As a Commonwealth volunteer I danced with Rod Stewart, stood next to the Queen, and got proposed to by a Ghanaian athlete

Guest article by Mhairi Smith, Volunteers’ Coordinator for Fast Forward

So last week I danced with Rod Stewart and stood next to the Queen, who was wearing a rather delightful hat, and was wished luck by James McAvoy.

I’ve always loved volunteering, and since becoming Volunteer Coordinator at Fast Forward I’ve kept it up, most recently as a cast performer at the Commonwealth Opening Ceremony. I was a stage performer once upon a time, and was eager to get involved the Commonwealth Games as it’s such a huge thing for Scotland and Glasgow to host.

The audition

It all began with an audition in Film City in Glasgow. People of all ages from every possible background all waited patiently to be called. While I was waiting for my group to be called in, a wonderful lady of a mere 82 years old sat next to me and offered me her left-over sandwiches from church and a flask of coffee.

She quite quickly became my audition buddy and we had such a wonderful day dancing around and laughing with a huge group of other excited people. The audition was so great that I was more than happy with that as an experience, but when I received the email around a month later saying I had a place in the ceremony I couldn’t have been more ecstatic. I screamed very loudly in joy on a bus in Fife and received some very odd looks!

The Performance

The day itself was such an incredible blur of adrenalin, sparkles and lit-up tambourines. The idea that the producers wanted to create was that Glasgow was welcoming the world to a party, and we most certainly did that.

The show itself was a weird and wonderful, very tongue and cheek – welcome to Glasgow. After John Barrowman and Karen Dunbar welcomed the audience with dancing Tunnocks tea cakes, a video created with volunteers and Amy McDonald began and we all popped out to join her live on stage with Rod Stewart.

We’d prepared for months for this little 5 minute slot of singing and dancing in our sparkles, and although it was over far too quickly, it was completely amazing! Volunteers were in the centre of the action along with the professionals and of course the many, many cute little Scottie dogs that led the athletes in.

The ceremony itself was a little different from traditional ceremonies as the organisers collaborated with Unicef to create an amazing fundraising spectacle. With the help of many celebrities and volunteers, the opening ceremony raised well over 3 million pounds for children all across the Commonwealth as part of Unicefs’ Put Children First campaign.

The After Party

What the TV didn’t show was at the end of the ceremony a massive ceilidh took place in Celtic Park where athletes, completely unprompted, jumped in and joined the dances with all of the volunteers.

This then led into the most amazing and bizarre hour of my life where thousands of volunteers, organisers, stage crew and everyone had a massive dance party… with the athletes! Everyone was just dancing and hugging each other, and I’m sure I appeared in a fair few athletes’ Commonwealth selfies.

I was also told by Ghanaian athlete Atsu Nyamadi that he was going to marry me and stay in Scotland – which didn’t happen – but at least I got a photograph out of it!

A family of volunteers

What was truly amazing about the whole experience though was not the celeb spotting or five minutes of fame, it was the incredible family of volunteers who grew close throughout the process. My team were People Make Glasgow and the words could not be truer. We rehearsed for a month in a dusty field filled with people who started off as strangers but became true friends.

You never know what will happen when you volunteer for something!

If you’d like to be taken under Mhairi’s wing and volunteer with Fast Forward, get in touch with her here.