On 28th February Thomas Miller employees had the opportunity to use one of their THREE volunteering  days at the London2012 venue the Copper Box Arena located in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The Championships became one of the last mass events that took place in the U.K. rowing calendar. This was in part due to the terrible weather at the start of the season, and then the cancellation of subsequent events because of the Coronavirus outbreak.

Hosted by one of Thomas Miller’s volunteering partners, London Youth Rowing and over 250 volunteers, The National Junior Indoor Rowing Championships enabled around 2000 young people to showcase their energy,
talent and determination on the same iconic stage as Team GB’s Olympic and Paralympic superstars.

LYR – founders and hosts of NJIRC – aims to get young people active and engaged in sport, opening access
to rowing regardless of background, ethnicity, gender, sexuality or ability.

NJIRC offers opportunity to those who would not normally get the chance to race at national level, immersing them in the buzz and adrenaline of high-level competition.

Volunteering Roles included:

• Helping to run a ‘race floor’
• Coordinating the holding pen – getting the rowers ready for their race
• Helping with the ‘Festival of Sport’ running alongside the event
• Supporting the medal Presentations
• Wearing the LYR Hippo mascot costume!

Nine Thomas Miller employees arrived bright and early and eagerly awaited our volunteering roles to be assigned. Wonderfully for the organisers volunteers were plentiful and for the morning session we were stood down, and so we set out to find ways to make ourselves useful; turns out we make excellent cheerleaders!

Henry Rodriguez-Broadbent, Claire Porter and Elizabeth Fuller all helped out at ‘Festival of Sport’ which ran alongside the event. Henry rediscovered his fencing talent and both Claire and Liz found themselves very busy at the wheelchair basketball court. The rest of us took our cheerleading skills to the next level and
Thomas Miller employees soon turned to LYR’s Hippo mascot!

After lunch it was finally our time to shine and we were called to the race floor, the atmosphere was electric and it was overwhelming to see young people work themselves to the point of exhaustion with the support of their teachers and class mates. We were even given the responsibility of helping out with the medal presentation.

By the end of the day we were exhausted ourselves but filled with the hope and determination of the young people we had the pleasure of supporting.

HUGE thank you to all of our volunteers for their hard work! Not only were they part of making NJIRC the event it is, they were also incredible representatives of Thomas Miller.