In the zone

NEWLY chosen Olympic sailors were the star guests at the 2011 RYA Volvo Zone and Home Country Championships.

Eight hundred young sailors competed across nine venues throughout the United Kingdom for the event, including 261 South Zone competitors at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy.

Skandia Team GBR and Team Volvo for Life 2012 Olympians gave tips and advice to the future Sailing stars.

Weymouth 470 sailor Saskia Clark and Poole’s women’s match race sailor Lucy Macgregor visited the South Zone, Weymouth RS:X windsurfer Nick Dempsey, pictured, attended the East Zone event with his double Olympic medallist wife Sarah and son Thomas.

Dempsey was ‘very impressed by the level of sailing talent’ and said: “It’s great to be able to be involved with the future generation of top British sailors.”

Paralympian Helena Lucas attended the South East Zone, Weymouth 470 helm Hannah Mills visited the West Zone and the South West Zone welcomed Match Racer, Kate Macgregor.

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Bring on the Games

A Portland pensioner is proudly displaying his Bring on the Games window sticker.

Stephen Shearn, aged 71, is looking forward to the experience of next year’s Olympic and Paralympic sailing events in the borough.

He has claimed one of 10,000 window stickers produced by the Dorset Echo, the borough’s 2012 operations team, the Weymouth and Portland Chamber of Commerce and NHS Dorset’s Team Dorset Challenge.

Mr Shearn, who worked for 40 years as a stores and transport officer for the Ministry of Defence, said: “I’m Portland born and bred.

“I think the Olympics is a good thing, it’s bringing business to the island.

“It’s nice we can see it all coming up onto the island, I’m going to either watch it on the television or find a big screen somewhere and I’ll be looking for Portland all the time.

“It’s good that people are coming to the island and coming to support the sailors.”

Games work

COULD you be the housekeeping supervisor at the Olympic Sailing Village on Portland?

The position is among the variety of roles being recruited for by the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG) in order to plan and deliver operational villages at next summer’s once-in-a-lifetime event.

Other job titles up for grabs include village operations centre manager duty manager, communication centre team member and village centre group leader.

During the Games period the Sailing Village of 77 town houses will accommodate approximately 630 athletes and officials.

The roles, which cover areas such as customer service, hospitality, radio control and venue operations and management, are set to start from April 2012 onwards.

Enthusiastic, motivated, hard working and flexible individuals are needed to help make this the best village ever.

Visit locogrecruitment.london2012.co m/jobs/main and type ‘WEV’ into the search field for Sailing Village vacancies.

Tickets deadline

THE deadline to apply for the London 2012 Paralympic Games passed at 6pm yesterday.

Applications are now being processed and, if successful, payment will be taken on October 31 2011.

Ticket hopefuls will receive a final notification by November 18 2011 and where demand exceeds supply a random and automated selection process will be used.

Find out more at tickets.london2012.com