National Weightlifting Championships
By Jeff Moffitt
@moffittjc (118365)
Gainesville, Florida
April 8, 2017 5:33pm CST
The United States University and U25 National Weightlifting Championships are this weekend in my city. My daughter needed volunteer hours for her high school requirements, so we signed up to volunteer at the event.
My daughter was assigned to security, so she got to check in all the athletes and escort them to the competition area. At 17, I'm sure she was in heaven escorting all the male athletes!
I got assigned to help at the judges' scoring table. It was pretty cool to be assigned to that location, because I got a chance to see all the coaching strategies that go on behind the scenes.
Either we were really good at our volunteer duties, or else stupid enough to accept the assignment, but the meet organizers asked my daughter and I to stay after the event to escort the athletes and witness the results of all their drug tests. Considering how tough the drug testing requirements are now for weight lifters, it was somewhat of an honor to be asked to help.
Have any of you ever worked or volunteered at a major event?
7 people like this
6 responses
@infatuatedbby (95001)
• United States
11 Apr 17
That is a big task =)
I volunteered a lot in high school, my major event was being trusted with selling tickets & handling money at a Chinese Festival.
1 person likes this
@infatuatedbby (95001)
• United States
11 Apr 17
@moffittjc OH MY! I would have been so scared. I am so glad you found that bag of cash or else that employee would have thought he, she won the jackpot! But now many are honest well hopefully =) I bet you were going pee in your pants!
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (118365)
• Gainesville, Florida
12 Apr 17
@infatuatedbby I would have done worse than pee in my pants, if I had lost all that money! I'd be carrying around an extra saggy load
Okay, for real I am going to bed now! See you on here tomorrow morning when I wake up!
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (118365)
• Gainesville, Florida
11 Apr 17
In my first job out of college, I was put in charge of a fundraiser at work. We were raising money to buy sports equipment for a local youth league. We raised $4000 cash, and then they sent me with the cash to the local Wal-Mart to buy soccer balls and footballs. For some reason, when I got there, I set the bag of cash in a shopping cart out in the parking lot, and then walked inside the store without the cart or the money. I panicked inside the store when I realized what I had done, and I ran back outside only to find the cart gone. I was convinced that I was going to get fired after only being on the job for one day, but then out of the corner of my eye I saw an employee gathering shopping carts and pushing them toward the store, and in one of the carts was my bag of cash. I was never so happy to see a bag of money as I was at that moment! lol
1 person likes this
@DianneN (246334)
• United States
9 Apr 17
@moffittjc That is interesting. I'm sure the fear of possible testing keeps them all on the right track.
1 person likes this
@ElusiveButterfly (45940)
• United States
9 Apr 17
I have only volunteered at events for our local schools. That was enough for this gal.
1 person likes this
@ElusiveButterfly (45940)
• United States
9 Apr 17
@moffittjc sounds like a lot of fun! I hope you can post some pics!
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (118365)
• Gainesville, Florida
10 Apr 17
@ElusiveButterfly We had a lot of fun today! The University of Florida brought out their girls soccer team and entered two teams, and sure enough, both of them ended up in the championship against each other. Those girls are good! But everyone had a great time!
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (118365)
• Gainesville, Florida
9 Apr 17
I'll be doing that today. My daughter's high school is running a human foosball tournament today to raise money for a local charity. My daughter is playing on a team in the tournament, and they recruited me to be a referee! It's going to be pretty fun, although I've never seen a human foosball game in action before (although I've heard of them).
1 person likes this
@LadyDuck (457412)
• Switzerland
9 Apr 17
@moffittjc In Monte-Carlo was the yearly most important event and the most hated by the population. 
After the first couple of years excitement I also hated the Grand Prix.
After the first couple of years excitement I also hated the Grand Prix.1 person likes this
@moffittjc (118365)
• Gainesville, Florida
9 Apr 17
@LadyDuck It really does disrupt the daily life of a city, because of all the street closings they have to do in order to set up the race course.
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (118365)
• Gainesville, Florida
9 Apr 17
Way back in the 80's, F1 came to Palm Beach for grand prix races for a few years. The company my mom worked for was one of the big sponsors, so we got invited to help with the race organization. In exchange, we got VIP passes to the main race! It was very fun, but the event wasn't well attended so they stopped racing there after a few years.
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (118365)
• Gainesville, Florida
9 Apr 17
It was very fun! For the last session of the day, the event organizer invited my daughter and I to sit ringside at the front of the stage to watch the girl's finals. Out of the 12 girls competing, 1 was a high school student, and so everybody was rooting for her to win the gold! Unfortunately, she finished third, but that was still impressive considering the quality of the competition!
@Jeanniemaries (8237)
• United States
9 Apr 17
My daughter in law is an event planner. She was in charge of all the largest events that came to US Bank Arena in Cincinnati but it was a 24/7 job. No personal life at all so she scaled back to working backstage at selected events and holds a full time job creating events for the parks and recreation. My daughters both volunteer all the time at large events.
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (118365)
• Gainesville, Florida
9 Apr 17
I work for our city's parks and recreation department (aquatics), and we have a full-time event planner in our department. They are in charge of planning and putting on all our large special events, such as our medieval fair, weekly concerts series, and annual art festival. It's quite an undertaking for our event planner, and luckily, she usually has about 15 interns from the local university to help her plan everything out.
1 person likes this
@Jeanniemaries (8237)
• United States
10 Apr 17
@moffittjc Yes, that's what she does in Dayton. I am looking forward to this summer to attend all the events. But she is expecting her first child in Sept so I don't know how long she will be working.
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (118365)
• Gainesville, Florida
11 Apr 17
@Jeanniemaries It's a pretty demanding and stressful job, but also very rewarding to see all your efforts come together into a successful event. Hats off to your DIL for the job she does.
