The Commonwealth Games is an international, multi-sport event involving 71 teams of athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. The event was first held in 1930 and takes place every four years. Glasgow 2014 will be held from 23 July to 3 August. It will feature 17 sports in 11 days of competition with 250 medal events on show.
As the Official IT Hardware and Data Centre Supporter, Dell will be helping to power Glasgow 2014 with 1,500 desktops, 200 laptops and 60 servers and storage solutions, across 40 competition and noncompetition venues. In addition to our athlete ambassadors, one of Dell’s own interns, Stacey Francis, plays Goal Defence for England Netball. Below she shares how she balances work and training.
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The end of 2013 was hectic to say the least. I competed in two test series against South Africa (one home/one away,) a tournament in New Zealand called Fast 5, and made a day trip to Sydney to represent England Netball at the announcement for the 2015 World Netball Cup. To top this off, England Netball where named The Sunday Times and Sky Sports Team of the Year!
As a part of my usual weekly schedule I train with my England Podium team mates in Bath from Sunday-Tuesday full-time. The rest of the week we have time set aside to work/study with our training commitments taking place at the top (6:30 a.m.) and tail (7:30 p.m.) of the day. As a member of the UK Dell Team I am able to balance my career aspirations alongside my heavy training load through our ‘Connected Workplace’ initiative.
On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I am able to pretend, for a few hours at least, that I am a member of the working world. The flexibility of the scheme allows me to live near my training environment whilst managing my work load in a way that most jobs would not allow. More often than not the life of an international athlete involves travel. To be able to take my ‘office’ with me whilst I have been away so much in recent months has meant that I have been able to offer Dell the continuity that is required for any job, however, disappointingly it does mean I miss some press events and activities.
In netball we always talk about the ‘what ifs?’ and our most recent International Tri-Series was certainly one of those. Our second test was meant to take place at the Copper Box but due to an event prior to ours there was irreparable damage to the floor meaning we got moved to a closed International at Crystal Palace. The following day we were meant to play Jamaica again, however the morning of the test series they pulled out due to injuries. Although our preparations for 2014 have not started off as ideal as we would have liked in the build up to Glasgow, we will certainly be one of the best prepared teams there!
For more information, visit www.dell.co.uk/glasgow2014
Continue to follow my journey on Twitter: @StcyJyneFrancis and follow the conversation online: @thecgf, @delluk, @glasgow2014.
Here is a closer look in to how Dell is powering the IT for Glasgow 2014.
