Morgan:News:2010:Bronze Edition: February 2005

Monday, February 28, 2005

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Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #863
EAST VANCOUVER FIRM TAPPED AS OFFICE-STATIONERY SUPPLIER

Mills Basics of Vancouver is the new general-office-stationery supplier for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC).

It was the company awarded a contract to become the "primary supplier of general office stationery supplies on an 'as-and-when requested' basis" for use by VANOC's 50 to 60 personnel. That population will grow to about 1,200 by 2009, which means the requirements will grow along with the labour force.

In this particular case, Mills Basics was asked to list what is, for them, the top 25-selling supplies, and provide the costs and volume discounts available for each, bearing in mind that a low environmental impact of the supplies is also a requirement, as its part of the undertakings VANOC outlined to the International Olympic Committee during the bid phase. Those kinds of products usually carry the Canadian Environmental Choice eco-logo.

Mills Basics also has connections to The Vancouver Agreement, an organization made up of the federal, provincial and Vancouver governments and VANOC that is charged with sprucing up Vancouver's notorious downtown east side, a skid-road area, as the 2010 Winter
Games approaches.

RESOURCES

Mills Basics
1111 Clark Dr.
Vancouver, BC, Canada, V5L 3K5
Phone: 604.254.7211

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 28, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #862
PENTICTON LOOKS AT HOTEL TAX FOR 2010 PROMOS; RBC'S OLYPMIC ADS NOT PART OF VANOC SPONSORSHIP; COLUMNIST: CAN "OWN THE PODIUM" DELIVER?

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

The Penticton Hospitality Association says it will ask Penticton City council next month to pass a bylaw to collect a 2% hotel tax that would be used exclusively for marketing the city in the Okanagan region of British Columbia, and that some of the funds would be used in connection with the 2010 Winter Games. About 74 per cent of hotel and motel rooms and 65 per cent of the owners of hotel and motel properties signed letters of support for the tax which, if approved, would come into effect Jan. 1. There are a total of 43 hotel and motel properties in the Penticton area. Association president Barb Schneiderat says the fund would primarily be used to expand the city's regular tourism into its spring and fall shoulder seasons, but with the 2010 Winter Olympics on its way, this fund will enable Penticton to market itself to a global audience. Nearby Kelowna has such a tax now, and another Okanagan town, Osoyoos, is said to be planning to introduce a similar tax. In British Columbia, the provincial government has final approval under the Hotel Tax Act to authorize such a tax, and it has to be reconfirmed by those affected every five years or it is removed.

Gail Chiasson, reporting today in a Canadian public-relations newsletter called PubZone, says the C$110 million in cash and services pledge by the RBC Royal Bank to the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) last week doesn't include the marketing value of RBC's usual advertising campaigns when coupled with the Olympic logo. She interviewed Ann Louise Vehovec -- the senior vice-president of Brand & Communications for RBC Royal Bank -- and quoted her as saying, "This does not include the additional Olympic advertising that makes up a prominent part of the regular marketing budget, giving both brand image ads and integration of the Olympic logo into other advertising... I expect that we'll have a slight increment in our regular marketing budget, as well." RBC's ad agency is BBDO Canada. Chaisson adds that: RBC employs 19 Olympic athletes as staff in various positions, giving them the flexibility to take the time off to train and compete in return for their appearance at various events, both external and internal - the latter helping to motivate staff for support and involvement. RBC hopes to bring the number of Olympic staffers up to 50. RBC also hopes to have promotions to encourage the Canadian public to support the Canadian Olympic team and to donate funds. It will be promoting the Olympics and its athletes through direct mail and point-of-purchase as part of the program. "This sponsorship will pay off for us at RBC," Chaisson quotes Vehovec as saying. "It will further enhance our brand image and will help us attract new customers and to cross-sell new products to our existing customers." Chiasson also reports that the public relations for the RBC-VANOC announcement was handled by the firm of Manning Selvage and Lee, an international agency with Canadian offices in Montreal and Toronto. It's part of the Paris-based Publicis Groupe.

An editorial today by syndicated Canadian sports columnist Ken Fidlin says that now the government's "cash box is open" for the "Own The Podium" program, public attention will be turning to seeing if it can deliver what it hopes to achieve. In discussing the reasons the program is gaining financial support, he argues: "Part of the reason the feds are more sport-friendly these days is obviously the fact that nobody wants us to look like fools in Vancouver [during the 2010 Games], or, more to the point, to be the culprit who made us look like fools... Another, perhaps more important reason is that this time, the athletes didn't just stick their collective hand out and demand cash. They delivered a strong, thoughtful business plan combined with an ambitious goal: To be the best in the world at the 2010 Olympics. Whether or not 'Own The Podium' can deliver what it promises -- at least 35 medals at the Vancouver Games -- it already has been the most successful argument ever made for financial support of Canadian athletes." Fidlin says the program is working, as well, because, "For once, all the major players on the winter sports scene came together with one voice with a vision and a strategy that captivated the government and is probably going to captivate a lot of new corporate support as well. With the NHL on sabbatical until at least October and quite likely even well beyond that, there is a window of opportunity just now when some major corporate sponsors might be discouraged enough with hockey to find another niche for that sponsorship money that's burning a hole in their pockets. Indeed, there is already a sense in some parts of the corporate world that the Olympic train is leaving the station and 'we'd better be on it.' After discussing the various corporate sponsorships that have given the nod so far to VANOC, Fidlin says, "Suddenly well-financed, the onus is now on the athletic community to deliver on the 'Own The Podium' report prepared by Cathy Priestner Allinger and Todd Allinger. It is an impressively detailed document, mostly scientific in nature, but with more than enough smoke and mirrors thrown in. They have based their 35-medal prediction on historical mathematical formulas involving the expansion of the pool of what they call 'potential medallists,' combined with better technical and coaching support that will help improve our poor Olympic game-day record. Nobody knows if it is a valid way to predict and secure medals but one thing is certain -- it is a document that magically separates governments and corporate sponsors from their money."

RESOURCES

Manning Selvage and Lee:
http://www.mslpr.com/

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 28, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #861
B.C. EXPECTED TO CONTRIBUTE HALF OF C$10 MILLION TO WINTER PORTION OF "OWN THE PODIUM" PROGRAM

The B.C. government says it will seek approval from the legislature this week for C$10 million that can be contributed during its upcoming fiscal year to the "Own the Podium" program for Canada’s Olympic and Paralympic athletes, but the funds will be evenly split between athletes competing in winter and summer Games.

Premier Gordon Campbell added, “I challenge other provinces to also make a contribution to the future success of Canada’s Olympians at Canada's [Winter] games in 2010." The premier also challenged "Canada's corporate communities" to "step up to the mark." The “Own The Podium" program is jointly supported by the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) and the Canadian Olympic Committee with the support of the major Canadian winter sport federations to help Canadian athletes win medals in 2010, but it is expected to be expanded to include summer Olympic athletes using a similar template that will be published this fall.

The announcement was well orchestrated. There was an immediate distribution of news releases from the communication departments of VANOC, the Canadian Olympic Committee, 2010 LegaciesNow and the provincial ministry of Small Business and Economic Development, which is also responsible for sport development in general, and the B.C. government's interests in the 2010 Games, in British Columbia. The news releases all reported the senior executives of the respective organizations as supporting or praising the premier for his comments.

The federal government earlier this month provided C$15 million in its budget estimates as its first installment for its coming fiscal year for the "Own the Podium" program. Although it's a larger amount of money, it's a much smaller per-capita funding compared with the B.C. government's contribution. B.C. has approximately 15% of Canada's population.

The fiscal years of both the federal and provincial government start April 1. The spending plans of both are predicated on the minority federal government surviving a non-confidence vote in Parliament over its budget -- it is expected survive such a vote -- and the provincial government surviving an election set for May 17. It is also expected to survive the election, although with a reduced majority.

BACKGROUND

The "Own the Podium" concept, largely authored by VANOC senior vice-president of Sport, Cathy Priestner, before she was appointed to the post, is to approach sport development on three fronts:

Deliver high-performance programs by sport organizations in training, competition, sport science and medicine
Broaden the pool of athletes in Canada and ultimately increase the number of international-calibre, medal-capable athletes. The various organizations have identified about 700 B.C. athletes in the pool who have this potential
Give high-performance athletes a technological edge to help improve their success rates. This component includes advanced training methodology, nutrition, psychology, performance techniques and equipment, among other items. About 275 international-level Canadian athletes who train in B.C. who have the potential to benefit from this component of the program.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 28, 2005

Friday, February 25, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |General| #860
B.C.'S SALVATION ARMY PREPARES FOR ITS 2010 OLYMPIC "OUTREACH PROGRAM"

The Salvation Army's headquarters in British Columbia has begun the search for a co-ordinator to run a five-year Olympics outreach program for the 2010 Winter Olympics. It's just one step in a program that will see the social-service organization spend C$350,000 to work on the volunteer side of the Games.

Captain John P. Murray, the Sally Ann's divisional secretary for Development, says the Army has worked with every Olympics since the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta, including the Salt Lake City Winter Games in 2002, and that its international divisions will be at the 2006 Games in Torino, Italy and "probably" the 2008 Games in Beijing.

But in the meantime, the Canadian branch of the Salvation Army is putting aside C$50,000 per year from its discretionary finances, and has been doing so for two years now, so it will have funds to provides services at the 2010 Games. He stresses that none of the funds will come from designated programs, such as its Red Shield Appeal, which provides social support, such as food and shelter, for British Columbia's indigent. The Army spent about US$500,000 on providing services for the Utah Games.

Captain Murray says the Salvation Army provides an organized Christian volunteer base at the Games and sets up tents and a mobile kitchen to provide food and water to Games volunteers and do other similar support functions as required at the Games. "And, because the Salvation Army is faith-based, we also have a chance to provide a practical ministry one-on-one with the volunteers" during the Games. The Army, he says, is one of the few non-governmental organizations of its type that can must the budgetary and organizational clout to be able to do this kind of work.

In addition, he says, the Salvation Army has been meeting with British Columbian church representatives and with the U.S.-based Southern Baptist Convention to plan for the 2010 Games, and has been working with Tom Cooper's "City in Focus" organization on the Olympics outreach program. The City in Focus program describes itself as providing Christian "pastoral and spiritual resource to the unchurched in the city of Vancouver." The Salvation Army has representation in about 50 British Columbian communities, and, globally, is represented in 109 countries, which makes the Olympics Outreach program and its support for the Olympics and Olympic values, according to Captain Murray, "a natural extension" of its work.

Although there's been quite bit of religion-based planning, he says, the Salvation Army has not yet met with any officials of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC). VANOC's Human Resources Department is in charge of the 2010 Games' volunteer programs.

The Salvation Army's outreach co-ordinator's job, which is a five-year contract that starts in April, is to develop "a comprehensive Christian outreach program for the 2010 Games... [and it] requires extensive experience in strategic planning, project management, program design, volunteer recruitment and training as well as internal/ external communications and networking abilities." Captain Murray says the organization isn't limiting applicants to Canadians. He notes that there are now quite a few people in Canada and the United States who have experience with previous Olympics. The primary qualifications for the position is that the person must be a Christian, committed to the Salvation Army's values and mission, have about five years of "sports ministry outreach experience", and, hopefully, experience with Salvation Army Olympic Outreach efforts.

RESOURCES

Lieut.-Colonel Don Copple
Divisional Commander
E-mail:

Captain John P. Murray
Divisional Secretary for Development
E-mail: mailto:John_Murray@Can.SalvationArmy.Org

British Columbia Divisional Headquarters
103-3833 Henning Drive
Burnaby, BC V5C 6N5
Tel: 604.299.3908
Fax: 604-299-7463

Tom Cooper's "City in Focus" program is described here:
http://www.cityinfocus.ca/aboutcif.html

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 25, 2005

Thursday, February 24, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #858
BANK DEAL CLEARS VANOC'S LINE OF CREDIT; MARKETING PLUMPS FINANCIAL AGREEMENT; VICTORIA INTERESTED IN 2009 CURLING TRIALS FOR 2010

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

A financial staffer for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) was pleased about the RBC financial-services sponsorship deal because, among other things, it clears VANOC's hefty line-of-credit. VANOC's financial statements issued last fall said VANOC has arranged a C$15-million rolling line of credit to help pay for its operations, but it didn't identify the bank. By July 31, it had drawn down almost half of that -- C$7.2 million in various methods, some of which were at 10 basis points below the bank's prime, which was 3.75% on July 31. The credit facility was guaranteed by the bank having first call on VANOC's "personal property." Jack Poole, VANOC chairman, joked that he left a message for Vancouver City mayor Larry Campbell that said, "Larry, there's money in the bank -- and it's from the bank." By the way, Campbell was supposed to undergo day surgery angioplasty today to clear a blocked artery near his heart and had been taking a few days off work to prepare for the procedure. But he was told by his doctors today that he wouldn't need the treatment, and the surgery team went on to other patients. But he still has to quit smoking.
The marketing departments of both VANOC and RBC were hard at work for the Financial Services sponsorship deal. There were news conferences in Halifax, where senior officials of VANOC were attending the Royal Bank's annual general meeting and board meeting, and Vancouver, along with teleconferences for national news media. The Vancouver announcement took place in front of puzzled bank customers in the main lobby of the Royal Bank's downtown corporate headquarters, where about 150 bank employees were told to gather round in sight of the TV cameras, and were handed small Canadian flags to wave for them, and to cheer on cue during the speeches. It also involved a number of the Canadian Olympic Team members, which RBC is sponsoring in the deal, news-release kits bearing both the RBC logo and the VANOC logo, with backgrounders and joint testimonials, a goodies bag for everybody in sight that included a funky pen with the phrase "Vancouver 2010... Spirit of the Games" (yes, the trademark symbols were there), and even two massive ice sculptures, one each of the logos of RBC and VANOC. Those who looked in the goodies bag were taken aback by a rolled-up copy of a clumsily drawn human with the head of an indecipherable type of animal in loose-fitting exercise clothing and wearing an Olympic medallion. Deeper down in the bag was a temporary tattoo sticker of the same thing. Nobody ever said what the point of the exercise was. Even though John Furlong, VANOC CEO and his chief sponsorship negotiator, Dave Cobb, were in Halifax, VANOC senior vice-presidents Terry Wright (Planning), Steve Matheson (Venues) and John McLaughlin (Finance) were there, along with a number of second-tier VANOC staffers from communications, sponsorships and finance.
They're already starting to think about the 2009 Canadian Olympic curling trials, which will determine the men's and women's Canadian teams that will appear at the 2010 Winter Olympics. Several cities are interested in hosting those trials. According to the Canadian Curling Association, they include: Ottawa and Brandon in Ontario, Victoria in B.C. and Red Deer, Alberta. The next Olympic curling trials will be held in December in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to choose the Canadian teams for the 2006 Winter Games in Italy. By the way, one of the main considerations in choosing a city: the facilities that are available to host the related parties that go along with the curling trials.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 24, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #857
SENIOR AIR CANADA EXECUTIVE APPOINTED AS VP, COMMUNICATIONS

Renee Smith-Valade, Air Canada's former manager of public relations and director of corporate affairs and government relations, has been hired by the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) as vice-president of Communications. She'll report to senior vice-president of Revenue, Marketing and Communications, Dave Cobb.

Smith-Valade was one of the main public faces for the airline for 12 tumultuous years. She was based in Calgary for most of that time, after earlier completing a stint as a media-relations officer for the Calgary Olympic Organizing Committee when it hosted the Winter Olympics in 1988. It was her first job after graduating from university in Calgary. She also worked for several years as the executive assistant to Calgary mayor Duerr. She worked on the City of Calgary's bid to host Expo 2005, an international exposition, that was ultimately awarded to another city. She later signed on as media relations with Canadian Airline, a national airline that was eventually absorbed by Air Canada, where she continued in that role.

While at Air Canada -- as it navigated bankruptcy and the effects on the airline and the industry of the September 11, 2001 attack on New York -- she handled hundreds of media interviews and as much or more in requests for information on a wide range of topics connected with the troubled airline, from lost luggage to security checks. She was also one of five people assigned to represent the airline's employees before the court dealing with Air Canada's bankruptcy. After a promotion within Air Canada to a confidential job, she was obliged to give up the employee-representation aspect, and she was transferred to its headquarters in Montreal from Calgary.

But, she says, she wanted to return to western Canada and applied for the Communications Director job with VANOC to achieve that. She moved to Vancouver last week. She also testified, either on her own or as backup to senior airline officials, at various Canadian senate and parliamentary committees studying the airline industry's control and regulation during the last few years.

She's married, to Andre Valade, a senior executive with Canada's national oil company, Petro-Canada, and they have one son, Max.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 24, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #856
MASTER MARKETING AGREEMENT FINALLY SIGNED WITH IOC

The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) and the International Olympic Committee have signed -- after months of often intense negotiations -- a Master Marketing Agreement that gives VANOC a wide range of authority over its marketplace for years to come.

The agreement was signed last Friday by VANOC CEO John Furlong and his senior vice-president of Revenue, Marketing and Communications, Dave Cobb, and it gives VANOC the ability to fully negotiate and sign sponsorship agreements. The IOC agreed to release the telecommunications and financial-services sponsorship categories under special arrangements to allow Bell Canada to be awarded its telecom sponsorship deal, and today's deal with RBC Royal Bank Financial Group because of the length of time it was taking to nail down the master agreement. Negotiations over the agreement began last August, shortly after Cobb was appointed to his position, and face-to-face meetings with IOC officials were conducted in Beijing, Vancouver and Lausanne, Switzerland at IOC's headquarters. As well, there were numerous drafts exchanged electronically.

VANOC is still mulling over whether to make the MPA public, following a request today by Morgan:News:2010.

VANOC, particularly Furlong and Cobb, have been holding "about 60 or 70" corporate meetings in cities across Canada -- and in Montreal and Toronto in particular -- during the past few months as initial approaches are made to companies interested in sponsoring various aspects of the Games, according to Furlong.

In 2002, VANOC's predecessor, the 2010 Bid Corporation, run by Furlong and the man who is now his senior vice-president of Planning, Terry Wright, predicted VANOC would generate total cash and in-kind income of US$160 million from the highest-level national sponsors from eight to ten of the following categories: airline; automotive; banking; brewery; communications; lotteries and gaming; oil and gas, petroleum; power and energy; telecom services; timing and scoring. So far, VANOC's generated about US$265 million just from banking and communications, and Swatch, via its Omega brand, has already arranged to do the timing and scoring reached last year through an international sponsorship deal with the IOC.

Another of the top-level sponsorships is expected to be announced next week, according to VANOC staffers but they say that though several deals are nearing completion, the category that was rumoured to be settled next, automotive, isn't likely to be the one announced next week. They declined to be more specific because of competitive issues and marketing arrangements that are part of the deals being reached.

Since airfares are a major operational component of VANOC's these days, and are likely to get even larger as the organization prepares during the next 12 months to provide a large contingent to observer the workings of the 2006 Winter Games in Italy next February, next week's announcement could well deal with the airline industry.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 24, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #855
MORE DETAILS ON HOW THE RBC FINANCIAL SERVICES SPONSORSHIP DEAL IS STRUCTURED

There are further details now available about how the Financial Services sponsorship between the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) and RBC Royal Bank of Canada is structured.

Andrea Shaw, vice-president of Sponsorships for VANOC, says that under the deal, RBC will sponsor the operations of the 2010 Winter Games to a total of C$70 million in cash or equivalents. It will also sponsor the Canadian Olympic Team itself for another four Olympics -- the Winter Games in Torino Italy in 2006 and Vancouver in 2010, and the Summer Games in Beijing in 2008 and in 2012. The choice of the 2012 city is to be made by the International Olympic Committee this July.

The rest of the deal, she says, which amounts to C$40 million as valued by VANOC, is value-in-kind: banking services, athlete and amateur sport investments, support for the Paralympics, community development programs for at least the Squamish and Lil'Wat aboriginal bands in British Columbia, and Olympic brand marketing and promotional support through the RBC network. More announcements will be made on a piece-meal basis as a way of implementing the brand marketing.

Graham MacLachlan, the western regional president of RBC Royal Bank, says in Vancouver that the RBC arrangement with VANOC and the Canadian Olympic Team and Committee, "is the ideal mixture of brands and values."

The deal, according to Shaw, includes specific support for the Canadian Olympic Committee's "Own the Podium" program, but the amount of that support will not be released for marketing reasons: RBC's marketing department wants to make a separate announcement about that.

Meanwhile, John McLauchlin, VANOC's vice-president of Finance, says a decision has yet to be reached as to whether the Royal Bank's branches will be involved in ticket sales for the 2010 Games, as the 3,000 branches of Sanpaolo Bank, the Torino Olympics financial-services sponsor, is doing now in the final year before its Games. "That hasn't been decided yet, and Europe doesn't have the network of ticket retailing that we have. In any event, it's not part of this agreement."

The deal between RBC and VANOC was reached earlier this month, but the announcement was planned to coincide with the RBC annual general meeting and board meeting in Halifax, Nova Scotia, today and tomorrow. That's where VANOC CEO John Furlong and Dave Cobb, his senior vice-president of Revenue, Marketing and Communications, are today. They took part in a conference call with RBC executives from Halifax this morning as part of the announcement.

BACKGROUND

The Royal Bank of Canada, which is public and listed on the TSX and NYSE under "RY" uses the initials RBC as a prefix for its businesses and operating subsidiaries, which operate under the master brand name of RBC Financial Group. Royal Bank of Canada is Canada's largest bank as measured by assets, and is one of North America's largest, diversified financial services companies. It provides personal and commercial banking, wealth management services, insurance, corporate and investment banking, and transaction processing services internationally. The company employs about 60,000 people and has about 11.5 million personal, business and public-sector clients in North American countries and about other 30 countries.

RESOURCES

This RBC page outlines the bank's history of sponsorship with the Olympics brand:
http://www.rbc.com/sponsorship/history.html

This RBC page is its investor-relations home:
http://www.rbc.com/investorrelations/index.html

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 24, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #854
RBC FINANCIAL GROUP LANDED AS THE 2010 GAMES PREMIER NATIONAL BANKING SPONSOR

The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) has entered into a four-Olympics sponsorship agreement with RBC Financial Group, which operates the Royal Bank in Canada.

Under the deal, the RBC Financial Group has sponsorship rights to the Canadian Olympic team for the Torino 2006, Beijing 2008, Vancouver 2010 and 2012 Games. RBC's total commitment is valued by VANOC at C$110 million over the next eight years including a cash contribution of about C$70 million. Other support includes banking services, athlete and amateur sport investments, support for the Paralympics, First Nation's community development programs and Olympic brand marketing and promotional support through the RBC network.

VANOC's marketing program will be focused on "securing mutually rewarding partnerships with shared Olympic values" to generate sufficient revenue to host successful Winter Games in 2010 and to leave a financial legacy for sport.

RBC is the longest-serving national partner of the Canadian Olympic team, and with this announcement, continues its 58-year relationship with the Canadian Olympic movement that officially started in 1947.

"RBC has an outstanding record of supporting amateur athletics in Canada and has been an exceptional partner for Canada's Olympic and Paralympic movements," said John Furlong VANOC CEO. "Our goal is to organize great Games on behalf of all Canadians and help Canada's athletes achieve great results in 2010 and beyond. RBC - one of Canada's most trusted companies - shares this vision and with their tradition and experience will help us create the conditions for success in 2010."

Gordon Nixon, President and CEO, RBC Financial Group, added, "We are extremely proud to renew our long relationship as the exclusive national Olympic banking partner for the Games. Our employees have always been terrific supporters of Canadian Olympians. We are delighted to have the opportunity once again to help fulfill Canada's commitment to the International Olympic Committee to promote, care and nurture the Olympic promise and its values. And we are ready to assist VANOC in setting a new world standard for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games."

Chris Rudge, the CEO of the Canadian Olympic Committee, was also pleased by the move "This is great news for sport. Over the past 58 years, RBC has played a pivotal role in the Canadian Olympic Movement through the support of athlete development, Olympic education and athlete career mentoring. We look forward to continuing this successful partnership."

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 24, 2005

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #853
OLYMPIAN BROADCASTER TO HEAD UP TVNW MEDIA GROUP; OKANAGAN 2010 COMMITTEE TO GO PUBLIC IN MAY; REVELSTOKE SIGHS OVER SIGNS

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

TVNW Media Group, a Canadian television production company based in North Vancouver that focuses on high-performance sports, has appointed strong-willed Olympian medallist Adrian Metcalfe of England as its first president. Metcalfe, the head of sport for the UK's Channel 4, has either produced or directed live Olympic Games television coverage, and he's been brought onboard to help the firm focus on the 2010 Winter Games and the lead-up to it. His resume includes the fact that he helped launch the Eurosport channel and received an Order of the British Empire for services to sports broadcasting in 2000. Metcalfe already knows the people in the North Shore operation, however. He has worked with TVNW managing director Martin Perry, in the UK and in Canada. He was was involved in distributing the TV rights to the 2003 World Weightlifting Championships, which was produced by TVNW and broadcast in about 50 countries. In addition to sport television, the firm, founded three years ago, has produces documentaries, corporate videos, and light entertainment. Its clients and projects include the International Triathlon Union World Cup Series, FIS World Cup Skiing -- which it did for Channel 4 -- and the firm is the host-broadcaster for the Vancouver Whitecaps Soccer Club. The firm has also produced more than 90 hours of programming for Canadian sports cable channel TSN. Metcalfe’s appointment is also seen as a method of bringing closer control to TVNW's seven divisions: sports production, original programming, facilities & outsourcing, corporate media services, media management and marketing & distribution. Metcalfe, then 22, took part in the 1964 summer Olympics track-and-field competitions in Tokyo, where he won silver in the 4 x 400 metre race.
The Okanagan Spirit of BC Committee, which is made up of 21 people and based in Kelowna, plans to host a community meeting towards the end of May to talk about the kinds of opportunities that might be available to the area in connection with the 2010 Winter Games. The organization, chaired by Winfield businessman Cal McCarthy, includes representatives from the Okanagan involved in marketing, recreation and sports, cultural services, economics, education, politics and tourism. The approach of the information meeting is expected to be based on "five pillars of opportunity" identified by 2010 LegaciesNow during its tour of the area and other parts of British Columbia: sports and recreation, tourism, arts & culture, education & youth, and business. The Committee has been talking about encouraging the teams of smaller nations to train in the area, perhaps a curling team.
From our Sign of the Times Department: The 2010 Winter Games -- and the tourism stemming from it -- have been cited by a council member for the city of Revelstoke, in south-eastern British Columbia, as the reason that businesses there should spruce up their storefronts and, in particular, their signage. Councillor Chris Johnston told Council the Enhancement Committee, after seeing a slide show of town signage, wasn't too impressed with the look of things at the moment.

RESOURCES

TVNW Media Group

Suite 203, 38 Fell Avenue
North Vancouver, BC V7P 3S2
Phone: 604.904.7579
Fax: 604.904.7589
< mailto:info@tvnwmediagroup.com>
http://www.tvnwmediagroup.com/home.php

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 23, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #852
C$23 MILLION COLISEUM RENO STARTS WITH REPLACING 16,000 SEATS FROM MAY UNTIL DECEMBER

The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) has begun the C$23-million process of renovating one of its main venues, the 16,000 seat Vancouver Coliseum in east Vancouver's Pacific National Exhibition grounds, which will be host to the 2010 Olympic figure skating and short-track speed-skating competitions.

Jane O'Flaherty, VANOC's Manager of Venue Finance, reports that for the first part of the renovation work, VANOC is looking for design-build proposals from companies interested in doing all the work involved in replacing the seating in time for this December's World Junior Hockey championships.

The arena is to eventually be brought to Olympic standards. This request, though, is for proposals to provide the labour, materials, equipment and services to design, engineer, fabricate, supply and install fixed arena seating, in-fill seating and telescopic-platform seating.

When the original seating was installed, 1,940 seats were mounted on telescopic units, there were 288 in-fill seats and the balance of 13,635 fixed Hussey/Irwin-style seats were split between lower and upper bowls. The idea is to replace the 38-year-old seating with essentially the same configuration.

The work also involves removing, recycling and reusing the existing seating so there is minimum landfill disposal, as environmental considerations are part of VANOC's promises to the International Olympic Committee in holding the Games. VANOC also wants a 10-year warranty built into the proposal, for replacement within 48 hours of any seating that fails during that time.

The arena, originally built in 1967 and where the National Hockey League's Vancouver Canucks played for years before moving downtown to General Motors Place, is now the home to the Vancouver Giants of the Western Hockey League and is owned by the City of Vancouver, but it's also used during the PNE, an annual two-week fair on the grounds that includes the Coliseum.

The installation schedule will have to avoid those two weeks, from August 26 to September 6. In addition, work will have to pause for the dozen or so events the Coliseum has booked between May and the start of the PNE, and the 17 events booked from the end of the PNE to December 1. That means the seating will have to be replaced incrementally, so the events can use the seating, and finished by December 1.

RFP-2010-516, on B.C. Bid, closes March 4 at 2 pm, and is restricted to companies with at least five years of experience in dealing with this work. And, along with a long list of criteria for the seats, VANOC wants each proponent to drop off a sample of each type of chair and its fittings, along with colour samples and fabric swatches, at the Coliseum before the closing date.

BACKGROUND

VANOC is still mulling over the type of seating that it wants to use in the Coliseum renovation, so it's asked for proposals based on three seating options:

An upholstered seat pan and back with exposed plastic or steel, such as the Irwin Citation No. 41212
An upholstered seat pan with exposed plastic or steel, such as the Irwin Patriot No. 301208, or
A plastic seat pan and back, such as the Irwin Patriot No. 303030

You can see the examples being discussed, here:
http://www.irwinseating.com/market_pages/arena.htm

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 23, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Sports| #851
2010 LEGACIESNOW AND BC SPORT GROUPS WELCOME FEDERAL SPORT FUNDING

The 2010 LegaciesNow organization and several other BC sport organizations say they are pleased with the federal government’s announcement of C$20 million in new funding for sport in Canada during the release of today's federal budget for Ottawa's upcoming fiscal year, which includes an additional annual investment of C$15 million for the “Own the Podium” program.

Marion Lay, the president and CEO of 2010 LegaciesNow says today in Vancouver that, “These new investments will definitely help to reinforce our 'Playground to Podium' strategy in British Columbia... With strategic and targeted investments in our athletes and coaches over the coming years, we are working hard to ensure that British Columbia and Canada shine atop the podium in 2010.”

Meanwhile, Sandra Stevenson, the president and CEO of Sport BC says that the new federal funding levels for sport are "a welcome next step for achieving both podium performance and increasing the number of opportunities for Canadians to be physically active through organized sport... Our collective vision for sport in Canada depends on increasing support from all sectors. It is great to see government modelling the way. Keep it up!”

Roger Skillings, president and CEO of PacificSport Victoria. “This additional funding will help us continue providing programs and services to give every advantage to our high-performance athletes and coaches. When the difference between a gold-medal performance and not reaching the podium is measured in milliseconds, this type of funding can help to bridge that gap.”

They note that beside the Sport portion of the budget, there is also C$300 million over five years for an integrated Strategy on Healthy Living and Chronic Disease, which is to include a series of activities to promote healthy eating and encourage physical activity and healthy weight. Suzanne Strutt, executive director of the British Columbia Recreation and Parks Association says, “The investment in sport announced by the federal government will not only assist our high- performance athletes but also British Columbians’ participation in community sport and physical activity. The province has set the target of increasing physical activity levels by 20% by 2010, and this funding will go a long way in assisting us reach that goal.”

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 23, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |IOC| #850
CANADIAN OLYMPIC COMMITTEE OK WITH FEDERAL FUNDING LEVELS IN NEW BUDGET

The Canadian Olympic Committee (COC)'s president said today that although the funding wasn't as much as he had hoped for, he is pleased with the federal Canadian government's decision to increase funding for amateur sport by an additional C$20 million per year in the 2005 budget it made public today.

In addition, Michael Chambers says he is pleased that the government has rolled into the base funding for high-performance sport an additional C$50 million that was part of Sport Canada's high-performance funding last year, which was set to expire at the end of 2004.

"We are pleased that the Martin government has significantly increased funding for sport in Canada," said Chambers, in Ottawa, where he has been intensively lobbying for additional funding for the past week. "The increase demonstrates the federal government's increasing commitment to high-performance sport in Canada. This new funding will help build long-term sustainability for the sport community and greater success for all our athletes."

The COC has been actively co-ordinating the advocacy for increased federal funding for sport. As a result, representatives of the sport community, including the Sport Matters Group that represents a wide range of amateur athletics in Canada, the Canadian Paralympic Committee, a number of national sport federations recognized by the Olympics, and Olympic athletes and coaches, met with Members of Parliament, and senior government officials this month to plump for amateur sport in Canada and the "Own the Podium" program in particular.

"We are happy that federal Sport minister Owen recognizes the important role that sport plays in Canada," noted Chris Rudge, the COC's CEO. "It is an essential component of our culture, not only in terms of the national pride that is fostered when Canadian athletes win Olympic medals, but also in terms of the benefit to our health and well-being from participating in sport. There is a significant return to Canadians on the federal investment in sport."

The COC says it will and others in the Olympic sport sector will continue working on Minister Owen along with their national funding sponsors in the private sector, and the national sport federations, and to further develop the "Own the Podium" program to prepare Canadian athletes for the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in Vancouver, and to create a similar program for summer sport, which allows for success of Canadian athletes in future summer Olympic Games.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 23, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #849
OTTAWA'S BUDGET OFFERS HIGH-PERFORMANCE SPORT MORE MONEY, PLUS INITIAL SUPPORT FOR "OWN THE PODIUM"

The Canadian federal government budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which starts April 1, today provided for an additional C$70 million a year to Sport Canada which, according to the federal finance ministry's documents, means that it is "doubling its ongoing funding to [a total of] C$140 million in the upcoming fiscal year from C$70 million during the current fiscal year."

But that extra includes about C$50 million in program funding that was to have ended this year but is being extended. On the other hand, it also includes the first installment of its support for the "Own the Podium" program, requested by the Canadian Olympic Committee and authored by Cathy Priestner, the senior vice-president of Sport for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Organizing Committee.

In order for this to all take place with certainty, however, the minority federal Liberal government must survive a vote on approval of the budget by Parliament, although it's unlikely any replacement government would have a significant effect on actual expenditures during the forthcoming year.

The break-out documents, which deal with the federal Heritage Department, which is the channel through which Ottawa is funding its share of the 2010 Winter Games, put it this way: "As part of the Government of Canada’s ongoing commitment to the [2010 Winter Games, the budget] provides an additional C$87 million over seven years, including an additional C$20 million for the Paralympic Games, to ensure that Canada is ready when the world comes to visit in 2010. This funding is over and above the Government of Canada’s existing commitment of [more than] C$410 million to help build the Games’ sport and event venues, as well as to provide the essential services required for such an event, such as policing and security."

The federal government says, as well, that it wants to ensure that Canadian high-performance athletes have the coaching, equipment and support "they require to perform at the top levels of national and international competition", so Ottawa will renew, for the next few years the C$50 million "investment" it made during the current fiscal year. In addition, it says, "A further C$15 -million per year will be provided to respond to the recommendations of the 'Own the Podium' report and provide the resources required for Canada’s elite athletes to reach their potential in the years to come." Ottawa also says it wants to ensure that "Canadians across the country have more opportunities to get involved in sport at the community level," so the budget is adding C$5 million per year to the C$10 million it's been providing for those programs since 2003.

Finance minister Ralph Goodale says, "These investments will bring stability to Sport Canada’s budget... [and] they will provide the sport system with the highest level ever of ongoing funding from the Government of Canada."

Despite all the nice words, the Sport budget makes up only a small part of the Heritage Ministry's budget, and this coming year will be the best it will be at least until 2010. Here's how the federal budget predicts the government will fund Sport Canada over the next five fiscal years:

2005-06: C$76 million (9.2% of the Heritage budget for that year)
2006-07: C$78 million (6.5%)
2007-08: C$79 million (5.6%)
2008-09: C$85 million (6.0%)
2009-10: C$113 million (7.6%)
Total: C$429 million (6.7%)

Sport isn't the only budget that the federal government funds through Heritage Canada and other departments that will have an impact on the economic ripple effects of the 2010 Winter Games. There were also funding increases for various programs that have to do with culture -- the 2010 Games will also involve a five-year "cultural Olympiad", starting in early 2006 and going through until 2010, and there are also environmental and sustainability funding programs, which also affect promises made to the IOC in how the Games are to be delivered, and which could be tapped in various ways.

Heritage Canada's "Tomorrow Starts Today" program, for instance, which began in 2001, is also receiving a boost in funding. It provides support for Canadian arts and culture. Last December, the government said its commitment to the program would include $172 million of new funding per year for another four years, and that's also included in this budget.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 23, 2005

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #848
FORT ST. JOHN SPEEDSKATERS HAVE HOPES SET ON HIGH; COC SUPPORT GENERATES LOTS OF INK; ROSEN HEADS FOR 2010 - AND 50

Here are three more moguls we ran into today:

Western Canada has one speed-skating oval at the moment, in Calgary. By 2010, it might have three, including the C$60-million one the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) is funding in the Vancouver suburb of Richmond. Skate Canada's BC/Yukon section chair, Gail Weber of Fort St. John, in British Columbia's northeast quarter, says the city, which already has an outdoor oval, is keeping its fingers crossed that the provincial government will approve its application for a C$28-million indoor speed-skating oval complex, which it is billing as a pre-Olympic training site, as part of the 2010 Legacy projects funding. That's a sizable project, even with the amount of funding the province is making available to spread throughout the province, although Weber says she thinks it might still be viable even if a Legacy grant didn't cover all of the complex. It's a project that Fort St. John has been touting officially since 2003. Weber and the city, which last night granted approval to a new gaming hotel complex, feel there is a good business case to be made for the new complex, which would adjoin an existing large and small ice rink and swimming pool. The city, which is going through another of its periodic oil-patch boom economic cycles, is the only BC community to have hosted five multi-sport winter games: four Northern BC Winter Games and one BC Winter Games. It has also produced 64 national or world champion speed-skaters, including two-time Olympian Linda Johnson-Blair, and is home to The Fort St. John Elks Speed Skating Club, the largest speed skating club in BC. Denny Morrison of Fort St. John, won a silver medal February 5 in the men's 1,500 metres at the world junior long-track speed skating championships in Finland. The proposed facility features a long-track speed-skating oval that circles an Olympic-sized hockey rink, and includes a conference and training centre, an indoor track and an indoor venue that can be used for either soccer or tennis. The city of Fort St. John, 1,300 km from Vancouver, but a lot closer to Edmonton, both economically and physically, has a population of about 16,000, however it handles a regional population of about 53,000.
You have to hand it to the Canadian Olympic Committee and its various troop of supporters who have been banging on the federal government's door for the past week, lobbying for funds to be included tomorrow's federal budget for the "Own the Podium" program and other projects. There have been dozens of inches of national newspaper articles, and plenty of TV, radio and Internet broadcast coverage of what they've been up to, and what they think about this or that aspect of the story. Still, the budget is set by a systematic process and leaves little room for last-minute tweaking; if Ottawa hoped the leak to the Canadian Press the other day about the amount that's supposed to be in the budget for their funding would quieten things, it seems to have had the exact opposite effect, since now the media are reporting a sense of disappointment if it comes to pass that they got most, but not all, of what they wanted.
Toronto Star newspaper columnist Jim Coyle tells the story today of Paul Rosen of Vaughn, Ontario. Coyle says Rosen told him he intends to ignore doctors who are urging Rosen to retire as goalie of Canada's 2006 Winter Paralympics Sledge Hockey team that will be heading for Torinio, Italy, later this year, assuming things work out for the 18-member team during the World Cup Championships in Colorado in April. He says he's going to put off his retirement until after the 2010 Winter Games. The sledge-hockey contests in 2010 that Rosen's talking about will be played, along with the rest of the Paralympic events, in Whistler on a rink that doesn't even exist yet. Rosen says he'll be 49 if he makes it to the 2010 Games, which will be held in March that year, and he will turn 50 shortly afterward. But that's OK, because he didn't start playing sledge hockey until he was 40 and, he tells Coyle, if George Foreman, the boxer, can do it, so can he. Rosen has been a hockey player since he was kid, when he broke his leg. Eventually, that rippled into a knee replacement, which got infected following several surgeries to deal with it, until the leg was amputated in 1999. As he was recovering from that, he got to talking to a 13-year-old boy who had lost both legs and an arm; the boy brought up sledge hockey, prompting him to try out for the national team in 2000. Rosen is quoted as saying that, in essence, the boy told him: "So you're missing your leg. Big deal. Get over it."

RESOURCES

Fort St John Elks Speed Skating Club
http://www.solarwinds.com/sskate/

The full story on Paul Rosen:
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagenamethestar/Layout/Article_Type1&cArticle&cid1109027412030&call_pageid970599119419

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 22, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #847
SHAKEUP AT BELL CANADA; CELLS AT 2010 - VIDEO ALERTS?; INFLUENTIAL SPORT WOMEN INCLUDE THREE 2010 CONNECTIONS

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

There's been a shake-up in the upper echelons of Bell Canada as the company is in the process of rolling out its push into western Canada using its 2010 Winter Olympic links as a springboard. Michael Neuman has resigned as president of Bell Mobility and Bell Distribution Inc. after three years. He's being replaced by Robert Odendaal, who joined Bell Canada in 2004 to head up the company's Video Services group. He has been appointed CEO Bell Mobility and Video Services, reporting to Pierre Blouin, the group president of Consumer Markets for Bell Canada. Odendaal was Director of Digital Business Development at European broadcaster BSkyB before joining Bell. Alek Krstajic, formerly the chief marketing officer in the Consumer Group, will become Bell Mobility's president. He will be responsible for implementing Bell Mobility's 2005 operating plan. He will also have responsibility for all of Bell's retail operations, which include Bell World stores. Another BSkyB alumnus, Gary Smith, has been appointed president of Bell ExpressVu. He was senior vice president of Operations. Smith also joined ExpressVu last year. Kevin Crull has been appointed president of Consumer Solutions. He was senior vice president for Enterprise Wireless at AT&T in the United States. Crull will be responsible for all marketing, sales and product development in the Consumer group as well as for Bell's call-centre operations. He'll also be focusing on expanding broadband use in residential markets. And Bell is setting up a new unit within the consumer group to deal with VoiP (Voice over Internet, the system of carrying phone calls) which will be lead by Ron Close, another former AT&T Canada executive, who has an Internet and telecom background. He will head Bell's Consumer VoIP product line which is being launched this year.
One of the comments made by Bell Canada after it garnered the broadcasting rights for the 2010 Winter Games was the fact that cellphones would play a much larger part than presently in delivering the Games to spectators. Keep that in mind as we tell you about something that 20th Century Fox has just announced which doesn't -- yet -- have any connection to Bell: Fox intends to create a series of one-minute dramas based on its hit show "24" for a new high-speed wireless service, known as 3G, being offered in Europe by Vodafone PLC, the world's biggest cell phone company. Vodafone will begin offering "mobisodes" as they're called, for "mobile episodes", in January in the United Kingdom, coinciding with the start of the fourth season of the show on a satellite TV service. The company intends to introduce the same thing later this year in up to 23 other countries where Vodafone operates, mainly in Europe, as well as in the United States through the company's Verizon Wireless joint venture. In March, the new Vodafone service, to be called "Vodafone Live! with 3G," will also offer trailers and clips of movies under a "Movie of the Month" service, the first one being "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason." Fast-forward to 2010 in Vancouver or Whistler, and this kind of technology, which will probably allow you to get a cell-phone video-clip of a winning performance at the Games on your cellphone seconds after it happens as easily as you now get a text alert, will be fairly mature by then.
Three of the 20 Canadian women who have been named to the 2004 list of the Most Influential Women in Sport and Physical Activity, compiled by the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport and Physical Activity, have a connection with the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC). They include: Cathy Priestner, who is the senior vice-president of Sport for VANOC; Charmaine Crooks, who is a VANOC Board Member and Marion Lay, the President & CEO of 2010 LegaciesNow Society, the B.C. government's private-public partner that works with VANOC. The list recognizes women who have made a significant impact in Canadian sport as athletes, administrators, advocates, board members, executives, medical doctors, officials, policy makers or volunteers.

RESOURCES

The complete list of the Most Influential Women in Sport and Physical Activity is here:
http://www.caaws.ca/influentialwomen/e/2004/index.htm

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 22, 2005

Monday, February 21, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #846
CP SAYS WEDNESDAY'S FEDERAL BUDGET TO PROVIDE C$140 MILLION FOR AMATEUR SPORTS

A Canadian Press report by Alexander Panett out of Ottawa tonight says "The federal government will boost amateur-sports funding... to a total of C$140 million" in Wednesday's federal budget, which is expected to be made public about 1 p.m. Pacific time, after the Canadian stock markets close.

A "a senior government official" is quoted as confirming the information, but the person is not identified.

Panetta says the funding will be a mix of C$20 million in new money and C$60 million in funds that existed in last year's budget and which had been set to expire at the March 31 end of Ottawa's current fiscal year.

There's no word in the report about how the funds are to be directed. Typically, federal budget figures are closely held.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 21, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #845
WADA CHOOSES BELL'S CGI GROUP TO RUN BIG DATABASE FOR FOUR YEARS; CUPE 2010 TAKES JOB ACTION AGAINST WHISTLER TOMORROW; ISRAELI BOBSLED TEAM FOR 2010 A KOSHER IDEA

Here are three more moguls we ran into today:

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) -- which is based in Montreal -- is run by a director of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC), Dick Pound. It will have a major presence at the 2010 Winter Olympics. It has contracted CGI Group Inc., a subsidiary of the Bell group of companies, for a four-year information-technology contract. CGI will host the infrastructure, which has a requirement for significant confidentiality, on all international and national athlete profiles worldwide on WADA's Anti-Doping Administration & Management System -- nicknamed ADAMS -- as well as to provide help-desk services to the anti-doping organizations of various nations that will be feeding the database with information on their country's athletes. Eventually, WADA expects to have more than one million people and up to 400 organizations using the system. The two executives who arranged the deal: Pierre Turcotte, senior vice-president and general manager of CGI Montreal, and David Howman, WADA's general director. CGI is a multi-national information-technology and business-process service firm; it and its affiliates employ about 25,000 people. CGI's annualized revenue run rate is currently C$3.8 billion and, as of last September, CGI's order backlog was C$13 billion. CGI's shares are listed on the TSX (GIB.SV.A) and the NYSE (GIB) and are included in the S&P/TSX Composite Index as well as the S&P/TSX Capped Information Technology and MidCap Indices. Note that the contract's term expires the year before the 2010 Games start.
The 29 members of Whistler's Canadian Union of Public Employees local, which changed its numerical designation to 2010 last year to emphasize its connection with the 2010 Winter Games, is proposing the start of job action against the Resort Municipality of Whistler tomorrow. The workers currently make between C$14.50 and C$25 an hour. Among other things, they operate the municipality's sewage and water systems, enforcing its bylaws and the like, but VANOC operations in Whistler, or planning for the Athletes Village and media centre there, while underway, is at too early a stage for the work actions to have any significant effect. The key issue, at least for the union, is cost of living bonuses in the expensive region. The last union request, for a C$4,000 COLA per worker, was rejected by the municipality, which pointed out that lots of Whistler workers who aren't in the local have the same affordability issue.
From the Bob Oy Vay Department: Will the Israeli bobsled team be the equivalent of the Jamaican bobsled team for the 2010 Winter Olympics? The hearts of spectators at the Calgary Winter Olympics were captured by the incredible determination and happy-go-lucky attitude of the Jamaican bobsled team, which managed to wangle its way into competing at those Games. At the 2010 Games, it may well be the Israeli team, nicknamed "The Frozen Chosen," playing the same role. The Israeli team is currently composed of the guy who organized it, John Frank, 42, a former tight-end with the San Francisco '49ers football team who is now a plastic surgeon and who has recently acquired Israeli citizenship; Aaron Zeff, 34, also of San Francisco, who is a former U.S. fighter pilot and who is also the pilot for the sled; a former Canadian sprinter, David Greaves, 37, from Winnipeg; and Moshe Horowitz, 24, a young Israeli from Jerusalem who Zeff expects will one day replace him as pilot. Ross Dominikovich, who is the team's coach, is a former Olympic bobsledder for New Zealand living in Calgary. Before they get to 2010, though, they have to get to the 2006 Winter Games in Torino, Italy, a year from now. The field will be the top 28 sleds determined in World Cup competition in Europe and North America this year. The United States, Germany, Switzerland, Russia, Canada and the Czech Republic usually qualify two sleds each for a total of 12. Ten more are determined by next highest finishers. A series of races determines the final six, which is where the Israeli team thinks it will compete with Mexico, New Zealand, Australia, Britain and France.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 21, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #844
HUNDREDS OF BUSES POSSIBLE ON ROUTES INVOLVING CYPRESS MOUNTAIN VENUE, SAY TEST REPORTS

The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) has identified at least two major bus routes it expects could be used for spectators travelling to its Cypress Mountain venue in West Vancouver, following empty-bus tests to the mountain and back, and, a VANOC report says, during peak times in 2010, hundreds of buses could be flowing between Vancouver and the mountain.

As part of its due-diligence work connected with the venue, where freestyle skiing and snowboarding competitions will be held for up to 12,000 spectators at a time, VANOC did some tests with buses to see how they fared going up to Cypress Mountain's parking lot and back, at least to the Park Royal Shopping Mall parking lot in West Vancouver, although there's no word yet on whether the lot will be part of the bus route.

The final report of the test indicates that two shuttle bus routes, using "low floor transit equipment could serve the mountain," were available. They identified the two routes this way: "Route 1: Departing from Waterfront Station bus terminal [in downtown Vancouver] to Park Royal Shopping Centre then on to Cypress Mountain. Travel times approximately 75 minutes each way, with a round trip time of 135 minutes, which works out to 2.25 hours. Service would operate as frequently as one every minute during peak times, carrying 3,000 people per hour per direction. The route would require approximately 135 buses. Route 2: Departing from Lonsdale Quay [in North Vancouver] to Lonsdale [North Vancouver's main north-south street] and then on to Cypress Mountain. Travel times approximately 60 minutes each way with a round trip time of 120 minutes, or two hours. Service would be platooned to connect with the SeaBus, with three departures every 10 minutes carrying 1,000 people per hour per direction. The route would require approximately 40 buses."

The test buses, which were empty, made it there and back in a round-trip time of 60 minutes at an average speed of 60 kph going uphill. Buses assigned to the shuttle route, report the testers, will require retarder-brake systems for the decent; however, all new transit equipment operated by subsidiaries and contractors of TransLink, the Greater Vancouver transit authority, are apparently capable of climbing or coming down the mountain.

BACKGROUND

Here are the results of the field test, using a transit bus: Travel on the 21.5 km route from Taylor Way and Marine to the top at the Cypress lift area near the first-aid station took 24 minutes for the bus, respecting all speed limits. This, the testers say, should probably be about 30 minutes under load in ideal conditions. The bus maintained its speed of 60 km to the top and, in fact, had to back off slightly on throttle to stay at that speed. Ideal conditions aren't normally encountered on any mountain, and the bus, during the test run, did encounter fog beyond the "High-View" lookout, which is about 11 minutes from top, and visibility dropped to 40 meters in some cases.

On the way back down, the bus's retarder-system brake was activated, but it was "insufficient to hold bus back. Braking required," according to tester notes. They also did a rear-brake check half way down. According to the tester notes: "Rear hubs quite warm to the touch - no smell."

The due-diligence also included discussions with private-bus operators travelling the Cypress Road, who indicated they never chained up for two reasons: "It was too time-consuming and not all that necessary. Road maintenance crews do an excellent job of clearing the road." On the other hand, they report that the worst part of the road is just south of cross-country snow-play area, which is about three minutes from the top, with the worst part being the decent. They add, "The road can be covered hard, compact snow, and fog can be an issue."

Currently, there is a daily shuttle bus service to Cypress Mountain from Park Royal Shopping Centre, the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal, Caulfeild Village in West Vancouver, and the North Vancouver SeaBus terminal.

RESOURCES

You can get a photographic tour of the Cypress Mountain road on a nice day in winter by clicking here:
http://modena.intergate.ca/personal/pl8s/BC99_CB/Hwy_1W_Cypress%20Bowl_Road_W.htm

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 21, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #843
HOW WILL THE PROCUREMENT PROCESS WORK? LET US COUNT THE WAYS...

Here's a detailed look at how the procurement operations of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) are expected to normally work internally. Among other things, it will let you know what kind of tracking and checking is going on in the background if you're supplying goods or services, and it will also give you a heads-up when various types of documentation and contracts are offered.

The procurement system, which involves functions of the Finance Division, also covers Commitments Tracking and Contract Administration. It is just coming out of the planning stage, and so could still be modified or evolve as it hits the real world; however, there has already been some procurement experience in the past six or seven months that has been used to test and tweak the systems.

Procurement is a critical area for VANOC given the nature of hosting the 2010 Games, according to its planners. Compared with most companies, VANOC has a short and defined life cycle, and its procurement operations have to deal with and incorporate significant growth and change across distinct businesses, according to planning documents.

And you'll recall from our earlier financial system stories about VANOC, that its eight divisions are unevenly divided into 64 functions; work packages involve defined activities either within a function or which cross functions and either involve a place or a time period. The planners add that, "While the business practices relating to this area are evolving, it is expected that the basic elements of the information flows through the procurement cycle will be similar" to the following:

A budget is first prepared and approved which includes specific work authorizations at the finance department's account code level.
Functional managers will be allowed to buy goods and services for using work authorizations through a Request For Proposal process administered through the Procurement Department.
Often that will be published through B.C. Bid or the federal government's equivalent, but doesn't have to be. Planners say the RFP process will likely take various forms, depending on the magnitude or nature of the goods or services to be procured. This will include single transactions and recurring business with common suppliers.
Once the RFP process is complete, the functional department will produce a requisition form which must be approved by the appropriate spending authorities.
The requisition is compared by supervisors to the budgeted Work Authorizations to ensure the authority to purchase has been approved.
Once the requisition form has been approved, the Procurement department will generate a purchase order for the goods and services.
All approved requisitions have to be recorded or reported on a commitments log within VANOC. This captures all approved commitments in real-time by work authorization and account code. "This is to ensure that as approvals are obtained, all commitments (including actual requisitions amounts spent) are captured in comparing requisition to approved budget work authorizations," report the planners.
Depending upon the nature of the goods or services to be acquired, there will be standing purchase orders with established products and pricing.
The Procurement Department will provide the necessary contract for the supply of the services, which is then sent to the Functional Manager who initiated the purchase, with copies as necessary to others involved in the approval process.
Information relating to all contracts is captured and entered into the contract administration database, which is not expected to be in full operation until late this summer.
Any contract change orders, which involve a procurement process flow that staffers are still working on, are also expected to be updated in the contract-administration database as they are approved.
As goods are received at designated locations, a goods-received report is completed to ensure VANOC knows about the condition, quantity and nature of the goods received.
Invoices for services provided under a service contract are approved by the appropriate function managers.
Invoices for goods received are matched with the completed Goods Received Report and approved by the appropriate function managers.
As invoices are received and approved, they are entered into the VANOC's contract-administration database in real-time to track the status of the payments and services under contract.
Approved invoices are forwarded to the Finance department for payment. VANOC wants the Accounts Payable module of the General Ledger of whatever major financial system it decides this spring to use to be integrated with the commitments log and the contract-administration database so that all information is available to all of its users in real-time.

VANOC planners are still considering whether to include the following aspects of VANOC's requirements into its main financial systems, or have stand-alone processes for them:

A rate-card system
Logistics and materials planning
Its retail operations
A web-based management-reporting system for its road warriors
A procurement catalogue
A budget and forecast module
Cash flows
The Olympic Family accommodations and reservations systems
A ticket-sales system
A time-and-attendance system and its payroll / HR system
An asset tracking / inventory system for VANOC infrastructure
Its volunteer system
Its accreditation system
Its transportation system
Its information management system

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 21, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #842
VANOC REGISTERS MORE TRADEMARKS; HIRTHLER HEADS FOR DENVER; THE VANOC NAME GAME CONTINUES

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) have either registered or are in the process of registering more trademarks with the federal government's Trademarks bureau, in part to regularize its marketplace. For the first time, it's registered "Olympic" all on its own, along with the number "2010" and just "'10". The phrases "Canada 2006", "Canada '06", "Canada '08 and "Canada 2008" are also new. No word yet on why. It's also registered "Own the Podium" and "Own the Podium 2010", which are based on the name of the Canadian Olympic Committee report on how to get Canada to the 35-medal mark in 2010, and "XXI Olympic Winter Games", "X Paralympic Winter Games" and "X Paralympic Winter Games". The trademarks were advertised this month. The new marks were registered for VANOC by the Vancouver law firm, Borden Ladner Gervais. And what about the new Games logo, which is to be shown shortly to the winner of a contract to manufacture a batch of trinkets, and to be revealed in late April? "It's locked in a vault, inside a vault, with soldiers standing on guard outside," smiles VANOC CEO John Furlong.
George Hirthler, the main partner of Hirthler & Partners, a firm that bills itself as "the world's foremost Olympic Bid strategists," has been working in the communications department at VANOC headquarters in Vancouver for a while now. He was, for instance, behind the controversial logo-design competition run by VANOC last summer. But he's about to take on other responsibilities elsewhere that may ultimately see him advising a competitor to Vancouver 2010 that has indicated it will be after international high-performance winter sports events, including some which VANOC has been eyeing as test events for its venues between 2007 and 2010. Hirthler has worked as the lead communications strategist for six Olympic bids - including three winning campaigns: Atlanta, Beijing and Vancouver, and three that didn't make it: Istanbul, Turkey, summer 2000, Stockholm, Sweden, summer 2004 and Klagenfurt, Austria, winter 2006. He also consulted with New York on its pending bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics. Now, the Metro Sports Commission in Denver, Colorado, is hiring Hirthler to help lure international sporting events to the city. Such as, the Commission says, world figure-skating competitions. The US$50,000 to hire Hirthler is reportedly coming from a loan to the Commission from an arm of the Denver Chamber of Commerce, the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation. There's quite a corporate tree above Hirthler, by the way. SP Holdings PLC, run by Tony Simpson from London, England, and which also has one of its major offices in Lausanne, Switzerland, owns TSE Consulting SA of Switzerland, which has an American joint venture, TSE Consulting LLC that includes Atlanta, Georgia-based Hirthler & Partners and which will be run by Hirthler. TSE Consulting SA provides sports consulting to cities, governments and international sporting federations. Current clients include New York, Copenhagen and the International Olympic Committee (IOC). A couple of other tidbids: Coca-cola is an international sponsor of the International Olympic Committee's Olympic Games. It's headquarters is in Atlanta. The IOC's headquarters is in Lausanne.
From the Learn Something Who Every Day department: Yvonne Curry is the person at VANOC headquarters in Vancouver working on hotel accommodation for the 2010 Olympic family -- that's all the VIPs associated with development of the Games that don't live in Vancouver. VANOC estimates it will need about 9,000 rooms. Hotels that accept VANOC's bulk buying agreement agree to give somewhere between 60% and 80% of their room inventory to VANOC for prices based on the average room rate during the previous two years, the remainder of the room inventory is available for spectators and regulars. The rooms aren't just wanted for the two weeks of the Olympics in February 2010, or the week of Paralympics in March. They'll be required during the immediate run-up the Games as well as IOC administration and sponsor representatives, along with broadcaster staff descend on the region. Nicole Lavigne is the main HQ receptionist. We've all heard of Communications director Sam Corea, but a couple of the people who help him are Erin McInnis and Stephanie Herdman. The senior person in the Sustainability function at the moment is Tina Symco. Catherine Bachand is executive assistant to CEO John Furlong. Marnie King is the main person in charge of organizing the 2010 corporate in-house library. Mark Cutler is in charge of the 2010 Olympic village relationships with the City of Vancouver and the Resort Municipality of Whistler, who are each overseeing the actual construction with funding from VANOC. Burke Taylor is the former Vancouver cultural affairs director who is now in charge of the four-year "cultural Olympiad" which starts with Vancouver's few minutes in the closing ceremony of the 2006 Winter Games a year from now in Torino, Italy. During that ceremony, the Olympic flag will be passed from Torino's mayor to the mayor of Vancouver. There's no way of know if that would be the current Vancouver mayor Larry Campbell. Even if he won re-election this November, his term of office would expire in November, 2008. Cathy Priestner is, as we know, senior vice-president of Sport for VANOC, which puts her in charge of everything of the 2010 Winter Games that the athletes touch or deal with, which encompasses more than just sports itself. The director of Sport, however, is Tim Gayda. Donna Wilson is the new senior v-p of Human Resources. Ali Moorhouse works with her.

RESOURCES

Hirthler & Partners corporate profile:
http://www.hirthler.com/profile.htm

SP Holdings:
http://www.spholdings.co.uk

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 21, 2005

Friday, February 18, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #841
BC CONSTRUCTION COSTS SETTLE DOWN; BC APPRENTICESHIPS SETTLE UP; FURLONG MEETS HIS NEMESIS - AGAIN

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

The spike in British Columbia construction costs during the middle of 2004 continues to subside, according to the economists at the BC Central Union, the clearing house for British Columbian credit unions. The big run-up in construction costs -- particularly in steel rebar and, concrete -- has been worrying planners of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC), as they try to stay on budget while heading into their first major construction season. But Helmut Pastrick, BC Central's chief economist , and economist David Hobden, writing in a weekly economic briefing paper in an analysis of the apartment-construction sector, says that structural costs there, which had spiked at 10.9% in the middle of the year, slumped to a 2% rise in the last part of the year as the market corrected itself through increased supplies of rebar. They noted that during 2004, structural costs jumped a huge 17.4% from 2003, though, adding that, "The next largest increase was in the architectural-trade group, at 6.4%. Buoyant construction activity in 2005, reflected in both residential and non-residential construction, will be the main impetus for future cost increases. The demand for construction labour, as evidenced by last year’s 20% increase, will continue to rise and put upward pressure on costs. Materials cost increases are not likely to show the same gains as in 2004, with lower lumber prices in the forecast and the steel shortage subsiding. An overall increase in the 5% range is expected for 2005."
The B.C. government is patting itself on its back as it released statistics that it is pumping more people towards trades through apprenticeship training, in an effort to ease of a potential trades shortage at the time when VANOC is expected to be competing with a large number of other major projects for construction employees, between now and 2008. BC’s Industry Training Authority (ITA) reports that it is already exceeding the targets it has set for increasing participation in industry training. The number of apprentices and employers actively involved in industry training in B.C. continued to increase throughout January, extending a nine-month growth trend that began last year. As of Jan. 31, 2005, it says, there were 18,985 apprentices registered, up by 4,309 or 29% from the 14,676 registered on March 31, 2004. There are also 9,720 employers or sponsors training apprentices, up 8% over the same period. In addition to registered apprentices, the ITA estimates that there are more than 10,000 British Columbians currently enrolled in Entry Level Trades Training programs at B.C. post-secondary institutions. With these numbers included, total participation in industry training programs has increased by 17% in the 10 months since the ITA was established. Anecdotally, however, some apprentices believe the changes made in the last year by the government in an effort to increase trades training are still somewhat chaotic as the system reorganizes.
During his tour into the interior of British Columbia last week, VANOC CEO John Furlong did his first major speech to about 650 senior students and teachers in the gym at Columneetza Secondary School, in Williams Lake, a city south of Prince George. There wasn't anything unusual about the speech -- Furlong's inspirational speeches are well known in Vancouver. But this was not the first time Furlong has been to Columneetza. He said he had been to the school a few times in the distant past, when he was a teacher and school coach in Prince George, and, he said, teams he coached travelled to Columneetza to compete. His recollection, he said, was that his team didn't always do well.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 18, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #840
OLYMPIC SPORTS TALENT SEARCH TO TOUR B.C. IN MARCH

A number of Olympic, sports and government-related agencies are funding a search for blossoming Olympic sport talent in British Columbia during a six-city tour over three weeks in March, but it will be up to B.C. sports organizations whether those assessed will be considered 2010 Games material. The "Playground to Podium: Sport Talent Search" will be led by representatives of PacificSport and 2010 LegaciesNow, and will be looking for young athletes, according to organizers, "who may have potential to excel in Olympic and Paralympic winter sports." Wendy Pattenden, president and CEO of PacificSport Vancouver says, "

The Sport Talent Search allows us to go out and identify young active British Columbians who may unknowingly already have the skills-set essential to success in winter sport." She says the organizations will be working "to ensure a strong representation of B.C. athletes on national teams.

" The Sport Talent Search is to test athletes between the ages of 16 and 23, depending on the sport, using a number of physical fitness measurements and trials to discover if they have potential talent for bobsleigh (age 20+), freestyle aerials skiing (16+), skeleton (20+), alpine snowboard (16+) and speed-skating, both short- and long-track (16+). It won't matter, say organizers, if the potential athletes have winter sport experience or not. The sessions are expected to last all day, depending on turnout.
 Information will also be available for for people interested in luge as well as Paralympic disciplines, although there aren't aren't currently any testing programs available for either luge or the Paralympic winter sports.
 Marion Lay, president and CEO, 2010 LegaciesNow, says the program "will give these youth the opportunity to realize their skills and talents in sports they may never have considered participating in."
 The tour will stop in Burnaby (March 19), Kamloops (March 24), Kelowna (March 23), Nanaimo (March 13), Nelson (March 21) and Prince George (March 30), with marketing beforehand to invite young athletes from all sport disciplines to participate, including those from summer sports like gymnastics, dance, diving and cycling.

The names of the identified athletes will then be sent to the appropriate provincial sport organization for follow-up. John Les, the provincial government minister of Small Business and Economic Development, which is helping to fund the trip through various channels, says, _We have a lot of young talent in our province and this tour gives our youth the chance to discover new skills and opportunities they may never have imagined."
 Only those youngsters who are physically fit and have medical clearance from their family doctor for the necessary exertions, can take part. Organizers say they will be assessed by age, height, weight, then tested on vertical jumps using mats, doing push-ups to a rhythm set by a metronome, the number of box jumps they can do in 30 seconds, the time it takes them to do a 30-metre sprint and what's known as a beep test -- a 20 metre shuffle.
 PacificSport was founded by theˇ¸Canadian Olympic Committee, the Coaching Association of Canada, the Commonwealth Games Association of Canada, Sport Canada and the B.C. provincial government's Sport and Physical Branch. 
RESOURCES

Nicole Miller
PacificSport Team Leader
Playground to Podium: Sport Talent Search
Phone: 604.730.7271
mailto:NMiller@PacificSport.com
http://www.PacificSport.com

2010 LegaciesNow
http://www.2010LegaciesNow.com

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 18, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #839
FINANCIAL SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS FOR THIS YEAR REVEAL MORE OF VANOC'S ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) is expected to issue a Request for Proposals for procuring and implementing its major financial and accounting system in the latter half of April, probably around the 22nd. The process for doing that has lifted the veil on more parts of how VANOC is to be structured.

VANOC is currently using a range of off-the-shelf financial tools because of the way the organization evolved from the Bid corporation, and because it hasn't yet outgrown such tools, but that situation won't be lasting much longer, according to VANOC procurement chief Jim Bornholdt. VANOC will soon require a major system that will support its core financial requirements. These include budgeting, forecasting, procurement, contract administration, inventory management, logistics, material planning and other lesser aspects.

By the end of VANOC's 2007 fiscal year (which ends July 31 each year), it's expected to have spent roughly C$75 million during the year, but by the end of the following year, it expect it will have spent roughly C$175 million. During fiscal 2009, it expect to have spent about C$400 million, and during the final major operational year -- in which it will be constructing Olympic overlays on all of its venues, building up inventories and supplies, paying more than 1,200 employees, outfitting and supporting more than 25,000 volunteers and actually holding the Games -- it expects to be spending just over C$500 million. During its final wrap-up year following the March 2010 Paralympics, the number of staff are expected to drop to about 50 within a few months.

In addition, VANOC will have to report its financial situation to a wide range of organizations, such as the International Olympic Committee and the British Columbia government. And it will also have to deal with most of the major divisions and functional areas within VANOC. The new system will have to deal with this logarithmic growth and corresponding demands for financial and related information. As Bornholdt puts it, "The current systems will not support VANOC's growth through the project."

Bornholdt reports VANOC is now in the process of selecting a consultant to help it prepare the RFP and, to protect the independence of that process, the firm that gets the consulting job won't be able to respond to the RFP.

VANOC's already done some research work on what it can expect in terms of financial organization and requirements. During the past year, it's had a number of conversations and attended debrief presentations from officials running the Athens 2004 Summer Olympics, and from staffers at the International Olympic Committee, and through information gleaned from the IOC's formal Transfer of Knowledge program. It's also had a first-hand look at systems used by the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy.

In some ways, the financial-system requirements of VANOC are unique. It doesn't have the luxury of time to create a legacy system -- the organization isn't going to be around by the end of 2011 -- and there will essentially only be about three or four months to implement it this year. In addition, staff will be flooding in, and there won't be much time to train them how to use it, either for data input or for reporting, so one of the main requirements is ease of use and, so there won't be duplication, centralization.

During the life of the Games, VANOC will produce at least three major and specific budgets that go beyond annual budgets prepared for cash-flow reasons. VANOC's first budget is nearly finished now and is due to be delivered in April. It will show budgets by VANOC's eight major divisions, by its major functional areas and by what VANOC calls "work packages," which are distinct activities within a function, but it will not be detailed enough to take it to the work-authorization or account-code levels. This budget will be VANOC's first major look at the cost of the Games and the run-up to them since the 2002 budget it prepared for its Bid, and it will have to be approved by VANOC's board of directors, the federal and provincial governments and by the International Olympic Committee.

The second major budget will be prepared -- and go through a similar approval process -- about a year later, in June 2006. By that point, VANOC will have received a full debrief of the financial situation of the 2006 Winter Games in Italy from TOROC, it's equivalent in Italy, and it will have received and assessed tenders for at least the first part of the major construction work associated with the big venues it intends to build -- the Whistler Nordic Centre and the Whistler Sliding Centre. In addition, it will probably have a much better idea of its share of the IOC's major revenue stream, from broadcasting, for the Games, and this budget is expected to go down to the work-authorization or account-code levels.

The final major operational budget will be prepared about one year out from the Games, and will probably be ready about December, 2008. That's the big one, and by that point VANOC should have good estimates of all its expenditures and revenues. When TOROC prepared its version and presented it last fall, there was a significant shortfall projected and the head of TOROC nearly resigned after the Italian government agreed with the International Olympic Committee that it would cover the shortfall in various ways and that those Games have a new overseer appointed by the IOC.

BACKGROUND

Software currently being used by VANOC for its financial systems: Simply Accounting, Microsoft Excel, Ceridien (for payroll, personal-property inventories, HR benefits and administration) and FRX Forecaster (for budgeting and forecasts).
The major functional areas of VANOC the accounting system will deal with, in addition to smaller such areas: Administration, Accommodations, Communications, Culture & Ceremonies, Finance, Games Management, Games Services, Host Broadcasting & Media Services, Human Resources, Inclusivity, Legal, Licensing & Merchandising, Look Of The Games & Creative Services, Marketing & Sales, Media Relations, Procurement & Logistics, Sponsorship Sales & Service, Sport, Sustainability, Technology Services, Ticketing, Transportation, VANOC Relationships, Venues and Workforce. Each of these functions has a distinctive operating department with a senior manager responsible for the area's budget and financial accountability.
The current schedule for the financial systems RFP process: Distribution of the RFP: April 22 with a May 6 deadline: evaluation and interviews with the proponents until May 20 and selection by May 27. The installation and implementation of the software, and training staff to use it, is expected to take place during the following six months to coincide with the end of the current fiscal year's accounting and annual report cycle.
What financial reporting is VANOC doing -- and what will it be doing? It's required to supply quarterly unaudited financial statements and annual audited statements to its bankers, the B.C. Government, the Canadian Government, the City of Vancouver, the Resort Municipality of Whistler, the Canadian Olympic Committee, the Canadian Paralympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee. Internally, it provides monthly financial reports to its Board of Directors and reports are provided monthly to CEO John Furlong and his eight senior vice-presidents. They get reports on the overall financial health of the organization, as well as the financials for their sections. And reports are provided monthly to all of the functional-area managers on the status of their areas of responsibility. They also are expected to have access to real-time views once the new system is in place.
How is VANOC structured, from an accounting point of view? Eight divisions report to the CEO. Sixty-four functional areas are divided among those divisions. Work packages are distinct activities within a function. Work authorizations are budgets within a work package, which involve specific budget allocations according to the scope of the work over either a type of activity or time. The Work Authorizations are divided into Account Descriptions (VANOC says these might be Travel, Contractors, Entertainment and the like). The Account Descriptions are broken down into General Ledger account codes.
There is another organization method that VANOC has set up, called Activity Groups, which are teams that operate across functional-area lines. Not only do budgets have to take their work into account, but so do value-in-kind donation accounting, because these kinds of transactions often cross functional-area lines, and VANOC will also have to track VIK donations by contractor or vendor. VANOC's planning staffers are now working on how Activity Groups will work. Another major cross-function system is Human Resources.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 18, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #838
TORINO COINS TO BE LAUNCHED IN STAGES; SUCCESSFUL AUSSIE COMMUNITY ESCHEWED OLYMPIC TOURISM; LEUDERS SAYS SUCCESS, ADVANTAGE DOESN'T EQUAL MEDALS

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

Here are a couple of marketing-oriented things now being done in preparation for the 2006 Winter Games in Torino, Italy, which are due to be held next February. The Italian Mint, under an agreement with the 2006 Olympic Organizing Committee, TOROC, has produced a series of 11 gold and silver commemorative coins, introducing them in a two-hour program at the World Money Fair in Basel, Switzerland. The introduction garnered wide-spread publicity in Europe, and in numismatic circles around the world. The coins are to be issued in stages through four different releases starting next month, starting with the least expensive and ramping up in price, to capitalize on public collection interest as the start of the Games nears. Coins range in nominal value from e5 to e50 (about C$8 to C$80). TOROC's official pictograms -- symbols of various winter sports at the Games -- which are being used in a number of different marketing ways, from signage to magazine articles, are reproduced on the less expensive silver coins in the series, while some prominent monuments of Torino and its territory are on the gold coins. The last coins, the most expensive gold ones, are scheduled to be issued in January will depict the Torch Relay logo. The Italian mint is selling them through its own outlets and over its own website, and Samlerhuset Group B.V., a multi-national Dutch-based company known for its jewelry, watch and coin sales, has been contracted to sell them outside of Italy. Commemorative coins have been a feature of every Olympics since the Helsinki Games of 1952. Meanwhile, the second phase of ticket sales for the individual Torino Games is underway. This main phase of sales -- the first phase took place last year over several months leading up to Christmas -- is expected to last until November, while tickets remain. Any residual tickets will then be sold in phase three, which will run from December until the day of a competition. The sales are through TOROC's call centre, over its website, and in Europe at the 3,000 branches of TOROC's financial services partner, Sanpaolo Bank, and through 400 sales locations of the TicketOne network.
Graeme Hicks of Albury-Wodonga, Australia, which was an area that was seen as one of the most successful in creating its own lasting Olympic opportunities when Sydney, Australia hosted the 2000 Summer Olympic Games, has been touring British Columbia as part of a speaker series hosted by 2010 LegaciesNow, the organization working with both the 2010 Winter Games and the B.C. Government. Among other things, he said his area spent little on tourism promotion --figuring that athletes don't have time to tour a place when they are training -- and instead focused on specific sports. It created a pre-Games training manual, a video and a sports planner for the sports. They sent these tailored packages to other countries to get them thinking about the area, a six-hour drive from Sydney, for training. The area got a lot of response: 317 Olympic athletes showed up to do training, including the Ukranians. The beat goes on: the Aussie communities hosted another 130 deaf Olympic athletes from the Ukraine who came later to train for three weeks.
Pierre Leuders, one of the bright lights in Canadian bobsledding, is suggesting that the Canadian Olympic Committee and others who are heavily focused on implementing the multi-million dollar "Own the Podium" program, designed, at least in part, to help Canada win 35 medals at the 2010 Winter Games, should stop thinking the program and home-field advantage, a favourite theme of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee, makes such predications a sure thing. "They're not the ones who have to do it," he told Edmonton Sun sports columnist Terry Jones yesterday. "They take a look and say 'There's a Canadian who is doing well. Let's put him down for two. I've never said I'm going to win two medals at the Olympics," Leuders told Jones. And, he's quoted as adding, "I don't think there's a home track advantage. In fact, we have to be careful we don't think we can fall down the hill and do well. When you've had so many repetitions on the same track you can get into bad habits. That's something we have to be very aware of and work extra hard on... All the guys here are excellent drivers and very track-wise."

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on February 18, 2005

Thursday, February 17, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #837
CYPRESS MOUNTAIN VENUE TO UNDERGO FEDERAL, PROVINCIAL ENVIROMENTAL REVIEWS THIS SPRING

The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) Cypress Mountain venue will need to undergo both a federal and provincial environmental review before it can be upgraded for the freestyle skiing and snowboarding competitions and test events. And that's in addition to the studies VANOC has already done on the mountain.

VANOC estimates it will cost about C$10.9 million to renovate the existing ski facilities and terrain and build some permanent facilities, but that doesn't include the cost of erecting the temporary Olympic overlays required for the 2010 Games. Design is expected to be finished by the end of July, which is a month late according to planning schedules prepared last fall, but site-preparation work will be tendered this May so work can begin on time in June or early July, with the main construction awards to be done by July so construction to start this August. The work will be finished in seasonal stages, like other alpine venues, by November of 2007, so Canadian athletes can use the facilities for training, and test events can be held for at least two and possibly three winter seasons before the Games. Olympic overlay work is expected to start in the summer of 2009. The adjustment in scheduling is evidence there's an organizational improvement as senior Venues vice-president Steve Matheson gets the workload under control from late last year, when it was estimated that a number of the venue-construction projects and other aspects of VANOC were running between four and six months behind schedule.

The two environmental processes that must proceed all this, besides being relatively expensive and time-consuming, could conceivably bring the use of the venue by VANOC to a halt, although this is not considered likely. However, the requirement is in part driven because the current facilities, which are commercial, and the new venue areas, are located in a provincial park, and there is a previously approved ski area master plan into which the 2010 work must fit.

The proposed venues will use the existing terrain of Cypress Mountain's ski area -- which are technically Black Mountain and a base area -- and there will be limited permanent change to Cypress as a result of VANOC's plans, according to VANOC documentation. The Olympic facilities required by the Games will mostly be temporary, and most of it will be removed in 2010, following the Games. As well, the access road, sewage system and existing ski facilities of the mountain, in West Vancouver, within sight of the downtown Vancouver itself, are also expected to be sufficient to handle Games traffic -- which is forecast to be the equivalent of a normal busy weekend -- and so they won't be upgraded.

But because of the planning requirements, the nature of the overlay facilities, the Games operations and the legacy of the projects that remain after the Games, and the fact that federal money is being spent on the venues, all combine to trigger the two reviews. Although most changes will be temporary, there will be some permanent infrastructure work. This includes a new base lodge, re-grading the parallel giant slalom course, new in-ground half-pipe facilities, better lighting, a full snowmaking system as well as the reservoir for it, and a new freestyle site for the aerials and moguls. As well, some forest areas will also have to be cut, including some old-growth forest, which is an environmentally sensitive topic in British Columbia. In addition there will be some start-finish buildings, a guest-services building, a warm-up