Gordon University) and I went to one of the city centre campuses and walked along Blackfriars Street. I remember hearing from a source that Glasgow had just won the bid to host the Commonwealth Games and I remember punching my fist up in the air and giving it this big "YES!" in the middle of the street and half the folk walking along the pavement just looked at me thinking "what the hell is going on here?!" and they realised that I was happy about something and the thing I was happy about was the fact that the Commonwealth Games were coming to Scotland. I was delighted about that and I was quite excited, because  it's not a tiny event. It's quite a big deal and although it's not the Olympics, it's still a worldwide event and it's quite exciting when you hear about something as big as that happening potentially in your own country.

The next memory I had about my journey to the Commonwealth Games was early last year when I woke up on a Monday morning and watched BBC Breakfast on the television and I remember they did a live piece at Glasgow Central train station. There was all these people walking around the station looking for people to show interest or become interested in becoming a potential volunteer for the Commonwealth Games so they were interviewed live on the television and they were saying that they were looking for many thousands of people to become volunteers for the event, to help deliver the event and get involved and I instinctively decided there and then I was going to apply.

So within a couple of hours, I started the application process which was done online and I got my application form done. I wasn't too fussed with what I wanted to do precisely and I just wanted to be involved in the event and play my role at Glasgow 2014 so I submitted my application as quickly and properly as I could.

It took a while until I heard back that I was being invited to get interviewed [for the Clyde-sider role].