The rumpus arose when a volunteer claimed they had been told to use "Jingeri" during a "regimented" training session which had a strong emphasis on indigenous culture.

Gold Coast 2018 chairman, Peter Beattie, begged to differ, claiming it was a misunderstanding and was only a suggestion in the volunteer guide book.

"Nowhere does it state that it must be used," Beattie told the Gold Coast Bulletin.

"I encourage volunteers to use G’day as well as jingeri which is what I will be doing,

"The Games manual states Jingeri is a word you can use as a volunteer.

"I will be using both G’day and Jingeri at the Games to promote Australia and our partnership with the local Yugambeh people of the Gold Coast."

It’s a classic pre-Games story. As the big event hoves into view, directives for volunteers - "Games Makers", "Passion Crew" - call them what you must - become a little strenuous. Everybody gets a little tense. Tempers fray. Things get broken…

The idea of trying to prevent Aussie volunteers greeting visitors in that classically Aussie fashion certainly sounds deranged. By my recollection such a directive would have severely cramped the style of those giving their time and energy for free to facilitate the smooth running of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, or indeed the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games.

But. I remember an odd encounter with a friendly mature lady at the back of the Dunc Gray Velodrome in Sydney in the first week of the Olympics - no it’s okay, nothing like that - she was a volunteer and, rather oddly I thought, she said she wasn’t supposed to talk to me. Just checking that this wasn't a 2000 Games directive specifically targeting my not so good self, I asked her a rather obvious follow-up question: why not?

She replied that volunteers had been told not to spend too much time talking to visitors. Or maybe it was just media.

This is difficult to credit, but it is true. It sounded to me like the kind of thing that might have happened with this week’s Gold Coast brouhaha… maybe a comment about not bending people’s ears, letting them get on with their spectating/reporting without burdening them with your life story…

There was clearly an ambiguous message somewhere back up the line. But it all came right in the end.

Similar confusion over messages happened at the London 2012 Olympics, where my friend Russell was a Games Maker charged with overseeing the cycling course for the road racing and time trial events. insidethegames carried his journal of experiences.

Things didn’t start so well. When the Olympics were about as far away as the Gold Coast Games that will start in April, Russell recorded his first selection interview at the Excel Centre in London.

"The interview was preceded by small film clips designed to get you in the mood which were okay if a little patronising. This was followed up by Cadbury’s attempt at 'Let’s have a team game and do some jumping up and down'.

"Some people were spots and some people stripes but personally I hated the infectious corporate enthusiasm. 'Hang on - we are not Americans!’ I kept thinking. Most people felt uncomfortable and were not keen on being asked to compete in some pointless invented game designed to remind us that Cadbury's are such good people for supporting the Games."

Fast forward to training at the Wembley Area: "Eddy Izzard set the scene with enthusiasm, encouraging us to get everyone we know doing some exercise. However, he was soon replaced with some very general, obvious and sadly rather lacklustre presentations.

"Olympic volunteers are a self-selecting group, happy to put aside their time and enthusiastic to get involved, some with experience of sport. We were not a tired, dispirited workforce, needing to have exhortations to be gung-ho…

"The purple uniform for most of the normal volunteers is terrible - almost everyone hated it. It was as if all possible efforts had been made to produce an outfit that you would never wear again…

"“Games Makers - what kind of name is that? If 2012 is about who we are as a nation then why are we not calling it exactly as it is - we are volunteers for the Olympics. And the generalist, patronising and often pointless training we have had so far seems to me to have been effected with a transatlantic, marketing, HRM and risk/legal agenda which is getting in the way of making this process memorable and useful for the volunteers.

"I am all for 'Cool Britannia', but part of our Britishness is a straightforward, self- deprecating, slightly reserved friendly warmth. I accept that Britain in 2012 wants to embrace the multicultural aspect of our nation. But false, non-authentic, modern business-derived management techniques do not sit well with the Misfits generation as much as they do not sit well with me, an ancient 51-year-old!...

"I do hope my further training is not endless health and safety or exhortations to be pleasant and friendly. I do not need to be told that. Almost all the volunteers I have met are that as part of their character. What I want is someone to tell me what I am to do, in a direct practical British way which recognises I have a brain."

But fast forward again:

“I recall being shattered but happy at the end of my 2012 weekend. The final day’s volunteering was the following Wednesday, the day of the time trial. I was placed in a section purely for the men's route, so again lots of waiting. But the crowds were fantastic, I was in a residential area and lots of people had barbeques and made a day of it. Then the riders came through, and people were cheering. 'Have a burger!' someone said. It was great.

"But when Bradley [Wiggins] came through, the noise level went absolutely nuts. I screamed my head off, whilst still trying the keep an eye on the crowd and keep them back. It must have been a wall of noise - he seemed in the zone."

Russell recalled: "’Quick’, my burger-providing chums said, 'Come in the lounge for a few seconds to see if Fabian Cancellera will beat Bradley'. But we knew it was all Wiggo!

"I still remember this bunch of Brits jumping up from their sofa to cheer a bike race victory. Even as a seasoned Tour de France tourist/watcher it remains a great memory."

And - again: "I have found myself being overcome with emotion during the whole thing. It was almost as if I needed to re-boot my sense of being British. Although not linked to the volunteering, this feeling has been very surprising.

"I sat through the technical rehearsal for the Opening Ceremony with hairs on the back of my neck standing on end, and my eyes pricking with the wonderfulness of it all. It was as if Danny Boyle and his team were saying ‘Forget all the doom-mongers, the people who doubt Britain, who moan at our young people, the people who want to pound us against the wall for our colonial past."

“Because that does not matter any more. We can write our own futures, we can believe in something wonderful.
 
“And the thanks that were said to all us volunteers can make me cry. It wets my eyes as I write this. It might be daft but it is there…

“To be reminded of the essential good nature of almost all human beings is a supremely good thing.”

And now it’s all happening once more as the Pyeongchang 2018 Passion Crew brave minus 20C temperatures with grins - fixed or otherwise.

These Olympic Games have already done more than most by getting North and South Korea together. It would be nice to think that something of the smaller-scale but nevertheless intense satisfaction eventually gained by our London 2012 Games Maker will be shared by mostly young idealists currently shivering for their beliefs at Pyeongchang 2018.