Thousands of smiling faces have been welcoming guests from around the world in Beijing during the Olympic Games.
Among them, a team of 115 volunteers from Volkswagen Group China is providing a reception for more than 17,500 guests and demonstrating the "most reliable" service that Volkswagen provides.
The Volkswagen volunteer team comprises 74 Chinese and 41 foreign staff members, who were selected from hundreds of applicants.
"We will help guests experience this grand sporting occasion, the Chinese culture and the hospitality of the Chinese people," said Bohnstedt Holger, head of Volkswagen Group China's human resources department.
Smiling faces
"The Olympic Games is a great historical event in China. We feel that Volkswagen is now creating history along with the Chinese people. Our volunteer team will surely impress our guests," Bohnstedt said.
Prior to the Olympics the human resource and marketing departments of Volkswagen Group China arranged a series of training sessions for the team to ensure they could offer high-quality service.
"The smiling faces and top-notch service of the Volkswagen family of volunteers are expected to display Volkswagen's image as the 'most reliable' partner of the Olympic Games," Bohnstedt added.
Volkswagen was also involved with the Olympics during the torchbearer selection process.
As the official supplier of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Torch Relay, Volkswagen Group China and its joint ventures Shanghai Volkswagen and FAW-Volkswagen were allotted 325 torchbearer slots for the China leg of the torch relay.
After getting approval from the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games, Volkswagen Group China started recruiting torchbearers among its employees and ran a campaign highlighting the candidates' personal attributes.
More than 90 percent of Volkswagen Group China employees turned out to elect the winning candidates.
For example, Philipp Darjes was born in Germany and brought up in the Philippines. He was educated at a famous US conservatoire and now works for Volkswagen China's Olympic program. "Dai Yunfei" as he is known in Chinese, or "drifting cloud", writes beautiful English prose and matching melodies. He created a song for the Olympic torch relay that became a hit.
The Torchbearer Selection Program has received outstanding feedback as the stories and achievements of its torchbearers have been shared throughout the Volkswagen Group China community, via the regularly published torch relay diary.
"The torchbearer selection process has created a passion for the Olympics. We now have the flame in our hearts. This is what we mean by 'all the people of one mind'," said an executive from Volkswagen Group China.
Dreams of sports
It is a little known fact that Volkswagen employees and sponsored athletes have participated in every Olympic Games since 1960. Those athletes were directly employed by Volkswagen or were members of Volkswagen-sponsored sports clubs.
For example, Hans-Joerg Meyer, a co-worker at the Controlling department of Volkswagen in Salzgitter, will contend in the Free Pistol and Air Pistol. In the latter event, Meyer and his SB Broisted team took home second prize at the 2008 European Championship.
Volkswagen employee Jens Pieper of SV Querum has participated in the Archery World Championships and will participate in the Olympic Games this year.
Wilhelm Gratschow, an industrial toolmaker of Volkswagen Coaching in Wolfsburg, has been already qualified to compete in Featherweight Boxing in the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games through winning the bronze medal in the Olympic qualification competition.
Robert Weber is on the replacement list to participate in this year's Olympic Games. He is a member of the TSV Ehmen team, and has his sights set on competing in Gymnastics.
The smiles of volunteers are the best name cards in Beijing. The torchbearers' graciousness and passion will be engraved in people's hearts. And the spirit of Volkswagen's staff members will inspire more people's dreams of sports.
Highlighting this sponsorship will be 17,500 guests from around the world, and the 115 volunteers, 325 torchbearers and four athletes from Volkswagen, who are determined to showing their best form in front of the whole world.
Through its "most reliable" products and "high quality" services, Volkswagen will write its own Olympic history, comprising smiles and passion, dreams coming true, and memories of families and friends sharing Olympic moments forever.
Source: China Daily
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