SOCOG expects ambos to do their duty!
6 October 1998While Games organisers spend big to send scores of observers to the Winter Olympics and the Commonwealth Games, St John Ambulance volunteers have been told to pay their own way to the Sydney Olympics.
St John's commissioner, Mr John Spencer, said the organisation, whose members provide medical assistance at events around Australia, asked SOCOG for $2 million to accommodate, feed and transport interstate and regional volunteers during the Games.
But SOCOG, with a $2.5 billion budget, rejected the request and St John will tell members they must pay $75 a day for accommodation on top of return transport costs.
"Unlike a paid service, our people are giving their time as volunteers. They have got to take leave from their jobs," Mr Spencer said.
He was speaking just days before SOCOG's national call for 50,000 volunteers for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
St John, self-funded through first-aid resuscitation courses, will serve athletes and spectators with a minimum of 1,500 staff over 60 days of the two events. It estimates it needs at least 300 interstate volunteers plus local staff.
It plans to approach SOCOG again, seeking $200,000 it says is needed for a "bare minimum" 100 interstate volunteers.
As a charity, the organisation asks event organisers to pay out-of-pocket costs. If refused, the Olympics could bankrupt the organisation, Mr Spencer said.
"We have $200,000 but what we don't want to do is to break our organisation for the sake of the Olympic Games."
The refusal also places enormous pressure on local volunteers, Mr Spencer said.
"It's going to put a huge load on particularly Sydney people. But also people from interstate will miss out on the Olympics."
A SOCOG spokesman conceded Australians were being asked to make a significant contribution to the Games.
"We see it as a very big ask," the spokesman said. "Putting together a workforce of 50,000 is going to require a big commitment from the Australian community.
"We're looking to tap the reservoir and sense of pride and enthusiasm people feel for the fact Australia is hosting the first Games of the new millennium."
SOCOG, which recently announced a further $128 million increase in staging the Games, is already under severe financial pressure.
