Recently we’ve had two interesting opportunities to reconnect with some of the athletes. On the first occasion we met Clara Hughes at The Green Living Showin Toronto in April where she was a prominent guest speaker.

She was dynamic, excited, very well prepared and spoke easily to a rapt audience of several hundred people for more than an hour armed with an excellent video of the Games events in which she participated. After her talk she signed autographs for a large crowd of interested spectators.

On the second occasion Scotia McLeod hosted an evening with Becky Keller – 4 time Olympic medal-winning hockey player, wife, mother of two – and an MBA grad!

Its ten weeks since we returned from the Vancouver Olympics and the spirit is still high. Both recent events were packed with keen patrons of all ages. The Scotia event was smaller, more intimate, yet you could have heard a pin drop during Becky’s talk – except for the erupting laughter at her humorous accounts of training camp life.

Like Clara Hughes, Becky began her talk with video highlights of the Vancouver Games themselves along with excellent footage from her own Women’s Hockey events. It was heartening to see the excitement and the Olympic spirit that was still tangible in both venues. It was wonderful to see how well prepared the athletes were for their speaking engagements. Both video presentations were very professionally put together and the athletes themselves both warm and generous to their audiences and professionally well prepared for their gigs.

With today’s naming of John Furlong as Volunteer Chairman of the Own the Podium Advisory Board, things look good for Canadian athletes in London in 2012 and Sochi in 2014. Maybe they need volunteers in the polyclinics!

Gorgeous Vancouver day today! The sun is out, the sky is clear, the mountains seem closer to the city than ever and the views are spectacular. The weather has brought out lots of strollers into the streets of the Athletes’ Village. You realize how spectacular this city is when the weather is nice!

We are half way through the Games and the time is flying by. The energy in the city is electric. There are people everywhere with Go Canada on clothing, on signs and flags, on cars and trucks, in store windows, and reflected in their conversation. People are talking to each other everywhere – on the streets, in the sky train, waiting at stoplights, even in the grocery store. Locals are helping visitors to get to where they want to go, offering suggestions of great things to do, asking volunteers what work they are doing, where they are from, why they chose to volunteer and what it is like.

In the Polyclinic the same excitement permeates. We have been fortunate that we haven’t had to treat anyone with any serious illnesses or injuries. Most of the work has been proactive, therapy as prevention or treatment of minor injuries, dental care, mouth guards, and optometry, a little bit of flu, coughs and colds. The most serious treatment was a cardioversion – electrotherapy for atrial fibrillation – more of a chronic condition than an emergency.

Some of the athletes are chatty when they come in. Others are quiet and thoughtful. It’s important to respect their feelings – whether they want to talk or not – and especially to honour their right to confidentiality about their health and welfare. A couple have said they were disappointed in their performance in the event – they didn’t do well, were disqualified or fell, or didn’t perform as well as they had hoped. Some have already gone home, either because they were finished their events and something was pressing at home, or because they have been “sent ” home. I’m not sure what happens there!

How difficult it must be to train for years for something that lasts only minutes and can make or break the next stage of their lives! How much leadership and courage it must take sometimes to keep going!

I was in Trafalgar Square in London England recently and made a point of finding Edith Clavell’s memorial in St Martin’s Place. Like all great leaders, no matter the arena, Edith Clavell had great courage and much tenacity.  During the first World War, she was a nurse who remained in Brussels, Belgium, after the Germans occupied the city early in the war, tending to wounded soldiers from all countries at the Red Cross Hospital.

In addition to this work, Clavell helped captured British, French and Belgian soldiers escape to the neutral Netherlands, where most would eventually make it across the channel to England.  Born on December 4, 1865 in Swardeston, England, she has been described as a “vivacious, tree-climbing girl who grew into the determined, severe woman we see in the statue.”  She has been further described as “headstrong and independent” and thus prevented from attracting “a man of money” and it is said that ” she was too proud to accept a lesser one”.   She never married, but devoted her life to nursing.

Here is an account of her work from the diary of a man she nursed back to health:

In 1915 Miss Clavell was directress of l’Ecole Belge d’ Infirmieres Diplomees, as well as a new hospital, St. Gilles, both training women for the profession of nursing.  As the great war engulfed Belgium Miss Clavell became part of an underground resistance network working in Brussels to help men escape.  She protected hospitalized men by keeping them longer than they needed.  When there were no beds available, Edith sheltered men in the hospital’s attic and cellar.  In this way, she helped approximately two hundred men escape the Germans.  On August 4, 1915, after months of observation, the Germans arrested Edith and others sheltering Belgian soldiers.  On October 7, 1915, Edith Clavell, along with others in the underground network were found guilty of resistance activities and sentenced to death by firing squad.  Despite American, French and Spanish intercession, Edith’s sentence was not commuted.  On October 12, 1915, Edith was executed by German firing squad.

Edith Clavell was 49 years old when she was shot to death.  “Her life and death make me think of the line from The Dead Poets Society when Robin Williams’ character, Mr Keatings says to his students:  “Make something of yourselves, boys.   Make you life count!