The Volvo Ocean Race (VOR) Galway Stopover 2009 was the biggest sporting event that Ireland has hosted since the Ryder Cup in 2006. The event included a two week festival of both water and land-based events.

Director of Operations

Appointed as Director of Operations to the Galway Stopover of the Volvo Ocean Race, an Intevo consultant held ultimate responsibility for & played a hands on role in the planning & delivery of many key components to the hugely successful event. These included:

• overall project management for the event
• command control & communications
• volunteers programme
• medical ops
• transport ops
• security & safety management
• site & logistics ops
• procurement including tender management & evaluation.

Responsibility also included submitting applications, obtaining and compliance for all licensing in relation to the event and all management and control of liaison with various statutory agencies.

Expert Input, Training, Planning & Operational Support

Intevo also undertook a number of operational advisory and support services for the Galway organising committee including:

Organisation Design:

• Advising on organisation structure during the planning phase
• Transition to event time venue-based structure during the operational phase
• Identifying functional gaps that need to be incorporated into the overall event structure in both planning and operational phases

Volunteer Management and Training:

• Design of a process for determining volunteer numbers for each Functional Area e.g. transport, medical, spectator services etc
• Advising on recruitment strategy and process for assignment of volunteers to each functional area
• Development of an overall training strategy and plan for the organisation
• Preparation, writing and production of training materials
• Delivery of training sessions for volunteers, paid staff and management

Event Communications:

• Creation of Event Communications Operating Plan
• Production of Event Communications Job Specific Training Manual (inc. radio training)
• Production of Event Communications Job Specific Training Presentation
• Event Communications Centre operational documents e.g. Fleet Map, Communications Log etc.

Operational readiness simulations:

• developing simulation exercises specific to Volvo Ocean Race based on Intevo’s standard methodology
• Planning of simulation exercises and development of content material
• Delivery and management of exercises
• Production of feedback report with observations and recommendations

(c) 2009 Intevo Limited