Volunteer’s Games gear to go on show (From Bridport and Lyme Regis News)

Volunteer’s Games gear to go on show

11:30am Friday 19th October 2012 in News

VOLUNTEER Colin Bowditch has put his Olympic regalia on show for Beaminster Museum’s Our Sporting Lives exhibition.

Colin, pictured left, was one of 500 Olympic ambassadors who helped out in Weymouth and Portland during the sailing races for the 2012 Olympics in the summer.

His rucksack, T-shirt, cap and baton are now on display at the museum for the exhibition.

Our Sporting Lives celebrates local sporting heroes from the past as well as 15 Rising Stars – local young people who have achieved sporting success in recent years. It runs until Sunday, November 4.

Gordon Simmons, of Beaminster Museum, said: “Colin’s role as an ambassador was to greet visitors to the area with a smile, a friendly greeting and to invite questions aimed at making the visit to the area a wholly enjoyable one.

“The aim was first, to try to ensure visitors enjoyed their visit on the day and second, to take away favourable memories of our part of the world in the hopes that they may return in future.”

Colin, who is in his seventies, is also a Beaminster Museum volunteer.

Gordon said: “Some 70,000 volunteers such as Colin played a vital role as the much celebrated gamesmakers in making the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics a resounding success.

“He is to be warmly applauded for his part in what turned out to be a truly glorious chapter in our nation’s sporting history.”