Queen honours London 2012 volunteers

 
29 December 2012

Many of the unknown faces who had a huge public impact on the success of the London 2012 Games were named in the New Year Honours list today.

The woman who was in charge of the Games Maker volunteers and the mastermind who produced the 70-day Olympic and day-long Paralympic torch relays will now get their moment in the spotlight.

Jean Tomlin, who was in charge of the Games Maker programme, gets an OBE.

As London 2012's human resources director in charge of workforce and accreditation, Mrs Tomlin faced the daunting task of mobilising a 200,000-strong workforce for the Games.

This included the 70,000 much-valued Games Maker volunteers who became the smiling face of London 2012.

She was also responsible for the accreditations of thousands of people at the Games, from background checks through to setting up the structures for training and uniforms.

Producer Deborah Hale becomes an MBE after helping to sketch the detail of the torch relays.

The relays were key in stoking up public support for the Games and also created some of the most memorable images in the build-up to the sporting contests.

A trio of more familiar faces at the helm of the London 2012 organising committee - including chairman Lord Coe, deputy chairman Sir Keith Mills and chief executive Lord Deighton - all receive high honours.

Lord Coe, who was knighted after helping to spearhead London's successful bid to stage the Games, becomes a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour.

Sir Keith, who was also knighted after the bid success, is awarded the Knight Grand Cross.

Lord Deighton is awarded the Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

As the money man behind the London 2012 organisers, he helped spearhead its campaign to raise £2 billion from the private sector to stage the Games.

Lord Deighton's award is in addition to the peerage he received ahead of joining the Government as a Treasury minister.

London 2012's sport director Debbie Jevans, who has been lauded for her role in delivering the Olympic and Paralympic sports events as well as the Games-wide medical and anti-doping programmes, gets a CBE.

Ruth Mackenzie, director of the Cultural Olympiad, also gets a CBE.

More than 16 million people across the UK took part in or attended performances which formed the arts celebrations to mark the Games.

James Bulley, who was in charge of delivering the 120 venues and operational centres needed for the Games, is made an OBE.

Other members of the London 2012 backroom team who appear on the list include communications director Jackie Brock-Doyle and commercial director Christopher Townsend, who both get OBEs.

Catherine Ugwu was one of the four lynchpin executive producers who oversaw the opening and closing ceremonies of the Games. She gets an MBE.

At £27 million, the 2012 opening ceremony, masterminded by Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle as artistic director, took the lion's share of the £80 million budget for all four Olympic and Paralympic opening and closing ceremonies.

Watched by billions of people, the four ceremonies were key in the scene setting and tone of the Olympics and Paralympics, both at home and overseas.

As the executive producer in charge of production, Ms Ugwu worked closely with Hollywood film-maker Stephen Daldry and Boyle on the shows.

Neither Daldry nor Boyle, the artistic director of the Olympic opening ceremony, is named on the list.

Nigel Garfitt, the villages and Games services director, gets an MBE.

His job was to make the athletes' village, bearing the new E20 postcode in Stratford, east London, a home-from-home for thousands of top athletes.

Around 17,000 Olympic and 6,000 Paralympic athletes, as well as officials from 203 nations, were based there during the Games.

There is also a CBE for Neale Coleman, the Greater London Authority's director of London 2012.

Many had feared the capital's transport system would be the weak link in staging the Games but it ran smoothly.

London's transport commissioner Peter Hendy, who also had the the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations to contend with this year, becomes a knight.

Howard Collins, London Underground's chief operating officer, and Olympic Transport Board member Christopher Garnett each get an OBE for their work on the key Games transport services.

In total, 1,223 people appear on the honours list.

Others who worked on security, budgets, Games organisation across British regions, border control, legal services, urban regeneration, the communications spectrum, sponsorship, logistics, education, recruitment and overseas promotion all linked to London 2012 are among those who got an award.

So many people helped keep the Games smoothly ticking over that more are set to get an official thank you in the honours list for the Queen's birthday.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in