Morgan:News:2010:Bronze Edition: March 2005

Thursday, March 31, 2005

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Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #912
VANOC 'IMAGINE' TICKETS SNAPPED UP; NBC PLANNING HALF-HOUR OLYMPIC SERIES; GRANT TO UPGRADE OSOYOOS SKATING RINK TO AID 2010 TRAINING POSSIBILTIES

Here are three more moguls we ran into today:

Free tickets for the April 23 broadcast of Imagine 2010, a live-entertainment show from GM Place in Vancouver to introduce the Games's new logo and kick off 2010 Game marketing, went on sale at TicketMaster at 10 this morning, and were all gone 15 minutes later. GM Place has a seating capacity of 21,000, but it's not immediately known how many tickets were initially offered. The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC)'s Marketing department sent out a broadcast e-mail message yesterday to the e-mail addresses it collected for its volunteers about the program and tickets, offering a two tickets for the first 25 who responded. They went within a few minutes as well. IMAGINE 2010 will be broadcast across Canada on CTV and TQS.
NBC, which is the American TV broadcaster for the 2010 Winter Olympics, will test the waters with its affiliates on a two-week series of half-hour programs to run at 7:30 p.m., local times, and be devoted to primetime coverage of the Olympics, beginning with the 2006 Winter Games in Torino, Italy a year from now. If it's successful, the program will be rolled out for the 2008 Summer Olympics and the 2010 Winter Games. The program, "The Olympics Zone," was discussed in a joint conference call with reporters after NBC's annual affiliates meeting Wednesday in New York. Based in Turino, "Zone" would integrate the on-air talent of local stations with segments produced by the network. Post-production would also occur at the affiliate level. The program would run on 15 of the Torino Olympics's 17 nights, excluding Sundays. NBC's owned-and-operated stations have committed to airing "Zone," as have the Belo, Hearst and Gannett station groups.
The B.C. government has given a C$98,000 grant to help furbish the Sun Bowl Arena in Osoyoos, in B.C.'s Okanagan region. The idea is to turn it into a 'centre of excellence' for ice-skating so that top-level athletes can be invited to train by 2008 for the 2010 Olympics in the Lower Mainland. It would be the nearest such facility to Vancouver, other than the suburb of Burnaby. Renovations on Sun Bowl Arena will include a 2,300-square-foot mezzanine area which will become an off-ice fitness training facility, a 1,200-square-foot dressing room, 440 new seats to replace the wooden bench seats currently installed in the rink and four new storage carts to hold arena glass. The exterior of the building will also be painted and the grounds will be landscaped.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 31, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #911
RAILWAYS GROUP CONSIDERS 2010 PACKAGES FOR TOURISTS; COFI CONVENTION NEXT MONTH TO HEAR ABOUT 2010 OPPORTUNITIES; WILLIAMS LAKE FORUM IN MAY ABOUT 2010 OPPORTUNITIES

Here are three more moguls we ran into today:

The B.C. Council of Heritage and Recreational Railways will see if the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) is interested in it packaging railway tourism tours in an effort to promote railway heritage, rail travel, tourism and the preservation of rail artifacts. The council represents 19 B.C. railway groups that, combined, had a ridership last year of about 600,000. Debbie Kinvig, co-chair of the Council and general manager of Summerland's Kettle Valley Steam Railway, says that one concept is for the groups to work together on efforts involving the 2010 Winter Olympics that will be held in Vancouver and Whistler. The council will meet twice a year, with the next meeting set for Summerland, in B.C.'s Okanagan, this September.
B.C.'s Council Forest Industries hosts its first convention in four years at the Civic Centre in Prince George, in north-central B.C., on April 14 and 15. Entitled "Securing the Future - 2010 and Beyond," it will mostly be about the forest industry. But a panel session on the opening day, at 10:50 a.m., will discuss market opportunities, including those with the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. One of the three panel members with a responsibility to talk about the 2010 Games is Kelly McCloskey, the president and CEO of the Wood Promotion Network.
The City of Williams Lake, in B.C.'s central region, and the Cariboo Regional District is to host a sport and recreation forum in May so that sports, recreation and cultural groups can get information on 2010 LegaciesNow and government programs related to the 2010 Games.

RESOURCES

Some of the organizations on the Railways council (scroll down on the page):
http://www.canadabyrail.ca/maps/BC.html

The CEO council of the Wood Promotion Network:
http://www.woodpromotion.net/leadership/ceo.asp

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 31, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #910
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TRANSFERS CANADIAN TOURISM COMMISSION TO VANCOUVER TO AID 2010 OLYMPIC MARKETING

Prime Minister Paul Martin cited the advent and ramp-up in marketing of the 2010 Winter Olympics over the next five years as a major reason for announcing in Whistler this afternoon the decision -- anticipated for weeks -- that the Ottawa headquarters of the Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC) will move to Vancouver.

"The Canadian Tourism Commission is a national marketing organization that will continue to serve the interests of all Canadians," said Prime Minister Martin who is on a tour of the 2010 Olympic venues in Whistler as part of a western Canada visit with David Emerson, minister of Industry and the minister responsible for the CTC. "The vibrant tourist market in British Columbia is a natural fit for the Commission, and it is expected that this endeavour will bring about economic benefits for both British Columbia and the country as a whole," Martin said.

Martin also said that an expected increase in Asia-Pacific tourism and the 2010 Winter Games in Whistler and Vancouver "provide excellent opportunities for the Commission to build momentum to benefit all of Canada."

Michele McKenzie, president and chief executive officer of the CTC said, "The 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games will raise the awareness of Canada as a destination of choice for visitors from around the world. We will take full advantage of this awareness to boost tourism revenues across the country."

RESOURCES

Canadian Tourism Commission business web site:
http://www.canadatourisme.com

CTC's website for tourists
http://www.travelcanada.ca

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 31, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #909
POUND BACK IN IOC MARKETING; BEIJING FINALLY OFFERS SPONSORSHIPS; TELESAT AND BARRETT SET UP RURAL BROADBAND NETWORK TO AID 2010 GAME DISTRIBUTION

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

Dick Pound, the man who runs the World Anti-Doping Agency out of Montreal and who is a board member of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC), is back in the fold of the International Olympic Committee's 21-member Marketing Commission, chaired by Norway's Gerhard Heiberg. Pound, when he was deeply involved in IOC's marketing, was also the man who was largely responsible for the mid-80s design of the US$600-million-per-year Olympic Partner program, nicknamed TOP, in which the IOC negotiates international sponsorship deals with about a dozen companies, such as McDonald's, Coca-Cola and Atos Origin, all of whom will be represented at the 2010 Winter Games. Pound'll be at the table when the Commission next meets, in June, and he will continue for at least three more years as head of WADA.
VANOC is five years out from its Games, and has already landed two major national sponsors -- Bell Canada's telecommunications deal and HBC's department store and clothing supplier contracts, plus, with the International Olympic Committee's negotiations, has Bell's CTV/Rogers consortium looking after the national broadcast aspects. China, which is just over three years from its Summer Olympics, today officially opened up its national sponsorship and official supplier categories, by publishing a Rights & Benefits Package for potential Beijing 2008 Sponsors. This is the second phase of its marketing program; the first phase involved "partners": Bank of China, China Network Corporation, Sinopec, China Mobile, Volkswagen China, Adidas and Air China. The national package released today offers use of the logos for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games and the Chinese Olympic Committee, plus use of designations for the Games and Paralympic Games and the designation of Chinese Olympic teams taking part in the Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games and Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Sponsors are also offered monopolies on product, technology and services categories. Sponsors also get packaged services and honorary treatment for the torch relay, tickets for the opening and closing ceremonies, accreditation, hospitality, transportation and accommodation. The larger categories available for potential sponsors: white goods, office supply, dairy products, logistics, courier services, fast food, food oil, tires, paper, Internet-content services, nutrition supplements, wine, telecommunications, networks, travel, hospitality and beer.
Telesat, Bell Canada's satellite operator, and Barrett Xplore Inc., a Canadian company that provides wireless broadband service, have signed a distribution contract to deliver that type of communications to Canadians in rural and remote communities, and the technology will be used during the 2010 Winter Games. Barrett will provide the service via Telesat's new Anik F2 satellite. Bell spokesman Karen Passmore says, "Telesat is a partner in assisting Bell to deliver telecommunications and broadcasting services to make the Vancouver games exceptional. Satellite will play a role in two-way broadband delivery, off-net access, diversity, and ultimately through the International Broadcast Centre delivery [of the 2010 Games] to the world. Telesat will use its facilities at the Vancouver Teleport, as well as the resources of Infosat of Burnaby to support the efforts of Bell in this endeavour." Barrett recently completed a C$30-million financing to help pay for the technology. It will begin its regional Ka-band rollout in April, with the service available throughout Canada in July. Bell is the telecommunications sponsor for the 2010 Games.

BACKGROUND

A quote from Dick Pound on marketing: "One of the things you have to learn about marketing is that signing the contracts is the easiest part. It's the servicing that's important. Marketing starts with the contract and you have to deliver."

RESOURCES

Beijing Olympics marketing plan overview:
http://en.beijing-2008.org/02/40/article211614002.shtml

Members of the IOC's Marketing Commission:
http://www.olympic.org/uk/organisation/commissions/marketing/members_uk.asp

Dick Pound's picture and bio:
http://www.olympic.org/uk/organisation/ioc/members/bio_uk.asp?id=17

Telesat:
http://www.telesat.ca/

Barrett Xplore:
http://www.barrettxplore.com/home.asp?lang=E&block=1

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 31, 2005

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #908
MICHIGAN FIRM TO DO SEAT-REPLACEMENT WORK ON COLISEUM VENUE

A Michigan company has won the contract issued by the Venues department of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) for replacing the seating in the Vancouver Coliseum this year by December, when the World Junior Hockey tournament is scheduled to take place.

The value of the contract, awarded yesterday to Track Corporation of Spring Lake, on the east shore of Lake Michigan north of Chicago, was not released. Track is a 12-year-old company that began producing automotive seat adjusters and now has a 100,000 square foot manufacturing plant in Spring Lake, and owns more than half a dozen seating-related companies.

The replacement of the Coliseum's aging 16,000 seats is one project that part of a C$23-million renovation of one of VANOC's main venues, the 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.

The design-build contact sought was 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 in 1967, 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.

RESOURCES

Track Corporation
17024 Taft Rd.
Spring Lake, MI 49456
Toll free:1.877.479.7005
Phone: 616-844-2471
Fax: 616-844-2476
http://www.trackcorp.com/index.shtml
< mailto:sales@TrackCorp.com >

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 30, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #907
PM TO VISIT WHISTLER VENUES THURSDAY; REMPEL HOPES TO BE VETERAN SPEED-SKATER BY 2010 GAMES; CROSS-COUNTRY SKI CAMPS SET FOR THUNDER BAY, CANMORE

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

Prime Minister Paul Martin will start a two-day visit to British Columbia tomorrow by touring Whistler's venues for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Martin will be accompanied by federal Industry Minister David Emerson and Stephen Owen, the minister for amateur sport and western regional development. Owen's office is responsible for the federal aspects of the 2010 Games. The Whistler visit is part of a western Canadian tour; the prime minister has been visiting Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon and Regina this week.
Speed skater Shannon Rempel of Winnipeg, who did much better than she expected this season, thought she would be hitting her peak at the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver and, possibly the 2014 Winter Games, and that was her aim in training going into this past season. She's changed her mind now, thinking that she might be able to add next winter's Olympics in Torino to that list. She was named Junior Female Athlete of the Year for Canada this week.
Canada's National Cross-Country Ski Team coaches Dave Wood and Alain Parent will be hosting a National Team Development Camp in Thunder Bay, Ontario, this summer. Athlete representatives of the National Ski Teams of 2005, 2006, 2010 and 2014 will be in Thunder Bay during the week from June 7th to the 13th for the camp. Many of Canada’s top skiing talents have been invited to join for a week of focused training aimed at improving the country's 2010 medal performance. This is one of two National Team Development Camps being offered this coming dry-land season, with the second one slated for Canmore, Alberta, in September.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 30, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #906
MARKETING CAMPAIGN KICKS OFF WITH NATIONAL TV BROADCAST APRIL 23

The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) says that people across Canada "are invited to start the journey towards the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver with a nationally televised celebration of Canada" on Saturday, April 23rd.

The broadcast marks the starting of VANOC's major marketing campaign now that it has full possession of the national marketplace, and will culminate in presentation of the new 2010 Olympic Winter Games emblem. VANOC will have full possession of the international marketplace for Winter Games following the close of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino.

The live broadcast from General Motors Place -- for which free tickets become available to the public tomorrow -- marks Canada's first major 2010 Winter Games event since Vancouver was named Host City on July 2, 2003. A wide range of people and companies have been involved in the broadcast, under cover a non-disclosure agreements.

The program -- entitled "Imagine 2010 -- Canada's Olympic journey begins" -- will air from coast to coast on the network of VANOC's Canadian TV sponsor, CTV on April 23, starting at 7 p.m. Pacific time.

VANOC spokesman Sam Corea says the entertainment, "will feature hundreds of performers and surprise special guests as the stage is set for the dramatic unveiling of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic emblem." Complimentary tickets, with a limit of four per person, will be available through Ticketmaster as of 10 o'clock tomorrow morning Pacific.

The emblem will be the centrepiece of the 2010 Winter Games look and feel, and it's estimated it will be seen by more than three billion people by the time the 2010 Games finish. Corea says it "Will become one of the most highly recognized logos in Canada and around the world for the next five years." The logo was selected by an international judging panel following a nation-wide Olympic emblem design competition that drew more than 1,600 submissions from throughout Canada, and a great deal of controversy from within the mainstream graphic-design industry, which opposes competitions.

The Vancouver 2010 Olympic Emblem Design Competition began with a two-day Olympic Design Conference attended by more than 400 delegates in June 2004. As with previous Olympic Games competitions to replace bid logos, the delegates were briefed on the history of Olympic design and the Look of the Games programs from previous Summer and Winter Games. The Vancouver 2010 winning emblem design earns a prize of C$25,000 and two tickets to the 2010 Olympic Winter Games Opening Ceremony.

RESOURCES

TicketMaster:
http://www.ticketmaster.ca
604.280.4400

VANOC
http://www.vancouver2010.com

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 30, 2005

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #905
RICHMOND EXPECTED TO LOOSEN OVAL TENDERING PROCESS; WADA NAMES BECKI SCOTT TO ATHLETE COMMITTEE; RENO CONSIDERS 2014 OLYMPICS BID

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

Richmond city council is expected to ratify today a slight change in policy that effectively allows its general manager of engineering and public works, Jeff Day, and the firm MHPM Project Managers Inc., which is contracted to the municipality in connection with the C$135-million speed-skating oval complex, to award construction contracts when an "unforeseeable situation of urgency exists" without going to tender. Richmond's normal process, like many other municipalities in B.C., requires purchases of goods and services over C$250,000 to be made through public tender. Richmond director of engineering Robert Gonzalez is quoted in a report as saying the "exception to the rule" might be necessary "once or twice" to keep the project, due to be completed now by April, 2008, on schedule. The project has to meet International Skating Union standards for the 400-metre speed skating track. About 30 trades are likely to be involved, and at least seven major contracts are expected to be let. Documents also suggest that the foundation may give Richmond trouble and meeting Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification, a requirement of the International Olympic Committee may also prove difficult.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)'s president, Dick Pound, said today at WADA's headquarters in Montreal that he has appointed 13 members to the organization's new Athlete Committee, including Canada's Olympic champion in cross-country skiing, Beckie Scott. The aim of this working committee is to allow WADA closer contact with athletes and to give the Agency better insight into their questions and concerns regarding doping. The full list is under BACKGROUND, below. WADA will have a major presence at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. The Athlete's Committee is to meet later this year. The committee was selected from 35 nominations by the Chair of the committee, Viacheslav Fetisov, and Pound. They were selected based on a number of factors, said Pound, and they aimed for equal distribution, where possible, of representation between regions, sport and gender. “We are pleased to have such a high-quality group of athletes in place”, said Pound in a prepared statement. “Clean athletes are the most powerful force against doping in sport. This Committee, through their experience and expertise, will assist us greatly in our fight against doping, and I am confident that it will help us further develop our important task of educating athletes worldwide about the consequences of doping.”
A bill has been introduced in the Nevada state Senate that would provide -- if it's approved -- US$200,000 over the next two years to pay for the state's effort to host the Olympic Winter Games in 2014. The money would underwrite the costs of setting up an organizing committee to submit an application to the International Olympic Committee for the Games. Nevada is proposing to host the Games in the Reno and nearby Lake Tahoe. Reno originally tried to get the U.S. nod to bid for the 2002 Games, but it went to Salt Lake City. A number of European cities and Pyeonyang in South Korea are preparing to bid for the 2014 Winter Games, the winner of which would have an influence on the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver.

BACKGROUND

Besides Becki Scott, here are the new members of WADA's Athlete's Committee:

Mr Viacheslav Fetisov (chair of the Committee), chairman of the Russian State Committee for Physical Culture and Sport; Olympic and world champion in ice hockey;
Mr Marcus De Freire; Technical Director of the Brazilian Olympic Committee; Member of the Athletes Commission of the Sports Ministry of Brazil; Olympic medalist in volleyball
Mr Stéphane Diagana of France, member of the Athletes Commission of the International Association of Athletics Federations; world champion in athletics;

* Ms Jacqui Cooper; deputy chair of the Athletes Commission of the Australian Olympic Committee; world champion in freestyle skiing
Ms Janet Evans of the United States; chair of the Athletes Commission of the International Swimming Federation; Olympic and world champion in swimming
Ms Tanja Kari of Finland, member of the Athletes Committee of the International Paralympic Committee; Paralympic and world champion in cross-country skiing
Mr Anis Lounif of Tunisiai, world champion in judo;
Ms Rosa Mota, member of the Superior Council of Sports of Portugal; Portuguese ambassador for Fair Play at the Council of Europe; Olympic and world champion in marathon
Ms Yoko Tanabe, director of the Japan Anti-Doping Agency; Olympic and world medallist in judo;
Ms Sarah Ulmer, New Zealand Sports Drug Agency role model; Olympic and world champion in cycling
Ms Yang Yang of China, member of the Athletes Committee of the International Skating Union; member of the Chinese Olympic Committee; Olympic and World champion in short-track speed-skating

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 29, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #904
GOVERNMENT-BUSINESS DEAL AIMED AT CREATING JOBS FOR ABORIGINALS ON 2010-OLYMPIC PROJECTS

Just as the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) and B.C. governments begin implementing a system of direct awards for a portion of all VANOC-controlled venue construction, a new funding deal is announced to help pay for aboriginal apprentices.

The federal and BC governments, the B.C. Construction Association and several Vancouver-area construction firms have launched the Vancouver part of a federal-commercial partnership program to help aboriginals in B.C. find jobs on major projects, such as the 2010 Winter Olympics and related projects such as Sea-to-Sky highway reconstruction and the Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre project.

The launch of the VanAsep Training Society -- which will have a budget that will average about C$7 million per year for at least the next three years -- involved the federal government's Claudette Bradshaw, the Minister of State for Human Resources Development: Manley McLachlan, the president and chief executive officer for the British Columbia Construction Association; Leonard George, the president of the First Nations Employment Society. The VanAsep Training Society project is one of six ASEP projects now under way in Canada.

The project is being set up to train at least 600 aboriginals and guarantee at least 200 apprenticeships. The goal is to have about 300 aboriginals working in long-term sustainable careers in the construction industry by the spring of 2008.

As part of this project, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada will be working with a 12-member partnership consortium. Partners include the Tsawwassen, Squamish and Lil'wat aboriginal bands – the latter two are both have interests in the construction lands of the 2010 Winter Olympics -- the First Nations Employment Society, the Aboriginal Community Career Employment Services Society, the Métis Provincial Council of British Columbia, the BC Construction Association, the Vancouver Regional Construction Association, PCL Construction, the B.C. Road Builders Association, Peter Kiewit Sons Construction and Houle Electric Contractors.

Bradshaw says, "This project is a great example of how industry can meet its skill shortages by tapping into the potential and talent of B.C.'s Aboriginal work force. It's a winning situation and a point of pride for all of us on our way to hosting the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games."

The Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre project will become the Vancouver Olympic's main media centre in 2009, shortly after it's due to finish construction in 2008, while the Sea-to-Sky Highway project is designed to improve access between Vancouver and Whistler in time for the 2010 Games, although the work is being undertaken by the BC government.

The three-year budget is estimated at C$21.6 million. The business operations involved are contributing C$10 million, C$7.8 million will come from HRSDC, while C$3.8 million will come from the aboriginal communities. The BC government is contributing C$60,000.

BACKGROUND

ASEP is a five-year program launched by the federal government in late 2003 with total funding of C$85 million. Its overall objective is to create sustainable employment for aboriginals with branch programs across Canada that use what Ottawa calls "collaborative partnerships."

ASEP funding proposals are submitted by partnerships of firms or industry organizations, which must include firms from the private sector, aboriginal groups and the province where the large economic or resource-based project is located. Others who can get involved in the application can include schools, sector councils, labour unions, and other Government of Canada departments or agencies. Each partnership consortium must set out a training-to-employment plan for aboriginal people that link skills development to specific job opportunities.

A significant amount of funding for a project is expected from the partnership; the Government of Canada's normal contribution to a proposal doesn't go over 75%. The private sector must also demonstrate, at minimum, 50 long-term sustainable jobs for Aboriginal people once Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) has completed its funding.

A recent labour-market analysis by the federal government suggests that the construction sector is growing rapidly with over C$10 billion in opportunities in the corridor between the Vancouver suburb of Richmond and Whistler, both of which are municipalities that will host 2010 Games venues. The analysis claims this will create more 75,000 jobs, with industry demand to peak in 2006.

A federal spokesman says, "The potential impact on the aboriginal community is significant with the potential for sustainable employment beyond 2010."

RESOURCES

Operational Information on the Aboriginal Skills And Employment Partnership:
http://www17.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca/AROInternet/general/public/asep/OperationalInformation_e.asp

British Columbia Construction Association
http://www.bccassn.com/

Vancouver Regional Construction Association
http://www.vrca.bc.ca

B.C. Road Builders and Heavy Construction Association
http://www.roadbuilders.bc.ca

PCL Construction
http://www.pcl.com

Peter Kiewit Sons Construction
http://www.kiewit.com/

Houle Electric Contractors
http://www.houle.ca

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 29, 2005

Friday, March 25, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #903
ORGANIZERS MULLING OVER C$269 MILLION SUPPORT PAYMENT TO SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

Vancouver Sun newspaper reporter Jeff Lee says he's learned through a Freedom of Information application to Simon Fraser University that its Board of Governors has requested the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) reimburse it for the $269,490 SFU spent on a failed bid for a C$68 million Olympic speed-skating oval that VANOC awarded to Richmond last year.

Lee reports that SFU president Michael Stevenson wrote a letter to VANOC CEO John Furlong in September claiming the Vancouver 2010 Bid Corporation, VANOC's predecessor, "understated the cost of the original oval", according to Lee. Lee then quotes a portion of Stevenson's letter that this showed, "a problem in the planning and management of the Vancouver 2010 bid."

Lee also quoted Stevenson's letter as saying, "While I understand VANOC's interest in off-loading costs which exceed the mis-estimate approved in the bid, there are serious issues of public accountability involved."

Lee said Furlong told him Thursday that VANOC is considering the reimbursement request. If that's the case, it's a change of position from last August 17, when Furlong confirmed that when VANOC served notice on Simon Fraser that it was terminating its venue agreement, that he didn't think the decision, under that agreement, incurred either a financial or a legal liability for VANOC.

Lee said that Furlong apparently wrote a letter last November in response to Stevenson, in which, Furlong said to Lee, that he told the SFU president he "tried hard to keep the proposed oval at SFU."

RESOURCES

You'll find our story that gives VANOC's full rationale for changing the venue of the speed skating oval from SFU to Richmond, and the process it followed to do it, here:
http://www.morgan-news.com/2010/archives/2004_10_01_Bronze.htm
Once at the web page, use your browser's Find feature to locate story number 469.

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

Thursday, March 24, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #902
VANOC HUNTS FOR CONSTRUCTION AMBULANCE; TORINO STAMP CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED; TORINO VOLUNTEERS GET TASTE OF WORKLOAD

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) is looking for a heavy-duty, four-wheel-drive vehicle that can be used as an ambulance should a worker on one of its Whistler-area construction sites be injured on the job over the next three years. The Emergency Transportation Vehicle, or ETV, as they call it, will have to negotiate the rough construction terrain of the Callaghan Valley, where the Whistler Nordic Centre is being constructed, or the site of the Whistler Sliding Centre, so it needs to have a heavy-duty automatic transmission, be capable of carrying at least one worker on a stretcher, along with a first-aid attendant and a driver, and be able to communicate with hospitals and other emergency services. it will also need to be padded and have restraints that will keep the worker and the stretcher from jouncing about too much on the construction roads, and it has to have a good heating system for the injured worker. The nearest hospital, in Whistler, is about 15 kilometres from the Valley. VANOC says it has no brand preference, and, as long as the vehicle can do the job, it can be either new or used.
Over in Torino, the second phase of a money-making scheme for separating Italians from more of their Lira to help recoup the cost of holding the 2006 Winter Olympics has been launched: A series of stamps featuring more of the towns where the Torino Games will be held, plus one that features the Torino mascots Neve and Gliz. Each stamp will be produced in quantities of 3.5 million, and will be available in post offices all over Italy. The stamps range in price from 0.23 Euro to 0.62 Euro. The first phase, in March 2004, featured Torino and some of the other towns involved. A single, temporary stamp counter was opened in one of the towns so that letters could be stamped and postmarked on their date of issue, for collectors, and there was a little ceremony accompanying the release of the stamps with various Italian Olympic and government officials to help the public-relations side of the stamps' marketing campaign.
Speaking of Italy, the man who is choreographing the Opening and Closing ceremonies for next winter's Torino games is Doug Jack, a resident of California. The reason they have him doing this work is that it's his 11th set of ceremonies -- Summer and Winter -- for such Games; he's done each one since Barcelona, Spain, in 1992. Today, he met with Torino University students to talk to them about what it means to volunteer for the Ceremonies. There are specific conditions, such as being between the ages of 18 and 35, and being available at precise times, outside normal working hours, to take part in the 25 training meetings -- which last a maximum of four hours each – as well as the full five days preceding the ceremonies, and the two days of the ceremonies themselves. A huge number of positions are to be filled, and these are divided into two main groups: the volunteers who will be "on show", that is those who will be working with the public, and those who will be responsible for the production and management of the ceremonies backstage. VANOC is expected to begin recruiting a total of 25,000 volunteers for the 2010 Games in late 2007 or early 2008.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #901
"OPTIONS AND OPPORTUNITIES" THE FOCUS OF NEW MOU BETWEEN BC AND ALBERTA OVER OLYMPICS

There are more details now available about the Memorandum of Understanding we told you about yesterday between the BC and Alberta provincial governments in which they agree to work on sharing Olympic facilities and opportunities in the run-up to the 2010 Olympics.

The agreement runs from now until March 31, 2011, and both governments are to name co-chairs of a committee to develop a specific work plan, within four months of being named, to implement a series of objectives detailed in the MOU. The plan is to identify "options and opportunities" in two areas: athletic development and sport tourism.

In athletic development, they are to plan "joint initiatives" that would promote and develop athletes, coaches and officials by providing access to world class facilities for training and competition, provide support to high performance athletes in BC and Alberta emphasizing the use of Olympic and Paralympic winter sports and venues, figure out how to develop joint-use agreements with facility owners and operators, which include the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC), the Calgary Olympic Development Association, Orca Bay and Intrawest plus the cities of Vancouver and Whistler. They are also to figure out joint research projects, information sharing and "agreements related to the construction and operation of sport and recreation facilities."

Under the topic of sport tourism, they are to set out a sport and tourism strategy that combines BC and Alberta resources for "enhancing planned competitions and attracting major competitions to both jurisdictions to take advantage of sport infrastructure", and to set up sport-tourism marketing partnerships to attract visitors to the two jurisdictions. They would also set up "media familiarization tours" to Alberta and BC. That's similar to the kind of thing now being done by various provincial and city tourism agencies.

There is no word yet on the timeline of the appointees from either government, nor who they might be.

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

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |General| #900
WADA LOOKS AT THE IDEA OF CATCHING GENE-DOPERS AT THE 2010 GAMES

Reporter J. Todd of the Montreal Gazette quotes the head of the World Anti-Doping Agency as saying that WADA has begun initial investigations into ways it might set up a portion of its lab at the 2010 Winter Olympics to catch those using gene-transfer therapy to enhance their performance at the Olympic Games.

Gene-transfer therapy, says Todd, "could be used to cure an array of diseases from Parkinson's to cystic fibrosis to cancer - or, theoretically, converted to create a kind of robo-jock." Todd says that "Gene doping can work by inserting into a patient's cells or directly into her genome a normal gene to replace or repair a gene that doesn't work properly. Scientists use a gene transport method, known as a vector, to deliver the gene to the genome, most commonly by using a disabled virus that has been altered so as not to be harmful while it delivers DNA to a cell. It's a difficult process and there have been hundreds of attempts with no real evidence of therapeutic attempts."

Todd quotes WADA's chairman Richard Pound, who is also one of the IOC's directors on the Board of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC), as saying, "One of the areas we're looking at is the whole question of gene doping. We've actually initiated contacts with the leading scientists on genetic transfers and found out what they're doing, then explained to them our problem. We're trying to be there ahead of the curve as the regulatory framework is being set and the research is being done. We're asking how you can detect this and what the side effects are. " Todd also quotes Pound as saying that one of the researchers told me that half his research comes from colleagues interested in his work and the other half comes from people saying, 'Can I try this?' It's mind- boggling. And it's not just athletes, it's coaches."

Todd also reports on an interview he did with Dr. Olivier Rabin, the science director for WADA, who explains: "The technical goal is relatively simple. It's to create a multiplication in your body that would enhance your performance. You can look at muscle strength, for example, or it could be the transfer of oxygen. The idea is to transfer the copy of a gene into your cell or into your DNA in order to auto-produce the substance. If you take the example of EPO, the idea of EPO is to stimulate the production of red-blood cells. Today, what some athletes are doing is to take shots of recombinant EPO to boost their production of red-blood cells. The idea for gene doping would be to take the portion of the DNA which is responsible for the synthesis of EPO, to put it into a virus and inject it into the body. And this fraction of the extract of the gene will be inserted in your cells and will be recognized by all the cell machinery and will produce extra EPO. This is valid for EPO, this is valid for Human Growth Hormone, this is valid for IGF-1 (a muscle-building hormone) - this is valid for a lot of substances."

Todd also interviewed Christiane Ayotte, director of the Doping Control Laboratory. He reports here as being pragmatically assessing the fact that much of this is still in the realm of imagination, but, he reports she told him, "That being said, I will have no choice for Vancouver 2010, and it's believed that in 2010, we may be there with gene-transfer doping. Whether I like it or not, they may go there."

How does one go about detecting gene-transfer use in athletes. Todd talked to Dr Rabin about that, who told him, "Of course you can transfer a gene into the body to increase the natural production of HGH [for example]. But what is interesting is that your auto- production of a given protein such as HGH will create a cascade of reactions on other genes, so that we can not only detect a different copy of a gene but also measure or identify the specific signature of a modification in your body that can be linked to the intake of a doping substance or an extract of an EPO gene, for example. In biology, you've got a natural phenomenon, which is the homeostasis of your body - your body is balanced. When you create an imbalance by inserting an extract copy of a gene, there will be a cascade of effects, a down-regulation or an up-regulation of a gene. You get a visual signature of the effect of a product. We're trying to make a link between those specific signatures and the use of prohibited substances. For anabolic steroids, we may have a very specific signature. The same for EPO-related substances, the same for Human Growth Hormone. At the end, instead of looking for the substance in the body, we're looking at the effect of the substance. This is very interesting to us because in biology, the effect remains long after the molecule has cleared your body. This is what we're looking for in the future: We can look at the genomic level and the protein levels, the modification of the markers in your urine that are affected when your metabolism is modified."

Todd says Dr. Rabin told him that, "All these leads are today under investigation in our anti-doping program. In the future it might still be useful to look for the substance. We've already got very sophisticated mechanisms to look for anabolic steroids, for instance. What we're looking at now are methods that would identify the impact of a substance so that, scientifically, it reflects doping."

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #899
PEMBERTON AWAITS AIRPORT REPORT; VANOC BEEFS UP PROCUREMENT; PYEONGCHANG TAPPED FOR 2014 BID

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

The village of Pemberton, a little farther north along the highway from Whistler, is expected to hear in the next few days from Mel Feddersen, a senior director of operations with Vancouver Airport Services who is acting as a consultant for Pemberton, about his recommendations on expanding the municipality's airport, using 2010 Olympics traffic as a springboard for the work that would be necessary to support a growing tourism interest in the region. Intrawest's Whistler-Blackcomb division, WestJet Airlines Ltd. and Alaska Air Group Inc. have all supported the concept of making it possible for small jets, about the size of Boeing 737, to land there. Whistler doesn't have an airport; the nearest one is Vancouver International, about three hours away by truck. However, Pemberton's airport is in a narrow valley with tall mountains on either side, and because of the approach, a jet would need to make a 60-degree turn -- that's sharp for a passenger jet -- to make the approach.
The procurement department of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) is being beefed up a bit, now that the organization has switched from planning to implementation and is in the marketplace more often now. VANOC is will be adding another senior buyer position next month, with an eye to the upcoming workload of preparing requests for proposals; invitations to quote; negotiating pricing, terms and conditions of sale and for the warranties of goods and products with key suppliers, help chief procurement officer Jim Bornholdt plan procurement requirements; do the necessary gruntwork of researching, identifying, and qualifying potential new suppliers and prepare purchase documentation.
Pyeongchang is now officially South Korea's city in contention for the 2014 Winter Olympics. Vancouver narrowly defeated the bid for the city, 160 kilometres east of Seoul, to host the 2010 Games, which meant that Pyeongchang had to start the process from the beginning again, beating out competing South Korean provinces for a second time, to get the national nod. The decision on which city will host the Games, and thus play a small part in the closing ceremonies of Vancouver's 2010 Games, will not be made by the International Olympic Committee until 2007. The former president of the UN General Assembly, Han Seung-soo will head the committee for the 2014 bid.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #898
BC AND ALBERTA SIGN MEMO ON OLYMPIC FACILITIES SHARING; PRIESTNER ON ADAPABILITY AND SIMILARITY; A GAMBLE AND A CURL

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

The governments of Alberta and British Columbia have signed an agreement that allows Alberta's existing Olympic facilities to train athletes for the 2010 Winter Games. Gary Mar, minister of Community Development for Alberta, says the agreement will ensure facilities built for Calgary's Olympics in 1988 "get well used over the next few years, and reduces the need for Vancouver to rush to build permanent facilities for training." From the B.C. Government's point of view, the MOU "will assist the provinces in sharing Olympic and Paralympic training and competition facilities to develop high-performance athletes and sport tourism initiatives."
George Johnson, reporting for the Sports department of the Calgary Herald newspaper on a brief conversation that he had with Cathy Priestner, the senior vice-president of Sport for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC), quotes her on two topics. One, there's a single trait that stands out in her experience as essential for an organization like VANOC, no matter how much planning is done, and that's adaptability. Priestner, who was onboard for both the Calgary Olympics in 1988 and the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 2002, put it this way, "Who could've foreseen 9/11 and how everything would change just four months before Salt Lake? The whole world was turned upside down after 9/11 and here we are hosting that world, new rules, an increased sense of uneasiness, in 120 days. We had to re-design. Re-think. With an Olympics, you need to be well-prepared, ahead of schedule, but also light on your feet. You just never know, do you?" The other topic: You can compare Vancouver's winter Olympics with those that proceed it, but only just so far. "The Olympics are just so much bigger, in scope, in money, the whole business end, than in 1988. So much more professional. If you compare the number of organizational people between then and now . . . well, there's no comparison. In Calgary, there were so many volunteers. Structurally, it's far different now. That doesn't mean they're necessarily going to be better or worse. Just different."
Last October, we told you about Slotland, an Internet-based casino that had just become the first firm of this type to sponsor high-performance curling by taking under their wing a team that was aiming at being in the 2010 Winter Olympics. The company, through the idea of a British-based public-relations firm which specializes in on-line gaming promotion, tagged the London, Ontario, curling team led by skip Gerry Geurts, 25, that played on the Ontario Curling Tour. The 2005 tour season is complete and the gamble, at least for the first tour, didn't pay off too well for the casino. Team Slotland.com, as it is called, played 23 of 32 games, and won 47.8% of them, which put them 35th out of a field of 48 teams and which isn't exactly what you might call house odds. Still, the PR firm made the best of it. Though the chips were down, it couldn't help doing a little curling of its own by adding a little spin to the situation. It said that the performance puts Guertz and his teammates, "one step closer to their Olympic dream after their performance in the Ontario Curling Tour." The PR firm added that "Slotland.com is thrilled with the team's progress and is proud to have been instrumental in the development of the team's competition experience. This season the team competed in more events than they had ever before."

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

Friday, March 18, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |IOC| #897
SINGLES CURLING PONDERED FOR 2010

The International Olympic Committee is expected to decide in the next two to three months on a format for singles curling that, if approved, would first appear at the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver.

The World Curling Federation is asking the IOC to consider the sharpshooter event in the 2010 Games. If approved, a test world championship will be held sometime next year, followed by world championships in 2007 to 2009. The main curling complex to be built by the City of Vancouver for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) is not scheduled to be completed until the winter of 2009/2010.

The singles competition is a skills competition in which participants compete individually to make a series of difficult shot. Ford, the car company, sponsors a similar competition, called "Hot Shots", that comes before the Canadian men's and women's championship and which is also part of the Continental Cup format.

WCF vice-president Les Harrison says his organization's proposal to the IOC involves having the top-15 ranked curlers after the three world championships plus host Canada to qualify for the competition at the 2010 Games.

The 2010 Olympics curling, which became a full medal event in 1998, is the usual four-person men's and women's curling.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #896
CAR-RENTAL AGENCIES ASKED TO SUPPLY VANOC WITH WIDE RANGE OF VEHILCLES

The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) is now in the market for a company to supply it with rental vehicles ranging in size from small gas/electric hybrids to small busses, and they might be used anywhere from one day to "several months."

The information is contained in a Request for Proposals issued by VANOC to car-rental agencies Friday. The vehicles, according to the documentation, have to be no more than two years old and in good shape. The documentation doesn't mention it, but there are currently about 70 full-time employees of VANOC, although that's expected to grow slowly this year, and then rise dramatically over the next few years.

VANOC does have a couple of special requests, including having a person assigned by the rental agency and a back-up person, to look after VANOC's needs with no more than a 30-minute response time during the week, and emergency access to personnel during weekends. And, VANOC staff won't need to go to the rental agency branches to pick vehicles, part of the service requested in the RFP is for rental-agency staff to deliver a vehicle to VANOC personnel. No, staff won't have to pay for the vehicles; VANOC is to be billed by the agency. And, yes, spouses of VANOC personnel will be allowed to drive the rented vehicle and be covered by the deal.

VANOC policy requires employees to use the most economical mode of transportation suitable, so they are restricted to using compact vehicles unless use of larger vehicles is pre-authorized by management.

VANOC's procurement department chief, Jim Bornholdt, wants to hear from the car rental agencies no later than April 6. He notes that "As part of our commitment to sustainability, where possible VANOC will give preference to the rental of hybrid, fuel efficient and low-emission vehicles." Therefore, he says, consideration will be given towards proponents who have them when VANOC staff need them. The kind of vehicles at this level: Toyota Prius (hybrid), Honda Civic (hybrid), Cavalier, Focus, Neon SX 2.0, Sentra, Protégé and Sunfire.

On the other hand, VANOC staff will be able to request 4-wheel drive SUVs if that's the kind of vehicle they need. Such vehicles include Blazer, Tracker, Sidekick, Jeep (all models), RAV 4, CR-V, Jimmy, Explorer (hybrid), Pathfinder, 4Navigator, Outback, Legacy and the Impreza.

In case you're wondering, the RFP has no mention any requirement for a Hummer.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |IOC, VANOC| #895
OLYMPIANS CANADA DIRECTORS ESTABLISH STRUCTURE TO CONNECT 3,400 OLYMPIC ATHLETES

The president of Olympians Canada, Charmaine Crooks, says that a recent meeting of her fledging organization's Board of Directors in Vancouver heard a presentation by the senior vice-president of Sport for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC), and has decided to treat Canada as six separate regions in order to deliver OC's services to the country.

Olympians Canada is a non-profit organization created to help Canada's 3,400 Canadian Olympians who are still alive to contact or reunite with fellow Olympians, to remember and celebrate their achievements, and to promote the Olympic movement for the benefit of future Olympians. It's supporter is the Canadian Olympic Committee and one of OC's aims is and to promote the Canadian Olympic Committee and its Athlete Services section. Crooks is also a member of the VANOC Board of Directors.

"Due to the size of Canada, we decided that we would need to divide the country into six regions to ensure that events would be accessible to Olympians in every region. We will also employ the database resources of the COC to facilitate communication across the country," she reports. Crooks notes that the OC Board also discussed "event planning criteria, bylaws, governance structure, how to promote Olympism in Canada, regional division of chapters, and strategies to engage the Olympian community in our activities. Regarding the planning of events, we decided that the purpose of all events we supported or coordinated would need to complement the purpose of the International Olympic movement."

In addition to involving itself with a number of organizations already holding specific events [see BACKGROUND, below], the OC intends to integrate itself with VANOC's environmental-event planning and to hold meetings with VANOC's marketing executives about cross promotional activities.

Priestner's presentation focused on the COC's "Own the Podium" program, which she co-authored.

BACKGROUND

The OC's Board of Directors:

Chris Farstad, the COC's Director of Athlete Relations;
Charmaine Crooks
Kirstin Normand, who was captain of Canada's bronze-medal winning synchronized-swimming team at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney and who is also vice-president of Athletes Can;
Curt Harnett, winner of three Olympic medals in cycling;
Doug Martin, chair of Olympians BC and manager of Member Sales for Intrawest, whose Whistler/Blackcomb ski area is one of the host venues of the 2010 Games;
Leah Allinger is Cathy Priestner's daughter, was with 2010 LegaciesNow and now with the Canadian Olympic Committee;
Annie Pelletier, a springboard diving Olympic medallist and member of the Canadian Olympic Committee;
Guillaume Leblanc, president of Olympians Canada's Quebec chapter;
Atila Ozkaplan, is the OC's co-ordinator of Athlete Relations;
Claire Carver-Dias is program manager of Athlete Relations for the Canadian Olympic Committee and a member of the 2000 synchro-swimming team;
Tricia Smith, a 1984 silver medallist in rowing and is now a partner in the Vancouver law firm Barnes Craig & Associates specializing in risk management and liability claims.

The national organization's structure, which will be reviewed after four years:

National board of directors with regional representatives;
Appointed seats: President of COC (non-voting), World Olympic Association representative (voting), IOC reps (non-voting), Regional reps (voting);
National board would elect executive-officer positions: President, Vice-President, Treasurer/Secretary;
Chapter regions: BC (including the Yukon), Alberta (including the Northwest Territories), Quebec, Atlantic, Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan Including Nunavut);
Chapters regionally run with satellite groups;
Membership: Olympic competitors are members; Coaches, officials and others are recognized as OC family, but non-voting.

--

The Board decided that it would run programs funded nationally, with potential to connect with existing events. These include:

June 23 – McDonald’s Olympic Day Run (McDonald's is an international sponsor of the International Olympic Committee and is expected to be a major sponsor of the 2010 Winter Games though that relationship)
World Children’s Day: $12M athletes serving at McDonald’s
Year of Youth Education and Sport
Special Olympics (March 1-6), fundraising festivals – supported by WOA and IOC; The Special Olympics are for athletes with mental disabilities as opposed to the 2010 Paralympics, which are for athletes with physical disabilities
Project to get every Olympian to speak at the school they went to, with targeted weeks

Other National/Provincial Programs they'll be considering for involvement:

The Act Now school program
Run, Jump, Throw
Active Kids Foundation
Boys and Girls club
Action Schools

RESOURCES

Olympians Canada webpage:
<http://www.olympic.ca/EN/athletes/tc/olympians/index.shtm l>

COC's Athlete Services:
http://www.olympic.ca/EN/athletes/tc/athleteservices/index.shtml

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

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #894
ALBERTA OFFERS C$150,000 TO KEEP SKI JUMPING AND NORDIC COMBINED ALIVE A WHILE LONGER

The Sports Network tonight is reporting that the Alberta government will issue a C$150,000 grant on Friday to help pay for coaching ski jumping and Nordic combined for the rest of the 2005 season. The province's money, reports TSN, plus C$150,000 promised earlier by the Calgary Olympic Development Association (CODA), restores the funding the two groups lost last fall.

The breath of life given by the matching funding buys a bit more time for various sports officials to make a business case for the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) to change its requirements and make the 2010 Winter Olympics ski jumps slated for construction in the Callaghan Valley permanent, instead of temporary and remove them after the Olympics, as it now plans to do.

Last November, TSN notes, CODA announced it was withdrawing its support for the two sports because, among other things, Canada hasn't had a ski jumper compete at the last three Olympics and the one that last did finished last at the 1992 Games in Albertville.

CODA budgeted about C$700,000 a year to support the two sports; TSN says that about C$400,000 of that "was used to operate the ski jump at Canada Olympic Park. The fate of the ski jump, which is outdated and needs about C$6.5 million in upgrades, has yet to be decided. "TSN says two ski jumpers, Greg Baxter, 15, and Stefan Read, 17, both of Calgary, have met the international qualifying standards for next winter's Olympic Games in Torino, Italy. Jason Myslicki, 27, of Thunder Bay, Ont., has qualified in Nordic combined, the network added. It also quotes Brent Morrice, chairman of Ski Jumping Canada, as saying, that he's been promised some base funding through the "Own The Podium" program that focuses funds on specific sports, but not ski jumping. The OTP program is to be half-funded by VANOC.

VANOC's concerns about the ski jumps near Whistler don't so much have to do with the quality of candidates, although that's tied into it. It's concern is ensuring the jumps will not be white elephants after the Games have ended, because the Whistler Nordic Centre will have an operating budget that comes out of a trust fund to be set up by revenues from the Games and that fund will also provide operational money for other legacy operations from the Games. If a business case -- that is, if a group doesn't take responsibility for ensuring there will be revenue for the jumps in the years following 2010 -- VANOC will keep them temporary and remove them.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 17, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #893
COLLIERS TO HANDLE VANOC OFFICE-LEASING PROJECTS; SEETON SHINKEWSKI TO HANDLE VANOC INTERIOR DESIGN; COWICHAN AMBIVALENT ABOUT 2010 MARKETING

Here are three more moguls we ran into today:

The Colliers International real-estate firm in Vancouver has won the contract from the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) to provide it with tenant representation services over the next five years. The work includes searches for premises searches, lease negotiation and lease management on behalf of VANOC. As is now typical with VANOC, terms of the contract were not released, though it was a public bidding process. VANOC and Colliers's officials won't have to go to far to see each other; the company's headquarters are only a couple of blocks away from VANOC's headquarters.
Seeton Shinkewski Design Group of Vancouver has won the bid to provide VANOC with office-space planning and interior-design services as part of its "strategic master plan for office space. No details released there, either. The company's headquarters is only a block away from VANOC headquarters.
The Cowichan Regional District on Vancouver Island has decided, by a squeaker vote of 22-21, to increase funding for its Economic Development Commission to C$337,000 from C$235,000 last year, but only after heavy emphasis was placed on the aspect of the budget that dealt with marketing the area to attract 2010 Winter Olympics tourism and other business. Those who spoke against the increase wanted to leave the budget the same as last year and to leave additional development work to the local Chamber of Commerce, but officials said that would mean cutting C$8,000 it planned for 2010 preparations and reducing its tourism-marketing component. The mayor of one of the towns in the Regional District, Rob Hutchins of Ladysmith, felt the only reason the office hadn't been particularly successful so far was because it had been underfunded.

BACKGROUND

The Morgan:News:2010 article about the work that Colliers will be doing for VANOC:
'HQ space requirements expected to be 180,000 square feet by 2008'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:808; Published on Tuesday, February 8, 2005]

RESOURCES

Doug Frye
President & CEO
Colliers International
16th Floor, Granville Square, 200 Granville Street
Vancouver, BC, V6C 2R6
Telephone: 604.681.4111
Fax: 604-661-0849
Web: http://www.colliersmn.com

Keith Seeton or Gerry Shinkewski
Founding Partners
Seeton Shinkewski Design Group
#300, 1111 Melville St.
Vancouver, BC, V6E 3V6
Telephone: 604.685.4301
Fax: 604-684-4336
Web: http://www.ssdg.com

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 17, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #892
MORE DETAILS ON THE APRIL 23 VANOC LOGO ROLL-OUT CEREMONY; SUPPLIERS THREATENED WITH C$50,000 PENALTIES FOR LOGO DISCLOSURE; WHISTLER REZONING MEETINGS FOR NORDIC CENTRE NEXT WEEK

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

A few more details are available about the April 23 planned rollout of the new logo for the 2010 Olympic Games. As we mentioned earlier, the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) last month placed an order for the manufacture of lapel pins and similar trinkets that will bear the new emblem, which will be the cornerstone to the look-and-feel of the Games for the next five years. Today VANOC is looking for the collateral materials that will be used for the roll-out ceremony itself, which will, we've learned, include a giant-cheque hand-over to the designer of the new logo during the media event. Under the design-contest rules for the logo issued last summer, the prize for the winning entry was C$25,000. Today, VANOC is looking for a supplier to provide two media backdrops which will have the new logo on it, one about 10 feet by eight feet, and another that's four feet by four feet, for when they take their show on the road. They're also looking for the following, which will all bear the new logo: eight Zap panels that are about seven feet by three feet, six eight-foot-by-two-foot banners -- four with the logo and two with just the word-mark and website address; a couple of podium signs; 500 media-kit folders that will have the colour logo in one of the top corners on the front, and 7,000 brochures -- 5,000 in English and 2,000 each in Chinese and French -- which will contain the rules for using the emblem under VANOC's Intellectual Property Rights rules. And, of course, the bogus five-foot by three-foot cheque. Suppliers only have until Tuesday to get their bids in for the work, and the contractor will be chosen and the order placed a week from today. The delivery date is April 18. VANOC CEO John Furlong says the reason this roll-out is so important is that whatever design is chosen as the Games' logo, it will be the basis for the entire image of the Games in print and in broadcast, and in every marketing aspect, and the logo itself will be seen by roughly three billion people over the next seven or eight years. The colour scheme of the Games and the pictographs used to direct people at the Games will all be derived from the theme of the logo. And, in case the PR collaterals supplier is thinking about getting chatty about the logo before it's released, they'll have to sign an iron-clad confidentiality agreement as a condition of getting the work -- and so will all of its employees, all of its sub-contractors... and all of their employees, and give the list of everybody to VANOC.
Just how stringent is the confidentiality section of the agreement offered to suppliers for the logo roll-out? Here's the actual first paragraph of the agreement VANOC is offering, edited only for brevity: "The Supplier acknowledges that maintaining the confidentiality of the Emblem Information prior to the Announcement is of critical importance to VANOC, and that any breach of this Agreement would cause significant, irreversible and irreparable harm, loss and damage to VANOC. If any Emblem Information is disclosed prior to the Announcement contrary to this Agreement by the Supplier or any person for whom the Supplier is responsible under this Agreement or at law, the Supplier will indemnify and compensate VANOC for all harm, loss and damage suffered by VANOC as a result of such disclosure, and immediately pay to VANOC, on account of such obligation to indemnify and compensate VANOC, the sum of C$50,000 (the "Initial Indemnity Payment"). The Supplier agrees that the actual harm, loss and damage that would be suffered by VANOC... would substantially exceed the Initial Indemnity Payment, and that VANOC will be entitled to retain the Initial Indemnity Payment as partial compensation for such harm, loss and damage..." And what is it that they must keep quiet about? "Emblem information," which is defined in the deal as, "any oral, written or graphical representation or description of the Emblem or of any specific or generic name, trait, characteristic, meaning, cultural connotation, colour scheme or other feature of the Emblem... the name, identity and location of the corporate or individual designers of the Emblem; and... any and all information regarding the Announcement." That would be the roll-out ceremony we just told you about.

*The Squamish Lillooet Regional District will be holding a public meeting in Whistler next Wednesday to hear comments on proposed changes to its Official Community Plan amendments that cover the Callaghan Valley, the location of a major 2010 Winter Olympic venue. The Plan is being adjusted to add recreation development and a “Nordic Centre Recreation Zone” addition to the classification for Backcountry Tourism Use. The Nordic zoning will allow for public recreational use and facilities as a day lodge, café, retail and rental operations planned for the Whistler Nordic Centre. VANOC, meeting stiff resistance from aboriginal bands claiming a portion of its planned legacy recreational trail system in the Valley, has decided to separate the planning process for the Whistler Nordic Centre in legacy requirements and Olympic/Paralympic requirements. That will give VANOC more time to negotiate the trails issue and other aboriginal aspects, so it won't interfere with planning for this summer's start to the construction of the venue. As well, VANOC's decision to make the ski jumps temporary because there wasn't a sufficient business case for keeping the jumps going after the 2010 Games is still being questioned, and more time is needed to deal with that aspect as well. Also set aside for legacy planning is the possibility of a natural luge track (in addition to the permanent Olympic luge run), a snow-play area, public access for recreational vehicles, and trails for as walking, hiking and biking.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 17, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #891
TELUS EXPANDS INTRAWEST TELECOM CONTRACT; EDMONTON ALSO WANTS 2009 OLYMPIC CURLING TRIALS; PEACE RIVER-AREA TOURISM GROUP ASKS FOR 2010 FUNDING

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

Telus Communications, western Canada's major telecommunications company, may have lost out in its bid to be the telecom sponsor of the 2010 Winter Games, but it's still going to be in the neighbourhood. The technology company today said it had reached an eight-year, C$30 million agreement with Intrawest to expand in both time and space their previous five-year deal for supply of Internet and telecommunication services. The geographic coverage under the new deal expands Telus's involvement from just western Canada to all of Intrawest's resorts in Canada. And that continues to include Whistler Blackcomb, one of the host venues for the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. It will provide data and Internet protocol infrastructure, voice, wireless applications and business consulting "to further enhance our guest experience and create operational efficiencies," according to Cathy Dixon, Intrawest's vice president of Strategic Alliances and Partner Marketing. Examples of what's expected to come: centralizing key applications into a Vancouver data centre, providing Telus Mobility service for both phone and instant walkie-talkie communications between front-line staff using phones, and using Telus's IP-enabled contact centre to integrate Intrawest's major contact centres in Vancouver and Montreal with satellite contact at each individual resort. Both firms are public companies: Telus: TSX: T, T.NV; NYSE: TU; Intrawest Corporation: IDR:NYSE; ITW:TSX.
Add Edmonton to the list of cities interested in hosting 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 other cities are also 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, a city just south of Edmonton. Terry Morris, the chairman of the Edmonton Brier organizing committee which this month hosted the most successful Canadian men's curling championship in history, says he hopes to convince COC officials his city should be the trials location. About 282,000 curling spectators showed up for this year's Brier, the old record of 249,000 was set by Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in 2000.
The Northern Rockies Alaska Highway Tourism Association last night asked the Peace River Regional District for funding of C$3 per capita rate this year 2005 and increasing that amount by C$0.25 cents every year until 2010, so it can tap into Olympics-related funding programs offered, and expected to be offered, by the B.C. government. The district is in the north-east corner of British Columbia. NRAHTA receives C$118,000 from the district, and that would increase to $177,000 this year under the proposal. By 2010 the plan would see the Regional District providing about $236,000 a year, depending on the area's population at the time. The Regional District's staff, while recommending an increase, would hold it to C$160,000 a year and increase it by 2% each year through 2009. Fort St. John's mayor, Steve Thorlakson, backed the Tourism Association's plan. Fort St. John currently has a proposal for a C$25 million speed-skating complex before the B.C. government. A decision will be made on the funding later this month.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 17, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #890
VANCOUVER CITY COUNCIL PONDERS MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR CULTURAL BUREAURACY FOR 2010 RUN-UP

Vancouver City Council is to decide later today if it intends to follow through on a staff recommendation for a Strategic Investment in the City's Cultural Services, starting with C$1 million during the upcoming fiscal year.

The Council is hearing about half a dozen arts-and-culture delegations during a meeting of the City Services and Budget Committee -- it's a meeting of the Whole, which will turn into a City Council meeting right afterward to formally adopt whatever recommendation is made by the Committee. The staff are asking the City to provide C$1 million this year -- and set the stage for funding of C$2 million next year and C$3 million in 2007 and in subsequent years. The idea is to firmly establish an on-going City bureaucracy that funds and plans the cultural sector as the city plans for the 2010 Olympics Cultural Olympiad, and which will work on establishing a cultural legacy stemming from the Olympics. By comparison, the City offered about C$1.45 million last year in grants to various cultural agencies in total.

The Olympiad, part of the series of pledges to the International Olympic Committee made by the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) during its bid to win the 2010 Games, will officially begin following the end of the 2006 Torino Winter Games in Italy, which means its initial months will fall within the City of Vancouver's upcoming fiscal year. The idea behind it is to significantly expand the arts and cultural activities within Vancouver and Whistler in the run-up to the 2010 Games.

The request comes from Sue Harvey, the City's managing director of Cultural Services. She and her staff of 11 will be heavily involved in the arts and cultural planning for both the 2006 World Urban Forum and the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Funding for the concept is, according to City documents, "subject to detailed recommendations arising from the Creative City strategic planning process, with 2005 funding to be provided from General Program Account and subsequent years’ funding to be added to the operating budget without offset." As well, "very significant matching resources will be available from the federal and provincial governments and VANOC." The level of that funding is expected to be spelled out in much greater detail when VANOC provides its first major operations budget in late April or early May.

RESOURCES

The City of Vancouver's website will provide a streaming video of the meeting starting tomorrow. You'll be able to find the link at this page:
http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/ctyclerk/councilmeetings/video.cfm

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 17, 2005

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #889
ATOS ORIGIN TO BE MAIN HIGH-TECHNOLOGY CONTRACTOR AT 2010 GAMES

Atos Origin today announced that it has reached an agreement with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to extend its international technology partnership another four years, confirming it will be the technology-systems integrator for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver and the 2012 Olympic Games to be announced on July 6th.

The agreement, reached today, extends the largest sports-related contract for information technology ever awarded. The huge French-based firm, which just announced a net profit of e11 million for its 2004 fiscal year, did similar work with the Salt Lake City Olympic Winter Games in 2002, operated by SchlumbergerSema (which Atos acquired at the beginning of 2004), and the Athens 2004 Summer Games. It's now nearly completed its preparation of the Torino 2006 Winter Games, and has a 20-person team now in Beijing as it prepares the technology for the 2008 Summer Games.

The announcement comes just two days after the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) hired its senior vice-president of Technology, who will be responsible for co-ordinating the work that Atos Origin does along with other major sponsors, such as Bell Canada's telecommunications arrangements, and with Swatch, which, under its Omega brand, will be handling the time-keeping. The last major technology contract to be settled for 2010 involves delivery of the thousands of desktop computer systems that will be required for Games organizers. The Chinese company Lenovo has the inside track on that deal, according to the IOC, but it has not yet been concluded.

The terms of the deal were not immediately known; as an international sponsor with the IOC, however, VANOC is consulted but doesn't have control over the sponsorship category.

Atos Origin will be responsible for developing, running and securing key information systems for the Games, including:

The essential games-management systems for accreditation, staff information, workforce management, medical services, sport entries and athletes qualification
Ensuring the information collected by all the events is spread to the databases that need to store and process the information
Ensuring the spread of the information to the TV, Internet, to the world press agencies and commentators;
Providing operations management for pre-Games central operations
Management of the Technology Operations Centre
Coordination of the venues technology and help-desk services,
Working with the RCMP to ensure security of the Games information-technology infrastructure.

Atos Origin usually integrates its own proprietary applications with the software and hardware from members of the IT technology consortium involved in the 2010 Games. It will also use any legacy IT systems to help minimize operational costs and investment, and it usually helps transfer knowledge from Games to Games by setting up a system that works with the IOC's Knowledge Transfer program.

Lenovo, meanwhile, is in the process of buying IBM's personal-computer division for US$1.75 billion. Lenovo, which is owned in part by the Chinese government, will take on the ThinkPad laptops and ThinkCentre desktop PC product lines. The new entity will remain in IBM's base city of Armonk, N.Y.; its top executives will be former IBM employees; and 10,000 of Lenovo's 19,000 employees will come from IBM. IBM will still sell, service and support the products and will have an 18.9% share of Lenovo.

RESOURCES

Atos Origin:
http://www.AtosOrigin.com

Atos Origin's latest financials:
http://www.atosorigin.com/corporate/newsroom/pr2005/20050316.htm

Our feature from last October on Atos Origin:
http://www.morgan-news.com/2010/archives/2004_10_01_Bronze.htm
(use your browser's Find feature to search for the word "Atos", without the quotes.

An inside look at Atos's organization:
http://www.atosorigin.com/corporate/about_us/corporate.htm

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 16, 2005

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #888
VANOC HAS NEW SVP OF TECHNOLOGY; CPC WORKING ON PARALYMPIC VERSION OF "OWN THE PODIUM"; MAPLE SYRUP: A 2010 DRINK?

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

Late word: The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC)'s new senior vice-president of Technology, the last such position to be hired, has begun work. It was Ward Chapin's first day.
The Canadian Paralympic Committee is working on its own version of the Canadian Olympic Committee's "Own the Podium" report. It wasn't involved with the COC's work because it had different issues to study; that research is now nearly finished.
The federation representing Quebec's 7,200 maple-syrup producers wants to broaden its market by introducing maple syrup products into different kinds of cooking and different cultures, but Yvan Guyon, a veteran maple-syrup producer based in Deschambault, near Trois- Rivieres, wants people -- and athletes at the 2010 Winter Olympics in particular -- to drink his new brand of sparkling mineral water that's flavoured with maple syrup, which he calls Erablo. It's sort of a ginger-ale with maple-syrup overtones, and he thinks it could be a sports drink. "What better represents Quebec and Canada than the Maple Leaf?" he asks.

RESOURCES

The English portion of the Maple Syrup federation's website:
http://www.siropderable.ca/en/default.asp?section=0&IdArticle=21

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 15, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #887
PRIESTNER SAYS VANCOUVER, WHISTLER STARTING TO PLAN FOR ACCESSIBILITY PROGRAMS

The senior vice-president of Sport for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC), Cathy Priestner, says planning for improving the accessibility for Paralympic-related areas in Vancouver and Whistler is still in its early stages, but will gain increasing importance between now and 2010.

"We've done some preliminary studies to look at what we need -- we obviously know we have to meet what is required," says Priestner. "But just because of the population that we're dealing with, and because during the Paralympics the demand is going to be higher than that -- we're looking at considerably higher accessibility features that you would typically have. For instance, with the Nordic venue, we have about 3% accessibility, which is above building-code standard and, for the Paralympic Games, we'll be reducing our capacity by about half because there are fewer events, but we'll be maintaining the accessibility numbers, so that will take it far above what is required by law. And the same with B.C. Place Stadium, where the Opening and Closing ceremonies will be held, we will be above the standard required because of the population. We'll deal with the accessibility issue on a venue-by-venue basis."

Priestner says there is a "collective group in place" in Vancouver, and its members have been talking about increasing Vancouver's accessibility throughout the city, using the 2010 Paralympics as a driver for the planning, "And whether it's a VANOC venue, or whether it involves the transportation system with more accessible buses. It has to be broken down and worked at collectively among all of [VANOC's] partners and, as you know, we've got them all around the table on a regular basis. We'll address it as aspects come up. We'll keep driving it."

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 15, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |IOC| #886
IPC PRESIDENT, VANOC FRETTING OVER SPECTATOR PLANNING FOR PARALYMPIC VENUES

The president of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) has completed his first visit to Whistler and Vancouver in celebration of the five-year countdown to the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games and he's left the Organizing Committee with concerns that it's planning too small for the number of spectators expected at some of the Paralympic venues.

Phil Craven met with Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) representatives, local government officials and athletes from Blackcomb's Whistler Adaptive Sport Program. He also toured Paralympic Games venue sites throughout Whistler during his three-day stay.

The 2010 Paralympic Winter Games events -- alpine skiing, Nordic skiing, ice sledge hockey and wheelchair curling -- are to be staged in the Whistler area; there are no Paralympic Games set for Vancouver in 2010, however the Opening Ceremony for the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games is to take place in BC Place Stadium in Vancouver. About 1,700 athletes and team officials from more than 40 countries are expected to participate.

For the most part, VANOC officials have integrated planning and organizing the 2010 Paralympics into the general planning and scheduling for the overall Games. But Furlong has incorporated all the specific aspects of the of Paralympics into the responsibilities of his senior vice-president for Sport, Cathy Priestner, to ensure that the Paralympics have a senior voice within the organization. But the decision to organize them simultaneously has as much to do on a pragmatic level with their relative size as anything. But there's also no question that while the Paralympic Games are in the process of being lifted into more prominence than ever before, the organization of them, and the IPC itself, is still a relatively small organization compared to the commercial muscle commanded by the International Olympic Committee.

The IPC is connected with the IOC -- the IPC, for instance, sells the TV and marketing rights to the IOC, which in turn packages them with the Olympic Games to sponsors, host-city organizers such as VANOC and broadcasters -- but that arrangement is new. The first time it will come into full effect is with the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. "We decide revenue-sharing jointly with the IOC. I know what we're getting from VANOC for 2010, and that'll be C$4 million." That doesn't sound like much, but Craven points out that it's a major increase over the trickle of funding that was made available to the fledgling IPC in previous games. "It's not such much, now, the contracts that we have with the IOC, but the relationship with it is extremely strong, and it wasn't like that even three years ago. What we've achieved up to now is very encouraging, and we'll achieve far more in the future. We're very much on an upward path."

Craven says that his tour in Whistler included discussions with Mayor Hugh O'Reilly about the ice sledge-hockey venue, for which VANOC has C$31 million allotted in its capital construction plan. The municipality has been debating whether to build a stand-alone facility, or expand existing facilities and much of the debate has to do with the legacy aspects of the project and with the ability of various options to deal with spectator capacity. VANOC is more reluctant to get into the political discussion underway in Whistler over the matter. The senior vice-president of Sport for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC), Cathy Priestner, doesn't want to express an opinion about where the sledge-hockey arena should go. "Not at this point, no," she says, carefully, adding, "We'll be happy with a solution."

But Craven feels that all the options at the moment don't leave sufficient space for spectators during the Games at both the sledge-hockey venue and the wheel-chair curling venue. The current plans call for about 500 at the curling venue and 3,000 at the sledge-hockey venue; he'd like to see room for at least a thousand for the curling and 5,000 for the hockey. He says the market for that many tickets could easily be fulfilled. "Without a doubt; we know the attraction that Paralympic sports can bring. But the IPC is not about laying the law down, it's about compromising so that we get the right solution for all the parties."

Priestner, agrees there would be no problem filling that many seats with customers during the Paralympics, "In Salt Lake, we sold over 10,000 for the test event and Games for sledge hockey; in Canada, it wouldn't be a hard sell. I think we can sell what we can put in." And she feels there may be some solution to his concerns. "We have a couple of ideas that we're not ready to roll out, but depending on where the ice sledge-hockey venue lands, then we'll look at what the options might be. It's dependent on the location. We're committed to trying to find more seats, and if we can, we'll make it work both for the Games and for the legacy -- that balance is always tricky. And, it also depends on how that affects Paralympic curling. If you talk to us in about a month or so, we'll be able to provide more information on it."

Whistler has until July to make its decision on what to do about the sledge-hockey facility. Priestner, who's experience includes helping to manage the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City says that similar problems faced the organizing committee in the venues at Provost, Utah, for hosting women's hockey. In that case, a twin arena was designed so that part of the facility could be used for soccer after the Games, but was filled with seats for the Games.

During the run-up to the Athens Summer Olympic Games last year, the IPC was told that April that only 5% of the thousands of volunteers for the Olympic Games had expressed an interest in volunteering for the Paralympics, which followed the main Olympic Games. But IPC CEO Xavier Gonzalez, who was touring the venues with Craven, says that's unusually low, adding, "It varies a lot with the culture of the local area, and their knowledge. We expect a lot more volunteers here [in 2010]. We're talking about 10,000 volunteers for the Paralympic Games."

Craven, who is in a wheelchair, also says he had no problem getting around either Whistler or Vancouver during his stay. "It was pretty easy. Actually, you know, I never noticed. if there's a problem, then I'll remember it, but I was easily able to get around." Craven said he met with Vancouver City officials who are planning to improve Vancouver's accessibility for people with physical disabilities for an hour during lunch yesterday. "They're developing the process now. The Paralympics are really a wonderful vehicle with which to accelerate the work that they're already doing. But this isn't something that we're bringing to them; they're already doing it. Vancouver is a leader."

Craven is also pleased so far with the progress being made on bringing the Paralympics under the umbrella of the World Anti-Doping Association, run out of Montreal by VANOC Board of Director Dick Pound. The IPC signed a letter of agreement almost a year ago giving WADA permission to conduct spot out-of-competition testing of Paralympic athletes among other things. That agreement, paralleling the timing of the IOC's similar agreement, expires at the end of 2007, but Craven, who is a member of WADA's Board of Directors, says it's too early to consider whether there will be changes made when the agreement is renewed to cover the 2010 Winter Games. "The co-operation with WADA, we're very pleased with. At this moment, I don't have the detail as to whether things ought to change or not, but generally we're very, very happy with our relationship. There have been out-of-competition testing, and it's being developed more and more,"

Priestner, whose responsibilities include the anti-doping and other medical aspects of the 2010 Games, agrees that once WADA became involved with the Paralympics, she expects it would carry through 2010. "Right now, we have no reason it would change." VANOC doesn't work directly with WADA on medical-facility planning; it does so through the International Olympic Committee and the IPC. "And we have to plan our own internal programs, so we're working with the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport, and we'll work closely with the chief medical officers of both the IOC and IPC. We're still a bit early in planning for that, so we haven't really done much of it yet, but that will be the process for it."

Priester says VANOC will have its own Chief Medical Officer appointed in time for them to go to the 2006 Winter Olympics next February in Torino, Italy, to observe the workings of those Games as part of the VANOC team that will be there. "They'll go over and sit through the Medical Commission meetings. At that point, we'll become much more operational on the medical and doping side."

Craven, who left Vancouver after three days of meetings that included an address to the staff of VANOC at its headquarters in Vancouver this morning, expects to return to the city annually for the next few years to keep an eye on progress.

RESOURCES

The IPC's website:
http://www.paralympic.org

The IPC's executive contact page, including e-mail addresses:
http://www.paralympic.org/release/Main_Sections_Menu/IPC/Organization/IPC_Headquarters/index.html

The IPC is represented in Canada by the Canadian Paralympic Committee:
http://www.paralympic.ca

Mr. Brian MacPherson
Suite 1401
1400-85 Albert Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1P 6A4
Canada

Phone: 613.569.4333
Fax: 613.569.2777
< mailto:brian@paralympic.ca >

Blackcomb's Adaptive Sport program details:
http://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/rentals/school/ski/adaptive.htm

Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport:
http://www.cces.ca

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 15, 2005

Friday, March 11, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #885
VANOC EXTENDS WORK, DEADLINE OF WHISTLER SLIDING CENTRE SITE PREP; COMPANIES INTERESTED IN PREP WORK LISTED; SALT LAKE TO CONTINUE LITTLE WINTER GAMES TRADITION

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) has withdrawn and re-issued its formal request for construction companies to be considered for work on its Whistler Sliding Centre, one of two major venues in the Callaghan Valley, west of Whistler. The move was done primarily to extend the deadline a week to March 21 so that firms could have more time to consider more detailed construction and refrigeration-fabrication requirements on the track that will be used for bobsleigh, luge and skeleton sports. The initial work involves clearing and grubbing for roadwork, road construction, various earthworks and various types of erosion-control jobs. Here is a list, provided by VANOC, of the firms that have so far signed up to be considered for the shortlist of the Sliding Centre's first major contracts:

Advanced Construction Techniques Ltd - 3935 Lloydtown Road, Kettleby, Ontario - 877-373-7248
B. Cusano Contracting Inc - 9715-192 nd St, Surrey, BC - 604-888-0323
Bel Contracting - 3015 Norland Avenue, Burnaby, BC - 604-205-5381
Capilano Highway Services Company - 118 Bridge Road, West Vancouver, BC - 604-983-2411
Corona Excavation Ltd - 9479 Emeral Drive, Whistler BC - 604-932-2355
EMIL Anderson Construction Inc - 1148 Sixth Avenue, Hope, BC - 604-869-5614
Graham Construction and Engineering Ltd - 7898 82nd Street, Delta, BC - 604-940-4500
JJM Construction Ltd - 8828 River Road, Delta, BC - 604-946-0978
Kenaidan Construction Ltd - 1275 Cardiff Blvd, Mississauga, Ontario - 905-670-2660
Scott Interiors & Renovations Ltd - 100-1818 Cornwall Avenue, Vancouver - 604-874-8228
Underground Services Ltd - 135 Commercial Road, Bolton, Ontario - 905-857-6962
Westpro Constructors Ltd - 8241 129th Street, Surrey, BC - 604-592-9767
Graehold Construction Corp. - 300-545 Clyde Avenue, West Vancouver, BC - 604-922-9128
Traction Developments Ltd - Suite 210-1990, Ogilvie Street, Prince George, BC - 250-649-0561
Here is a list of the companies interested in doing the site preparation work-- essentially a lot of earth-moving -- in the Callaghan Valley on VANOC's Nordic venue, a companion project to the Sliding Centre. The list was provided by VANOC. It's a two-phase procurement process. These companies are telling VANOC and Sandwell Engineering, which is doing the design work, that they'd like to be evaluated on a number of grounds that have to do with their expertise and capacity. VANOC and Sandwell will then select a short-list that will be invited tender for the work. The tender is expected to be issued by April 28 and will be awarded by May 26. Work is to begin by June 9 on the ground.

B. Cusano Contracting Inc - 9715-192nd St, Surrey, BC - 604-888-0323
Bel Contracting - 3015 Norland Avenue, Burnaby, BC - 604-205-5381
Capilano Highway Services Company - 118 Bridge Road, West Vancouver, BC - 604-983-2411
EMIL Anderson Construction Inc - 1148 Sixth Avenue, Hope, BC - 604-869-5614
Graham Construction and Engineering Ltd - 7898 82nd Street, Delta, BC - 604-940-4500
JJM Construction Ltd - 8828 River Road, Delta, BC - 604-946-0978
Sigfusson Northern Ltd - 50 Swan Creek Drive, Lundar, Manitoba - 204-762-5500
Graehold Construction Corp. - 300-545 Clyde Avenue, West Vancouver, BC - 604-922-9128
Salt Lake City mayor Rocky Anderson on April 4 will begin a trip to fulfil an odd little tradition of mayors from cities that host Olympic /Winter Games. He'll deliver a set of challenges to the city halls of the city hosting the next Olympics in line, which in his case is the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Italy. Anderson's challenges will to outline what Salt Lake did to encourage peace, youth and environmentalism as a result of having the Games based in his city, and then urge Torino mayor Sergio Chiamparino to do the same. The tradition started with the 1994 Lillehammer Games in Norway when city officials used, of all things, dog sleds -- the idea is to carry the message in an environmentally friendly way -- to help get the message in 1997 to the city hall of Nagano, Japan, and it was continued when Nagano mayor Mayer Tsukada rode a bicycle up to Salt Lake's city hall and handed off the challenges to Salt Lake. Following a small ceremony at Salt Lake City Hall, a batch of Salt Lake citizens will bike to New York, put their message in a sailboat heading to Belgium during a regatta. Another group of people on bikes will carry it through a tour of Europe and Italy, with the idea that mayor Anderson will take it the last leg to Torino for a meeting in July. If the tradition holds, somebody from Torino will show up in British Columbia in 2009 to issue a similar challenge to the city halls of Vancouver and Whistler, and the then-mayors of those cities would be expected to do the same in the summer of 2013 for the mayor of whatever city wins the 2014 Winter Games.

BACKGROUND

Our original story on the site-preparation work in the Callaghan Valley:
'Formal process begins to select first contractors for Whistler Sliding Centre, Whistler Nordic Centre'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:870; Published on Wednesday, March 2, 2005]

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 11, 2005

Thursday, March 10, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #884
MORGAN:NEWS:2010 |MOGULS| MCDONALD'S TO CHECK WITH VANOC FIRST; NANAIMO? MAIS NON; MORE GRUMBLING ABOUT THE BAY

Here are three more moguls we ran into today:

* The Communications director of Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC), Sam Corea, says that the Olympic Games will be one of the main platforms for the 2005 version of McDonald's "Balanced & Active Lifestyle" marketing campaign -- the one that will include Olympic athletes, councils that include Olympic moms and kids, as well as a focus on kid's dietary issues and "healthy menu" options. "Thus," he says, "any Olympic themes, messaging or use of [Olympic] marks will require submission through VANOC's marketing department if the activities take place in Canada. The COC [Canadian Olympic Committee] would have been the lead on this in the past, but that responsibility has now passed to VANOC." McDonald's, an international sponsor signed up directly with the International Olympic Committee, will be at the 2010 Games.

* The Nanaimo Parks, Recreation & Culture Commission has turned aside a request for French to be added to the Vancouver Island city's directional signage to encourage 2010 Olympic-based tourism by simply saying it doesn't have the jurisdiction to deal with the issue. The request originated with the Nanaimo Francophone Society in a suggestion to the Greater Nanaimo Chamber of Commerce which, in turn, passed it along to the Commission. The underlying concept behind the suggestion was to present Nanaimo, which is directly west of Vancouver across Georgia Strait, as friendly for French-speaking visitors to the Games, thus increasing tourism.

* The largest single shareholder of HBC-Hudson's Bay, which last week reached a sponsorship deal it and VANOC both value at about C$100 million, continues to grumble aloud about the relatively weak performance of the Canadian firm and various other aspects of the company's management. Maple Leaf Heritage Investments ULC owns 19.9% of HBC, which is the maximum that can be held without triggering The Bay's poison-pill requirement that would force it to buy the rest of the shares, has been unhappy for some time about the management of HBC, and the fact that HBC says its fourth-quarter earnings during the critical December period were eroded by stiff Christmas competition for the department store in Ontario, and that its long-term financial targets aren't likely to be met meant the grumbling continued. December sales were off by 2.6% and were off 3.6% (adjusted for the extra week in the year-before period) for the quarter to C$2.26 billion; it earned C$106 million, or C$1.35 a share in the fourth quarter, up from C$103 million, or C$1.30 a share, in the same period the year before. Operating income was down 12%. Maple Leaf Heritage Investments is a Nova Scotian-based company created to acquire HBC's shares. Maple Leaf is a subsidiary of B-Bay Inc., whose CEO and chairman is American businessman, Jerry Zucker, the head of The InterTech Group Inc., a conglomerate based in North Charleston that is the second-largest private firm in South Carolina.

RESOURCES

Hudson's Bay's stock performance on the Toronto Exchange:
http://www.reuters.ca/locales/c_financeQuote.jsp?localeKey=en_CA&ticker=HBC.TO&qtype=sym

InterTech Group
Jerry Zucker
4838 Jenkins Avenue
North Charleston, SC 29405
Phone: 843.744.5174
Fax 843-747-4092
< mailto:jzucker@intertech.com >

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 10, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #883
C$330,000 OLYMPIC LIVE SITES GRANT TO PORT ALBERNI; SCHMIRLER TO BE HONOURED BY COC; SPORT PERFORMANCE WORKSHOPS OFFERED BY COC

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

Port Alberni, a city on the west coast of Vancouver Island, has received a C$330,000 Olympic Live Sites grant from the provincial government to upgrade its Alberni Valley Multiplex sports complex so it will be more attractive to the Winter Olympics crowd. The announcement was made by the area's Member of the Legislature, Gillian Trumper, who will be running for re-election in the May 17 provincial vote. The money, which is the largest grant that can be made out of the C$20 million Live Sites Fund for projects under C$1 million, is to be matched by the City of Port Alberni, the Port Alberni Arena Society and the Parks and Recreation capital reserve fund, and another C$12,000 has been designated for the facility's projects from the 2004 BC Winter Games Society's Legacy fund. Meanwhile, Port Alberni has reportedly sent out expressions of interest to national teams destined to take part in the 2010 Winter Games -- the Swedish women's hockey team was apparently on the list -- but isn't saying whether it's received any replies. The city is expecting it's more likely that teams would play exhibition games at its facility, as opposed to training there; the first ice-hockey game played at the Multiplex after it was built was an exhibition game between the Swedish and Canadian women's hockey teams, and it was sold out.
This year's inductees into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame include the Sandra Schmirler women's curling team of Regina, Saskatchewan, which won a gold medal during the Japan's Nagano Winter Olympics in 1998. The Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame recognizes those who have served the cause of the Olympic Movement with distinction. Each of the recipients will be honoured at an induction ceremony at in Regina on April 15. It will be a bitter-sweet ceremony for the team -- who include Jan Betker, Joan McCusker, Marcia Gudereit and Atina Ford -- because Schmirler died at the age of 37, just two years after winning the medal. This year's coach inductee is Currie Chapman of Ottawa, Ontario. He was a member of the Canadian Alpine Ski Team between 1964 and 1969, and was head coach of the Women's Ski Team from 1980 to 1988. And a "builder" inductee is Dr. Thomas Fried of Toronto, Ontario. He was a member of the medical team that supported many Olympic and Pan American Games teams from Canada.
When the Canadian Olympic Committee's executive meets in Regina during the same weekend as the Hall of Fame induction ceremony for its annual general meeting, it will also be offering offering three development workshops about high-performance sport for delegates and the public. One workshop, "The Professionalization of Coaching", will focus on the need to professionalize coaching in Canada and discuss approaches to hiring, retaining and supporting coaches. Another workshop," Performance on Demand", will deal with the intense pressure of performing in sport, arts or entertainment. One other workshop, "Athlete Talent Identification, Recruitment and Retention," will analyze how the sport system should support Canadian athletes so they can achieve higher performance results at Olympic Games.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 10, 2005

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #882
VANOC CALLS FOR 50 HOLES; BC TOWNS THINK ABOUT 2010 TORCH RELAY PATH - AND TOURISM; THREE TOWNS IN RUNNING FOR 2010 BC WINTER GAMES

Here are three more moguls we ran into today:

The Venues division of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) has issued a formal request for proposals on BC Bid looking for companies to drill 50 holes, ranging in depth from 10 metres to 35 metres, through the soil and into the bedrock in April beneath the site of the Whistler Nordic Centre near Whistler, which is due to start construction in a few months. Engineers working on the project will be inspecting the drill cores and the interiors of the holes, apparently to ensure geo-technical stability and confirm construction conditions. Engineering reports from previous drilling has indicated that the area has up to eight metres of top soil and glacial debris, but the new drilling program will be required to go through it into the basement rock. VANOC is in a fair hurry to get the job done: there's a mandatory proponents meeting at the Callaghan Valley at 9:30 the morning of March 15 -- next Tuesday -- and no proposals will be considered from firms that don't send reps to the meeting. As well, the proposals are required to be in by March 30 and the winning contractor is required to be on site, drilling, by April 5. The RFP flags the idea that the driller will have to do its work in an environmentally sensitive way, and that it will need enough crews and drills to get the job done by mid-May; the RFP is at pains to say that multiple drills and crews will be needed on site. The provincial government has not yet issued an required environmental assessment certificate, although that's expected to occur sometime late this month.
It'll be 2007 or so before the route for the 2010 Olympic torch relay will be decided, but the jockeying for position is already underway for B.C. communities that want to be on the path. North Thompson economic development officer Randy Hedlund wants to see the Olympic torch relay pass through the North Thompson Valley, and he expects Kamloops and Prince George, at a minimum, will be on the route. The rationale for the North Thompson Valley, in B.C.'s interior, is that it's the location of two major winter resorts, Blue River and Sun Valley. Meanwhile, VANOC spokesman Sam Corea said yesterday in a kind of throw-away line during a community-access channel TV interview that the torch might well pass "over the north pole" on its way to Canada.
Three B.C. communities have so far come up with a bid to host the B.C. Winter Games that will be held between the close of the 2010 Winter Olympics and the opening of the 2010 Paralympics. The towns are Fort St. John, Terrace/Kitimat and Salmon Arm. The Winter Games, funded by the provincial government, are usually held annually. A decision is expected in April.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 9, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #881
2010 COMMERCE CENTRE WEBSITE TO BE UPGRADED "SOON" WITH PROCUREMENT FOCUS

Brian Krieger, the general manager of the 2010 Commerce Centre, says there are a number of changes and upgrades coming for the government's business-oriented website portal for the 2010 Games in the next few months, and they'll be focused on procurement.

"VANOC has sort of promised -- I'll have to make sure it's a confirmed promise -- that they're going to provide, soon, a list of procurement categories, its policies and the timing of when business can expect those to be called, so, for instance, if you're in the food-service business, hopefully you'll have an idea of when the food-service contracts will show up as an RFP [Request for Proposal]," says Kreiger. "And we're going to be offering in a few months, probably in April and May, two-hour procurement workshops at community centres in B.C. for 2010 opportunities, including how to respond and what's going to be important." Kreiger says he expects VANOC's procurement policies to be fair and rigorous "especially after what happened at Salt Lake City" where there were a number of procurement-related scandals.

Kreiger, who is currently touring the province's communities to promote the website to Chambers of Commerce and service groups, notes that a new procurement engine is under development for the 2010 Commerce Centre and is expected to be available soon. "We hoped to have it up now, but we've had some server problems -- what can you do? -- but we expect it to be up in a few weeks. Procurement opportunities will be posted on it as they come up. Right now, there's not too many, but as this year goes along, there will be quite a few, and next year there will be a lot, and in '08, it's going to be pretty hectic."

The 2010 Commerce Centre is a part of the B.C. Olympic Games Secretariat, a section of the provincial government set up to oversee those aspects of the Games for which the provincial government has given guarantees to the International Olympic Committee. The idea is that the Commerce Centre be a one-stop business-opportunities portal for the Games. "Our objective is to leverage the hosting of the Games," says Kreiger, "and to maximize the benefits of the Games to B.C. companies, not just up to 2010, but beyond 2010." Kreiger says the Centre mission statement calls upon it to "Inform, educate and connect companies" to opportunities connected with the Games.

The updated site will eventually display archived opportunities, and a searchable winning-bidders database. "By the middle of this year, in July, we expect to be able to deliver information about who won an opportunity, where they are and what the value of the opportunity was. So, for instance, if you want to supply the company that won the right to make the clothing for the Canadian Olympic Committee, you'll know who it was [HBC] and the value of the contract [about C$1 million]. You can do the rest; you can go after them. That's going to be really, really important for business."

Kreiger says B.C. business has an opportunity over the next five or six years, thanks to the 2010 Olympics, to shape how the world's businesses and consumers see the province's corporate sector. "We have an opportunity to market ourselves and position ourselves as something that only we can decide, so it's up to us to decide what kind of legacy we're going to leave behind. Is it going to be the fact that B.C. is a pretty place to have the Olympics? Or are they going to be saying that [BC businesses] 'are sharp and they've got a strong business community, they make quality products, they give great service and they're innovative. That's where I want to be.' It's really up to us about how we handled this."

The 2010 Commerce Centre and the BC Secretariat, says Kreiger, will also build what he calls "an unaccredited-media centre." Kreiger notes that, of the roughly 10,000 media expected to cover the 2010 Games, many will not be assigned to cover the Games, but instead will be assigned to cover what's going on around the Games, and so they won't need Olympics accreditation to get onto the Games venues. "We'll house these people, feed them, look after them -- and give them stories about B.C. communities, about sports facilities, about great B.C. companies that are doing really cool things or producing innovative products, so we'll need stories about great companies and great communities that are connected to the Olympics that we can use to tell our tale to these folks when they come here. We want to be able to give them the story material, the photographs -- to profile what we'd like them to profile about B.C. -- so they're not wandering around West Vancouver's grow-ops. That's critically important to us."

The GM says that once the site is upgraded for procurements, businesses will be able to browse by categories, such as food-services, or through a search engine that will focus results in various ways, such as date ranges, key words and categories. "As you find a procurement opportunity that you're interested in, you'll be able to click the link and get a paragraph of information about the opportunity and another link for more documents. Those will be the detailed RFPs, and to get them, you'll click through to wherever those things live. So, if they belong on BC Bid, that's where you'll click through. If they're on [the federal government's equivalent] SourceCan, we'll link you there. If they're on some company's website, we'll link you there. They're not our procurement opportunities, and so we're not hosting them, but we're aggregating all 2010 related opportunities."

Kreiger also says the Centre will bring online, in 2006, a 2010 business network. That is, he says, "a network of companies that are interested in 2010 business opportunities, on a searchable database. And, late in the year, we expect to have a physical presence -- a place where we can actually meet and do business. It'll be a place to find potential partners -- if there's an RFP you want to get, but you don't have all the pieces, you can get together through the network. It'll be a place to find suppliers or potential customers, including international businesses -- they'll be invited to take part. There are a number of companies from Salt Lake City that have Winter Games experience, and from other parts of the U.S., and they may want to make connections with B.C. companies because they don't have their feet on the ground here; they don't know the regulations here, but they'll want to do business around the Games. The database is going to give companies the opportunity enter information about themselves for others to search. There's also going to be a component that will be a virtual trade show, to allow companies to display their products on the website."

Kreiger says that when sponsors, teams and technical crews arrive in British Columbia to set up for the 2010 Winter Games, they'll likely need accounting, food services, accommodation -- "even haircuts" -- "I don't want them looking in the Yellow Pages. I want the 2010 Commerce Centre to be the place where they can find their suppliers, so it will be important for companies to put as much data as possible into the database when it comes out in the middle of this year."

Kreiger says the job of corporate British Columbia "is to figure out your company's strengths and how you can use those to participate in the opportunities related to the 2010 Games." But, he says, don't think of using the Games to make a killing during the two weeks they're on. "Use the Olympics as a springboard for your business activities; whatever your business is now. It's a great way to get more profile, and more business. You don't need to win an RFP or be an official supplier to get in on the benefits of this thing. Make it part of your business plan."

The GM says he expects most of the benefit to B.C. businesses of the Games will come through sub-contracts or suppliers to the major companies that win the main contracts and deal directly with the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC). "The biggest thing we're working on is for the sub-contractors, because we know not everybody is going to get a contract to build the speed-skating oval, but the people who do get that contact are going to need a lot of sub-contractors. As soon as one of those contracts is let, they're going to get a phone call from the 2010 Commerce Centre to try and get all of their RFPs and procurement opportunities hosted on our site."

Kreiger says that whether it's a contractor or a direct award from VANOC, "When an RFP is awarded, you'll be able to find out, roughly about a month after the RFP closes, who that company is, and then you can go after that company for opportunities to help them fulfill the deal. Bell's a great target; it's going to be buying a lot of goods and services from us. NBC, the American broadcaster for the Games, are going to arrive in '06 or '07 to do a whole bunch of background stories in B.C. They're going to send more than a thousand people to get set up for the 2010 Games. They're going to need a lot of stuff. 2010 Legacies Now has got C$39 million worth of arts programs and other programs -- those are procurement opportunities for all of us."

Kreiger says the 2010 Commerce Centre is also planning to display procurement links for the annual BC Winter and Summer Games that take place around the province, in part to give B.C. companies experience at bidding for work with similar types of events, as well as for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and other major sports events -- such as World Cup events in Kamloops, the World Junior Hockey Championships in Vancouver this December and the 2008 World Indigenous Games in Duncan on Vancouver Island, the World Police and Fire Games in 2009 -- that will take place in B.C. "We see it as our job to chase down and find all the procurement opportunities relating to those things."

Kreiger has some tips for companies bidding on 2010-related RFPs: "Complete them. Lots of companies lose out because they didn't fully complete the documentation. Offer an end-to-end solution: don't just offer to deliver materials -- offer to do all the installation and removal, too. Even if the RFP doesn't ask for that, it's still a good idea to through an option in. These guys are going to be very busy running the Olympics, and they're not going to be interested in finding extra staff or other firms to do parts of the work. And the Olympics are not a place to test new concepts or new ideas; things have to work when they're on. The Olympic organizations can't afford to take the risk of something not working. They're only going to be working with proven products and services from proven suppliers that have a strong reputation. They can't afford if it you can't deliver. Not everything is going to be RFP'd. Be careful you don't step on Olympic brands or logos.

BACKGROUND

The 2010 Commerce Centre's general manager has outlined quite a few possibilities for the new website, but there's lots of evidence that even six months after it's launch last October, it still has a lot of underlying problems. For instance, the site's search engine simply generated error messages to any request today, the procurement section reports today, "From January 24, 2005 to approximately February 15, 2005 no new procurements will be posted here due to a system upgrade," and, under the section called "Latest News", the newest report is about a contractor's meeting hosted by VANOC that happened January 20. There's also a newsletter that's supposed to be delivered monthly to those who sign up, but the last one was in December and it was the second one.

--

Kreiger says businesses will be able to sign up at the updated version of the 2010 Commerce Centre to get opportunities matching their criteria by e-mail. "People in business are busy, and they don't want to have to go and check all the opportunities on our site every day, as much as I'd like them to." He says that if companies sign up for the service, they'll be assigned a BC EID -- an electronic identification number -- if they don't already have one. "Here's a tip: when you go there -- once we get it running -- you'll have the choice of getting a MyID or a BC EID. Get the MyID, because you'll get it right away. If you sign up for a BC EID, you have to enter more information, which goes through a pretty deep verification process, and they'll mail you a personal identification number. With the MyID you can go onto the site with only a short registration process, pick business areas of primary interest, then the things will be e-mailed to you without waiting, because the site is open to everybody."

--

Jurisdictionally, the 2010 Commerce Centre is a hybrid, and its business plan is still being formulated, according to Kreiger. About half of its budget comes from the Ministry of Small Business and Economic Development and the rest from the B.C. Secretariat. "We're sort of cobbling resources toghether, borrowing people." And, when asked how much money has been spent on the website so far in this fiscal year, which comes to an end on March 31, Kreiger simply says, "I don't honestly know." And it's the same answer for the coming year: "A lot of the website development is being done on the SourceCan side in the next year. We have a contract with them, and we don't know how much the federal government is going to participate in this. By the end of this year, I imagine we'll be publishing business plans on the Secretariat website."

RESOURCES

2010 Commerce Centre website:
http://www.2010commercecentre.gov.bc.ca

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 9, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #880
ANOTHER EXECUTIVE SHAKE-UP AT TORINO WINTER GAMES; MCDONALD'S GOES ATHLETIC; PORT ALBERNI BUSINESS WORKSHOP TOMORROW

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

There's been another outbreak of executive organizational trouble at the Torino Winter Olympics in Italy. With only 11 months to go, the president of the Torino Olympics Organizing Committee (TOROC) Valentino Castellani, who nearly resigned in a huff last fall when an IOC supervisor was installed above him to oversee the Games when they had money troubles, today fired his chief executive officer, Paolo Rota, and deputy chief executive Marcello Pochettino. The Torino newspaper La Stampa reported that a bitter power struggle had been underway between Rota and Pochettino. Cesare Vaciago, Torino's city manager, has been appointed to replace Rota as the new CEO, and Luciano Barra, a former general secretary of the Italian Athletic Federation who is also an official of the Italian Olympic Committee, has been appointed as the new deputy chief executive. Barra was also part of the co-ordination commission for the Athens Olympic Games last summer. The Torino Games are 340 days from starting.
McDonald's Restaurants, which is a top-level sponsor of the International Olympic Committee and will be the exclusive fast-food category sponsor at the 2010 Winter Games, has begun rolling out a new marketing campaign based on high-performance athletics. It will be using internationally renowned Canadian hockey player and team owner, Wayne Gretzky, and American speed skater Bonnie Blair, who has five gold medals to her credit, as two of a number of celebrities that will be promoting the new theme. The theme is that of balanced, active lifestyles and McDonald's and IOC officials say it is designed to "inspire McDonald’s customers to improve their overall well-being." The approach will show up in the creative work funnelling through all of McDonald’s marketing channels around the world: television commercials, print and outdoor advertising, packaging tips, tray liners and brochures. The slogan to mark it is an elaboration of one the company's being using for a while; the new one is: “It’s what I eat and what I do … I’m lovin’ it." In most countries, McDonald’s will work with he national Olympic committees to assemble local teams of Olympic athletes, hopefuls and mothers -- athletes who are mothers themselves or a parent of an Olympic contender -- to "support and implement public-service programs, educational initiatives and sports and fitness events that focus on promoting balanced, active lifestyles in their own communities."
On the west coast of Vancouver Island, the City of Port Alberni and the city's Spirit of BC Committee are co-hosting a free sports tourism public workshop tomorrow night from 7 to 10 pm. 2010 Legacies Now and Tourism BC representatives will outline how the sport and tourism industries might work together

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 9, 2005

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #879
COC'S RICHARDSON TO RETURN TO AUSTRALIA; WHISTLER WEATHER WONDERFUL; KERMODES TO GET CITY SPIRIT

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

Brian Richardson, the man the Canadian Olympic Committee hired last summer to help guide Canada's high-performance sport to the medals podium by the 2010 Winter Olympics, will resign by April to leave the country and work for the Australians. Richardson says the decision was made so that he and his wife, Suzie, who are both from Australia, can return to help look after their aging parents. Richardson is a Olympic-medal winning rower for Canada in the last decade. He'll return to work for the Australian Institute of Sport as senior rowing coach. The COC says Richardson will be replaced.
You'll recall the immense media flap that was generated when the president of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, visited Vancouver during an unusually warm, wet snap in late January, and the questions about what VANOC would do if that kind of weather hit in 2010 seemed to be non-stop. Well, the official weather watch for this past February 12 to 28, which is the same time period as the actual games is now in and here's the verdict. If the same weather that happened then occurred in 2010, all of the downhill, super G, giant slalom, slalom, combined, biathlon, cross country skiing, Nordic combined, ski jumping, bobsleigh, luge and skeleton events would have taken place without problem. The training runs that would have been scheduled for February 12 would have been postponed for one day because of fog. Of course, that has as much validity five years from now as any other forecast. But you'll also recall that we told you last summer than Environment Canada was setting up new state-of-the-art weather stations specifically for the 2010 Games. A station is now in place at the 1,650m mark of Whistler Mountain. Visibility and snow depth observations are also recorded at the events finish areas now and the observations are taken at about the time of scheduled competitions, or at mid-day when training runs are scheduled. That location is close the beginning of the men’s and women’s downhill, giant slalom and super G races will take place. There's also a new weather station and anemometer at the finish area in Creekside, at the top of the Garbanzo Chair on Whistler, and one on Mount Waddington, a ski area on Vancouver Island. it's upstream in the weather flow to the Whistler area, and it will help improve mountain weather forecasts specifically for the Olympic Winter Games in 2010.
There are roughly 400 Kermode bears -- a white version of the common black bear -- in British Columbia, and most of them are clustered in a long strip of forest along the northwest coast of the province, which includes the northwest coastal towns of Prince Rupert, Kitimat and, particularly, Terrace. Which is why Terrace, in particular, has been hot for the concept that the Kermode bear should be the mascot for the 2010 Winter Games -- it would have an uplifting effect on Olympics tourism, and tourism in general, in the area, if such a mascot were to come to pass. The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) says, publicly, to relieve the pressure by Terrace and those who have competing ideas for mascots, that it won't be picking a mascot until 2007. Now then, also keep in mind that a B.C. charity did OK in its first year-long campaign that involved Fiberglas statues of orcas (another contender for 2010 mascot fame) last year. It turns out that another fund-raising campaign of same ilk, this one called "Spirit Bears in the City," is expected to bolt dozens of life-size Fiberglas white bear statues to Vancouver and Victoria sidewalks in May 2006, and people will be urged to lease the statues with a donation and, just like the orca campaign, the donation also gets them local artists decorating the bear shapes with designs and colours of the donor's choosing.

RESOURCES

Morgan:News:2010 archived story from last September about Environment Canada weather station plans for 2010:

"At least five sophisticated weather stations to be bought..."
http://www.morgan-news.com/2010/archives/2004_09_01_Bronze.htm
(use your browser's Find feature to look for the phrase "weather stations")

More than you ever wanted to know about the Kermode bear, from a Terrace web site:
http://www.kermode.net/terrace/spiritbear.html

A topographical map of Mount Waddington:
http://www.peakware.com/encyclopedia/peaks/maps/waddington.htm

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 8, 2005

Monday, March 07, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #878
APRIL 23 DATE TO LAUNCH VANOC LOGO; HBC TO OPEN 2010 STORES IN MORE DIVISIONS; DETAILS OF TORINO VOLUNTEER WEBSITE

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

Mark April 23 on your calendar. That's the date that the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC)'s marketing department is working toward for a major launch of the new logo that was designed last summer and fall in a controversial competition. The logo will be the cornerstone of the Games entire look and feel.
A bit of an update to earlier stories about HBC winning the "Premier" sponsorship in the new category of "Official Department Store": We had mentioned that Olympic sections of stores to sell trademarked items that will generate a royalty to VANOC would occur in these HBC's divisions: The Bay, Zellers, and Home Outfitters. Olympic sections will also be opened by November in HBC's Designer Depots and Fields stores as well. Also, HBC CEO George Heller, besides being CEO of the 1994 Victoria Commonwealth Games, which generated the connection with VANOC CEO John Furlong, is currently volunteering as the president of the Commonwealth Games Foundation of Canada.
The Torino Winter Olympics, which get underway a year from now, is running a major campaign to recruit volunteers -- VANOC will be starting its major push for signing up the 25,000 volunteers it needs in 2008, at least two years beforehand. One of the things the Italian organizers have done is set up a web site for the volunteers (it's all in Italian). Besides allowing them to sign up and get info about what TOROC needs and what volunteers have to do, the site also gives the volunteers a one-stop shop for access to photos and stories about volunteers who have already participated in the sports test events, as well as a newsletter about volunteer activities, volunteer program statistics, a video area and a calendar giving all the key volunteer dates. There's also a chat area, which will allow the volunteers to share experiences and make new friends through the volunteer program that is yet to be added. The website will also be used to help volunteers learn about the training possibilities that being an Olympic volunteer offers.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 7, 2005

Friday, March 04, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC, Business| #877
HBC C$100 MILLION SPONSORSHIP DEAL LARGELY BASED ON TRUST, NOT ECONOMICS

George Heller, president and CEO of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), says that his major sponsorship deal with the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) is largely based on his strong, personal relationship with John Furlong and that the portion of what he calls "a gentlemen's agreement' that's written down "only runs a couple of pages."

Heller and VANOC CEO John Furlong both say they are valuing the deal at about C$100 million, and they both expect it will probably work out to be much more lucrative for the Bay and much more beneficial for VANOC by the time it wraps up December 31, 2012. The deal is retroactive to January 1 but was only announced this week.

In the first detailed interview of the business and operational aspects of what is likely to be one of the largest retail deals in Canadian history, Heller and Furlong both spoke about what the deal means to them, and why it's good business for both of them that it is relatively loose and informal, considering that they are both large, sophisticated organizations with the public and investors watching them closely.

Furlong and Heller both worked on the Victoria Commonwealth Games, a large sports event, between 1991 and 1994, which Heller chaired, and Furlong says he wanted Heller and HBC to be involved with helping VANOC "in ways that will touch just about every aspect of what we're going to be doing" because Heller understood what Furlong wanted to achieve with the 2010 Games across Canada. "George Heller is one of the very few Canadians who has lived the experience we're living every day at VANOC, and to have HBC involved in every element of how we're going to organize the Games, and being able to draw upon his personal experience and his capacity is hugely important to us. We can't wait to get into the deal." For instance, Furlong says, HBC, in the submission that won VANOC's separate Request for Proposals for outfitting the 550 members of the Canadian Olympic Team going to the 2006 Winter Games in Torino, Italy, in a year, HBC included "a tremendously wise marketing component."

From Heller's side: "I ran the Victoria Commonwealth Games, so I know what John and his team are up against. When John and I sat down and talked about how long and wide the deal was going to be, he was insistent that it was going to be an ethical set of Games, and he wondered how he could control all of the products and services that come with the Olympic and VANOC marks on them. I told him, hey, we do that for a living; we can help you out. If VANOC had to come up with an international ability to audit factories, no matter where the stuff is made, they wouldn't have time to put on the Olympics. There are literally a dozen areas like that that are the basis of the relationship between HBC and VANOC. We've been involved with outfitting athletic teams since 1936, and we have a bunch of capabilities as a company, because that's what we do for our own products. John, bless his heart, is smart enough to know what he needs and goes and finds companies that have the capabilities that he needs. That's what he said to me, 'Come and work for me.' I said,'Sure. I'd love to work for you.'" Heller points out that, with the staff of the RBC-Royal Bank and Bell Canada sponsorships onside now with VANOC, and the addition of HBC's staff, "John's Army of Volunteers," as he calls it, is now 200,000 strong.

Heller told Morgan:News:2010 that the cash component of the deal is "at least C$50 million" and those funds will go directly to VANOC's operational bank account. The balance of the deal is value-in-kind, fund-raising, promotional and marketing situations. "In fact, what happens is that they gave me exclusive rights to some of their products, we gave them cash and that's an offset to their budget. If we sell a lot of the stuff, then they get more money. They'll get a guaranteed minimum. But, in this kind of deal, you can't calculate everything up front. The issue is this: the deal's worth to VANOC -- win, lose or draw -- C$100 million, and it could be worth more. The value of each part of it may change over time, because John needs what he needs and I've got to supply it. If he needs less of this and more of that, I'm not going to say to him, 'No, because the contract says...'. It's a gentlemen's agreement that has enough of a legal framework that, if I or John get hit by a truck, people aren't going to be guessing what we meant; they'll just work out the details. But you known what? John and I are going to have to work out the details yet."

But Heller says it's important to keep in mind the goodwill between himself and Furlong when valuing the overall sponsorship which is why, for instance, he can't say yet how the royalties will work on HBC's sales of branded products, nor the percentages, other than it will be the standard splits common to International Olympic Committee and Canadian Olympic Committee deals that are similar.

"We don't have precise language [in our arrangement], but what we say it that it will not be less than the percentage paid in other games in similar circumstances. We did not have a lot of lawyers doing this. It's a binding contract that we signed, and it spells things out adequately enough, but John and I trust each other. If you try to take this deal and say, 'It's a million for this and a million for that,' I have no idea what it is. I put my hand up and said, 'I'll volunteer to outfit VANOC's 25,000 volunteers with uniforms. I know John: whatever I said I was going to do, he's going to get me to do a heck of a lot more than we talked about, because he's going to ask me to do things that he's going to need help in. At the end of the day, am I going to give him a bill for stuff that I did that we didn't talk about? Of course not. The essence of a sponsorship is the relationship. Neither John nor I are bright enough to know everything that VANOC's going to need in the next five years. It started off as a handshake and, yes, we have a contract, but the obligation is not whether he owes me a $1.27 or I owe him a $1.27. It might be fun to calculate it all, but that's not what this deal is about. We are fully prepared, as a company, to say we're VANOC's supply team. Whether it's a mattress for the athlete's village or uniforms or whatever, we are basically a system of procurement that he doesn't have to understand or learn. And we're going to do procurement through a professional supply chain. I would never have done this for John or VANOC if the contract was so detailed that it calculated everything out. The contract is a couple of pages, and it says "Here's what you're going to do and here's what I'm going to do." In my Commonwealth Games, the best sponsors were the ones that said, 'Here's what we're going to do," and they lived in the spirit of it. This deal is going to cost me more than I think, and I'm going to get more benefit than John thinks."

Heller says that under the deal, HBC will set up areas inside each of the 550 stores across Canada that it controls through its various divisions -- The Bay, Zeller's and Home Outfitters -- to sell Olympic-branded merchandise, and that these stores will be open by November to catch the Christmas shopping period. The deal is structured so that the more branded products that HBC sells, the more money VANOC gets.

"There are two sets of marks [logos] that are involved," explains Heller. "One is the mark of the Canadian Olympic Team, which is [combination of] a maple leaf, an Olympic torch and the Olympic rings. Then there is the other set of marks, which is VANOC's new logo and the International Olympic Committee's logo, the rings. We only have the exclusive right to [distribute items with] the Canadian Olympic Team marks, and we can retail and wholesale them. We don't have any rights to the other marks. We have the choice of selling, or not selling, to other retailers but only [items] with the Canadian Team marks; VANOC has control over the other marks. Obviously, though, if VANOC, within their licensing categories, award items with their marks on it, the people who have those licenses will be knocking on our doors [for distribution], and other doors, too."

Heller says that working outward from the Canadian team merchandise, "We create a series of licenses and put them out to offer. Typically, we build in thresholds, and it's like an auction. So, for example, if you want the license to make ashtrays, you're bidding on those marks. Whoever buys the license, in the different license categories, can make the ashtrays with Canadian Team marks [and work with us]. What we told John [Furlong] is that, what's good for the 2010 Games is also good for us, because we paid a big buck for this. If the chaps on Robson Street [a strong retail area of Vancouver] want to sell T-shirts with the Canadian Team mark, we'll make the shirts available to them. But if anybody thinks I'm going to make them available to Wal-Mart or to Sears, no; obviously not. Why would I knock myself out and pay the money if everybody can do the same thing I can do?"

Heller says the arrangement with VANOC and the Canadian Olympic team allows HBC to sell Olympic-branded products over the Internet, so to that extent, the arrangement is international, but HBC has no stores outside of the country, and he doubts there is likely to be little interest, at least in the volume HBC would require, to sell items with the Canadian Team logo on them outside of Canada in other stores. "We want to make it available to, say, Canadians living in the United States or wherever, but it will be by the Internet. The people of a country are really interested in the marks of their country; we may find out through the Internet that there's strong interest elsewhere, but at the moment, I doubt there will be. It's not the way it works."

Heller says that the combination of the fact it is a relatively comprehensive deal between himself and John Furlong and that it is what he terms "late-breaking news" means that there are still a lot of details that the staffs of both HBC and VANOC have yet to work out. For instance, he says, HBC hasn't yet thought much about what types of merchandise will be sold in the Olympic sections of its stores. "That's till all to come. Obviously, HBC sells a ton of products. We're going to have to go through them by classification and say to ourselves, 'If we applied the Olympic team logos on to this, does that add value? Does the customer want it or not want it?'. We haven't figured that part out yet. We'll start out fitting the Canadian team, then you build for the non-athletes, whether it's outerwear, tracksuits or whatever. Beyond that, we haven't even thought of all the possibilities. We're going to have to think about the range of products that we would make available in Canada for Canadians with the Olympic marks in the run-up to 2010."

Heller also says that he can provide "an absolute guarantee" that VANOC's condition that everything that's done for the Games be "ethically correct", including that production standards of items made internationally be done to standards audited by the International Labour Organization. "We, at HBC, have taken an international leadership position on the whole issue, and whatever products bear the Olympic logos, we will make sure they're manufactured only in factories that are audited. We've outfitted teams for the Commonwealth Games several times, but there are a ton of issues." That doesn't mean that items will necessarily be made in Canada, but Heller says that if it's possible to arrange a manufacturing deal, particularly for the Canadian Team outfits, in Canada, then HBC's preference is that it be Canadian-made.

Furlong says in summing up the HBC deal, "It's an extraordinary thing that we have achieved with this company, and it's driven entirely by a desire to demonstrate what this company is about and to send a message to the country about the importance and value of sharing this with everybody, and taking a leadership role in that."

BACKGROUND

The agreement between HBC and VANOC has still not been fully revealed, but here's what else is known so far. It includes:

Approximately C$1 million in value-in-kind for each year in outfitting members of Team Canada when they go to the Olympic Games in 2006 (Winter, Torino, Italy), 2008 (Summer, Beijing, China), 2010 (Winter, Vancouver, Canada), and 2012 (Summer, city to be chosen this July). The 2006 contract calls for a range of casual and semi-formal clothing and uniforms for about 550 people, but the teams going to Summer Olympics are quite a bit larger. Based on the 2006 contract, that works out to a VIK of about $18,000 per team member.
HBC has committed to provide uniforms for the 25,000 volunteers that VANOC will need between 2007 and 2010 to test and host the Games.
HBC has committed to help VANOC fund-raise for the non-government component of the "Own the Podium" strategy to help Canadians win medals in 2010, but it is not contributing cash to the project.

RESOURCES

A critical business look at HBC, published March 2, 2005:
Bay's shopping list of excuses is of little comfort to investors
http://www.globeadvisor.com/servlet/ArticleNews/story/gam/20050302/RDECLOET02

George Heller's biography:
http://www.hbc.com/hbc/about/business/leadership/biography.asp?bid=4

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 4, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #876
IPC'S CRAVEN IN VANCOUVER, WHISTLER NEXT WEEKEND; UK'S TIMES PUMPS WHISTLER'S 2010 VENUES; NEW YORKER'S AS AMBIVALENT AS VANCOUVER'S ABOUT BID

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

International Paralympic Committee president Phil Craven will be on his way shortly to Vancouver and Whistler for a 2010 progress report and a venue tour late next week. Craven will have a look at the actual and proposed venues in Whistler on Saturday March 12 and, among other things, he will take part in a sit-ski demonstration, a part of that day's five-years-to-go ceremonies to the start of the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games. Whistler will be hosting all of the Paralympic Games. The following Monday, March 14, he'll be in Vancouver and visit BC Place Stadium, which will be the location for the Opening and Closing ceremonies for the Games.
The prestigious Times of England, in its Travel Section, today ran a feature-length article of nearly 1,000 words, extolling the virtues of Whistler as the site for the 2010 Winter Olympics. The article is written for tourists, not for business, although it talks about some of the upgrading work that the city's hotels and ski hills have undergone in the last year or so to attract tourism, and about some of the new tourist-oriented projects about to open. The article is online, here:
http://travel.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,10294-1509518,00.html
New York, which is one of the cities bidding for the 2012 Summer Olympics, is running into the same iffy support from its citizens for its bid as Vancouver's citizens did in the months before the city was awarded the 2010 Winter Olympics. In a poll commissioned by the International Olympic Committee designed to gauge public support the bids of the cities on the short list, New Yorkers had the lowest support: 59%. Vancouver citizens, before receiving the Games, were also the lowest of the contenders and they polled at 58% support at the same point in proceedings. Which is why the people behind the New York bid are today pointing at Vancouver's numbers as evidence that the relatively low support doesn't much matter. The IOC poll also showed: Madrid has 91% local support, Paris 85%, Moscow 77% and London 68%.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 4, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #875
MONTREAL FIRM WINS CONTRACT FOR LAPEL PINS FOR VANOC'S LOGO LAUNCH

A manufacturing company based in Montreal, Quebec, and which has been making sports pins for more than 20 years, has won the contract offered late last year by the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) to provide about 30,000 lapel pins of various types in hard and soft enamel, in colour as well as in pewter, in connection with the launch of VANOC's new logo in late April.

The bid was won by Executive Promotions Inc., which is well known in the Canadian sport-marketing industry for such products. VANOC was supposed to have provided the initial artwork for the pins' design on a confidential basis to the vendor last January 24, but the bid was only just awarded.

Executive Promotions president Toby Glickman says he doesn't expect to get the logo artwork for another couple of weeks yet, and VANOC still has to make some decisions on how they are to be made, although Glickman confirms they will be in a Montreal facility. A run that size, he says, would take less than two weeks to make.

Executive Promotions already provides a range of items with logos -- coffee mugs, glasses, key chains, coasters, pins and other keepsakes -- for the Canadian Olympic Committee, as well as a number of other major licensing programs, such as for the National Hockey League, Hockey Canada, the Canadian Football League and the National Basketball Association. However, only lapel pins of various types were in this current contract.

Glickman says that in other Olympic orders, most of the product has gone for distribution to sponsors or other stakeholders, not made available to the public. Glickman says there is no distribution built into his agreement, although he has told VANOC that he is interested in an on-going license to produce the pins and related material, and he's been told there's only one address in his agreement for delivery of the pins.

RESOURCES

Toby Glickman
President
Ext.: 206
< mailto:toby@execprom.com >

Anita Chandan
VP Sales and Marketing
Ext.: 213
< mailto:anita@execprom.com >

Executive Promotions Inc.
#7 Ronald Drive,
Montréal West, QC,
Canada H4X 1M9
Tel: (514) 939.6475
Toll Free: 1.800.263.3932
Fax: (514) 939.3594
Toll Free Fax: 1.800.939.3594
Web: http://www.execprom.com/eng/corporate/

Here's a look at the catalogue of materials Executive Promotions provides for the Canadian Olympic Committee:
http://www.execprom.com/eng/licensed_to_play/COC/COC-main.html

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 4, 2005

Thursday, March 03, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #874
NEW BC SIGNS TO MARK 2010; BELL'S TELECOM CONCEPTS FOCUS ON IP; WHISTLER TO CHECK OUT PARK CITY IN JUNE

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

The provincial government is to erect at least 13 gateway signs at the major entry points for British Columbia as part of its tourism campaign, and the signs are expected to note the province will be hosting the 2010 Winter Games. The minister of Small Business, John Les, who is responsible for both B.C.'s interests in the Games, says the signage will be part of a deliberate increase in tourism marketing, in part related to the Games. The signs will be on major routes, at main airports and on some secondary routes entering the province.
The Whistler Chamber of Commerce breakfast meeting this week at the Whistler Java in the Summit Lodge, hosted by the Whistler Home Builders Association, featured Norm Silins, Bell Canada’s Telecom Solutions general manager, who told the pleased crowd that the company's 2010 sponsorship will require "an unprecedented infrastructure" to be built from Whistler to Vancouver "that will greatly enhance the service levels" in the area, but that the firm would also use as much of the existing infrastructure as possible as well. Bell says that support will be for both wireless and wire technology, based entirely on an Internet-protocol architecture. The IP infrastructure, which he says will reduce cabling demands, will support voice, data, the Internet, private radio systems, security systems and wireless for both cell phones and computers. He said about 7,000 headsets will be needed, about 2,000 handsets for such things as mundane as traffic control, and there will be on the order 5,500 flat-screen TVs throughout the venues, connected by a 50-channel community TV system. Silins expects that a general contractor will be hired to do the work, and local firms would be able to compete for aspects of the work. Bell is now a member of the Whistler Chamber of Commerce.
The Whistler Chamber is organizing a business tour to Park City, Utah, which was host of parts of the 2002 Winter Olympics, for briefings by various officials on a variety of topics about how to prepare for the Games. The main work days will be on Sunday, June 5 and Monday, June 6. The Sunday briefings will be at the Sundance Resort, where officials will talk about how the area became a cultural tourist centre. They'll also here from officials of Heber City, which was the location of the cross-country skiing venue about how that worked. The following day, they'll be briefed by Park City's city manager, Tom Bakaly and its Director of Public Affairs, Myles Rademan about how they saw the Olympics develop and the effect on the city.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 3, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #873
WINNER OF 2012 OLYMPICS TO BE A WAKE-UP CALL; BIDDERS FOR 2014 WINTER GAMES KNOWN JULY 28; VANCOUVER TOURISM LEVIES TO FOLLOW 2010 GAMES

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

The announcement about which city will win the 2012 Summer Olympics -- which will affect the marketing plans of the major sponsors of the 2010 Winter Games and will have several other ripple effects in Vancouver as well -- will be made at 7:30 pm in the Raffles City Convention Centre Ballroom in downtown Singapore by the International Olympic Committee on Wednesday, July 6. That's 4:30 in the morning in Vancouver, 7:30 am in eastern Canada. The cities in the running: Paris, New York, Moscow, London and Madrid. The major sponsors of the 2010 Games all have marketing and logo-usage rights that run through to the end of 2012, and Bell-CTV has the Canadian rights to broadcast the 2012 Games. In addition, organizers of the successful city will be coming to Vancouver to observe how the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) is running its Games.
The deadline for cities to submit bids to the International Olympic Committee for the 2014 Winter Games -- the Winter Olympics that follow the 2010 Games -- has been set for July 28. The IOC will select the host for those Games in 2007; the winner will take part in VANOC's closing ceremonies as well as sending teams to Vancouver to observe the preparations and operations of the 2010 Games. The cities of Ostersund and Are in Sweden are considering bids, as is Salzburg, Austria; Pyeongchang, South Korea; Sofia, Bulgaria; and Harbin, China.
An experienced business writer for The Georgia Straight, a Vancouver newspaper mainly known for its coverage of the city's culture, has written a lengthy article about the new downtown Vancouver Trade & Convention Centre expansion, which will have VANOC's International Broadcast Centre as its prime tenant during the last half of 2009 and the first quarter of 2010. The article primarily discusses whether the convention centre will work operationally. There are a couple of tidbits in the story that deal with the 2010 Olympics, however. The B.C. government last year approved legislation allowing Tourism Vancouver to collect fees from the tourism industry to partially pay for the C$565 million structure, and there was some concern that such fees would be implemented to catch the tourism wave created by the 2010 Games. But reporter Charlie Smith quotes Rick Antonson, president and CEO of Tourism Vancouver, as saying that the organization, in the first part of a three-phase process to introduce the new fee, but told Smith that the payments start “ramping up” after the 2010 Winter Games. Smith also interviewed Heywood Sanders, a professor of public administration at the University of Texas in San Antonio, who wrote about the convention centre industry for the Washington-D.C.-based Brookings Institute think tank. Smith quotes Sanders as saying, “As in Atlanta, part of the logic of having an Olympics is all of the sudden you get a higher level of government involved spending lots of public capital dollars for buildings. I mean, the Olympics ceased being about sports a long time ago. If you look at Athens, for example, or you look at Sydney or you look at Atlanta, these are about large-scale building projects.” Vancouver 2010's major projects in the city are all renovations, however, and VANOC is simply renting the 390,000 square feet of convention space it needs for the International Broadcast Centre.

RESOURCES

The full article by Charlie Smith in the Georgia Straight:
http://www.straight.com/content.cfm?id=8450

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 3, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Torino| #872
BROADCASTERS OF ITALY'S WINTER GAMES GET FOUR-DAY BRIEFING ON COVERAGE TO COME

Detailed planning is underway for the 900 hours of Olympic Games programming expected to be broadcast around the world of the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Torino, Italy next February. And, according to figures presented at the Second World Broadcaster meeting in that city. The coverage of every competition during the Games will be transmitted to an global audience of more than three billion. By comparison, Bell-CTV's Canadian coverage of the 2010 Winter Games alone is expected to total 1,767 hours.

The Torino Olympic Broadcasting Organisation (TOBO) -- set up as a division of TOROC, which is Italy's equivalent to the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee -- is in charge of producing and distributing the radio and television signals for the 2006 Games. TOBO is also in charge of planning and organizing the International Broadcast Centre, co-ordinating and supplying equipment and services to rights-holders, such as sponsors, at the competition venues, and is in charge of creating an archive of Games images from Torino 2006. These images will then be managed by the Olympic Television Archive Bureau, the IOC’s official Olympic television archive.

The structure of how broadcasting is controlled differs in every Olympics. TOBO will supervise about 1,500 production personnel -- directors, cameramen, video and sound technicians, switchers and the like to produce and control the broadcast. And about 400 trained university students are volunteering to help the professional staff. The technology that is now being put in place for the Games includes 400 television cameras, 150 video recorders, 30 mobile-production units and 700 running-commentary units. In Vancouver, VANOC will oversee the broadcasting crews from several major networks -- NBC, the European Broadcasting Union and CTV -- plus the Olympics, which is moving toward supplying crews at every Games to provide that control, will also have its own broadcasting centre to feed other international networks.

The main venue for the crews will be the 32,000-square metre International Broadcast Centre, which will receive the images of the Games from the TV cameras through fibre-optic cables. In Vancouver, the IBC is expected to be in the newly expanded Vancouver Trade & Convention Centre, now under construction and scheduled to be open in 2008. In Italy, the images will be transmitted digitally and transferred at speeds reaching 270 megabytes per second. However, certain events will be produced in high definition and this will mean an moving 1.5 terabytes per second. This should ensure that the rights-holding broadcasters will be able to give the global viewing public the best pictures, in the best quality, from, potentially, one of the best seats in the house.

About 160 representatives of 70 rights-holding television and radio broadcasters heard about the status of the planning during the four days of the Second World Broadcaster meetings in Torino this week. The major broadcaster groups included NBC, Canada's CBC (CTV isn't a rights-holder until the 2010 Games), the EBU, the Asian Broadcasting Union, Channel 7 in Australia, the Korea Pool, JC of Japan, OTI of South America and TVNZ of New Zealand. The meetings also covered details about operating conditions and logistics during the pre-Games, Games and post-Games periods.

RESOURCES

Olympic Television Archive Bureau:
http://www.otab.com

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 3, 2005

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #871
TORINO CLOTHING CONTRACT, HBC SPONSORSHIP BID "TWO SEPARATE DEALS", ACCORDING TO SHAW

It wasn't long before sharp questions were being asked, particularly by Roots Canada, about how the Hudson's Bay Company ended up with the clothing contract for the Canadian Olympics Team that's going to the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy. The announcement about the contract was included along with an announcement that HBC had won VANOC's retail-distributor sponsorship category with a bid valued by VANOC at C$100 million.

Roots says it was told, "in no uncertain terms" according to senior executives, that it was to make an offer for just the Vancouver 2010 Organizing Committee's December Request for Proposal, which was limited to the Torino clothing and luggage, even though it was prepared to go farther. That brought into question the sanctity of VANOC's public bidding process.

But the vice-president of Sponsorships for VANOC, Andrea Shaw says tonight that, "There were two very separate agreements -- the RFP for the Torino clothing and the completely separate negotiations for the sponsorship."

Shaw says that the bids of the 12 proponents for the RFP were evaluated by a six-person committee made up of VANOC and Canadian Olympic Committee representatives, and the vote for HBC was unanimous, with one person abstaining. The abstention was the senior vice-president of Revenue, Marketing and Communications, Dave Cobb, who was acting as an advisor to the committee. "Dave Cobb did not vote," confirms Shaw.

She says the value of the Torino deal was "just over C$1 million" in value-in-kind; HBC agreed to design and produce the clothing and luggage, and will eventually sell it to the public through Olympic store fronts that will open in time for this year's Christmas season.

Shaw declined to provide the cash value of the sponsorship bid, saying that HBC officials had asked VANOC not to break out the split between cash and value-in-kind and other considerations for the time being. She said, however, that there was no specific amount slated for the "Own The Podium" program, although the agreement will have HBC work on fund-raising programs for it.

Shaw says that she and her department will be "taking a breather", but negotiations continue strongly now on three top-level Canadian sponsorship categories: Home Improvement, Oil & Gas, and Automotive. The Airlines category, she indicated, is some distance down the road.

Here are the specifics for the Torino contract, per the RFP:

There are minimum quantities of 500 required for team use unless otherwise noted: For usual wear - coats, pants, shirts, sweaters, long underwear, boots, scarves, hats and gloves, with 1,000 pairs of socks. For podium wear: ski-type pants and jackets, touques and headbands. Semi-formal wear for functions and events: shirts, pants, skirts, shoes, belts, jackets. For around the athlete's village: long- and short-sleeved T-shirts -- a thousand of each type -- track suits, fleece jackets and ball caps; travel wear: pants, shirts. Luggage: a duffle-bag style with wheels, a backpack and a fanny pack.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 2, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #870
FORMAL PROCESS BEGINS TO SELECT FIRST CONTRACTORS FOR WHISTLER SLIDING CENTRE, WHISTLER NORDIC CENTRE

Right on schedule, VANOC has begun the formal selection process for the package of work this year that will clear the way for about C$100 million worth of construction work in the Whistler area for its two major venues, the Whistler Sliding Centre and the Nordic Competition Venue.

The Nordic Centre will eventually see construction in the Callaghan Valley, approximately 18km from the Whistler town centre, of the K125 and K98 ski jumps -- the numbers represent the length of the jump for skiers -- plus a cross-country stadium and associated ski trails, and a biathlon stadium and its ski trails.

But the ground for both venues has to be cleared first, and that's the package of work that's being offered for this construction season, which wraps up in the fall.

VANOC has issued requests for companies interested in being on the short-list for firms that will get the full package of necessary information that will allow them to formally bid on ground preparation work.

Here's the latest on the status of the Nordic Centre: The Project Definition Report by Sandwell is almost complete. Trail mapping, "ground truthing," venue sites, conceptual design and preliminary road-upgrade plans have been completed.

Here's the current status of the WSC: The venue and track design are being finalized and talks with Intrawest, the Resort Municipality of Whistler and various other stakeholders are still underway. Stage 2 of the environmental assessment process has begun, with VANOC now expecting the necessary environmental approvals by May 1, a couple of months later than originally planned. Environmental approvals for the Nordic Centre are expected by the end of this month, which is essentially on time.

An assessment of potential environmental effects resulting from the development, operation and post-Games use of the proposed venues and infrastructure has also been completed.

Additionally, a hydrologic assessment, geotechnical review, site-specific preliminary environmental impact assessment, archaeological impact assessment, and two aboriginal Traditional Use studies have already been completed for both venues. There are strong traditional ties to the Callaghan Valley for both the Squamish and Lil’Wat aboriginal bands. The archaeological-impact assessment indicated no necessity for any archaeological protection in the areas. The Squamish aboriginal “Wild Spirit” sacred place is outside of the proposed Nordic Centre area for developments.

NORDIC CENTRE WORK THIS YEAR:

In the case of the Nordic Centre, the tender is to be issued on April 28. The contract is to be awarded by May 26 and work on this first package is to begin no later than June 9. VANOC and Sandwell Engineering, which has been working on the Nordic Centre's design the past few months, will jointly evaluate the companies expressing an interest, and will shortlist them.

The Nordic work package for this year, once it's offered, is to include construction of:

The site's access roads for both the general public and accredited Olympic athletes, officials and security
Installation of bridges for stream, road and trail crossings
Environmental-mitigation work, such as storm-water drainage
Construction of several compounds for spectator and athlete use as well as for security, parking, operations, maintenance, etc.
Sediment and erosion control:
-- Stream protection
-- Site drainage and water management
-- Debris handling, and
Site preparation for the ski jumps.

The clearing and grubbing work involves 750,000 square metres, site stripping (250,000 cubic metres, aggregate production of about 200,000 cubic metres, seven kilometres of road-building; earth-moving, including importing material and its placement of 350,000 cubic metres; 300,000 cubic metres of blasting and rock excavation, and 100,000 cubic metres of material to be moved in preparation for the ski-jump facility.

WHISTLER SLIDING CENTRE WORK THIS YEAR:

The WSC work is going to be broken into four tenders:

Tender 1 Tree clearing, grubbing & site preparation:
-- Tender to be issued by March 21 and to close by April 15, with the award made by May 4. The work is to start by May 19 and finish by the end of July.
Tender 2 Roadwork and on-site utilities:
-- Tender to be issued by April 11 and to close by May 6, with the award made by May 13. The work is to start by June 6 and finish before the snow flies in the fall.
Tender 3 Track, refrigeration plant & building:
-- Tender to be issued by June 13 and to close by July 8, with the award made by July 15. The work is to start by August 2 and finish in the fall.
Tender 4 Buildings and civil works (the award and work dates haven't yet been determined). This is to include construction of a reservoir and booster-pump station, buildings for the Men’s Start, Women’s Start, Junior Start, Control Tower, Weigh House, Track Operations and Guest Services. It will also include site lighting and landscaping.

As for the tree clearing, grubbing & site preparation work: VANOC says the tree-clearing plan is designed to minimize the number of trees to be removed, and to preserve trees and bushes, where possible. The engineers have set up a limits of disturbance area (LOD) to show the limits of grading work, with a minimum amount of room to construct stacked rock walls and drainage. The LOD and tree clearing for instance, follows the alignment of the Mountain Access Road, preserving trees between curves and switchbacks. The LOD also attempts to preserve larges trees between the existing ski runs to the east and Mountain Access Road curves. A similar LOD process will be used for the Snow Cat Access Trail and on the spur road to the track-service buildings. The entire area of tree clearing, including the Mountain Access Road is approximately 13.5 hectares.

VANOC says the site clearing will be conducted as a logging operation. Log deck areas and equipment staging will be located near the bottom of the track area. Logging will move uphill from there. Logs will be skidded downhill to the deck area via a skid road, bladed from the clearing area top to bottom. The engineers say the use of the existing work road is possible in some locations. A separate skid road won't be allowed to log the Mountain Access Road, to minimize the environmental impact.

Grubbing of the area will be conducted normally, but slash and other woody debris will have to be buried, not burned, and some woody material will be salvaged and chipped for use as mulch during revegetation. Topsoil will be salvaged and stockpiled for when the area is revegetated.

The Mountain Access Road will be big enough to accommodate a semi-trailer travelling at 15 kilometres per hour. It'll also be fairly steep: 12% grades along straight-aways and 8% at switchbacks. One section will be a 15% to 17% grade, from the Women’s Double to the Men’s start area. The Track Access Road is designed to so that maintenance and repair vehicles can reach all points along the track, but it will also be used for pedestrian and emergency access during training, competition and games time. It's going to be even steeper: It follows the track, so it its grade will be up to 20%. The new Snow Cat Access Trail will have grades up to 35%.

There's also going to be a new skier access trail constructed, from the existing adjacent ski run to Whistler's Gearjammer to Village ski-out base area.

BACKGROUND

The Whistler Sliding Centre site is at Blackcomb Mountain, above the Excalibur Base II station, on a bench next to the Lower Gear Jammer ski run. This is an area within the existing ski area boundary and is currently used for recreation and maintenance storage as well as road access to Blackcomb Skiing mountain operations.

The WSC track will be a combined bobsleigh, luge and skeleton track with up to 1,660 metres of refrigerated track. It will extend from an elevation of approximately 930 metres to 785 metres, with a series of banked curves and straight-aways.

The completed project consists of land preparation and construction and/or installation of:

New roads and parking lot improvements
Track, including track weather protection, lighting, generator back-up power system
A refrigeration plant and piping systems
Athlete and recreational support facilities
A secure partially fenced site
Site servicing (sewage, water, power and communications)
Various facilities, including start houses, sport and track operation buildings, weigh house, control tower, maintenance facility, provision for the Olympic Overlay in 2009
Spectator access provisions and amenities.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 2, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #869
SH-H-H-H.... A COUPLE OF SIGNS NEEDED... DON'T TELL ANYBODY...

There's more preparation work underway at the VANOC in connection with the official unveiling of the still-secret logo for the 2010 Games. And, in keeping with the stealth aspect to the grand unveiling of the logo toward the end of April, a big deal is being made of the preparation work.

VANOC has begun a two-stage process to select a supplier to produce emblem signage for VANOC's two offices: the Vancouver headquarters and its Whistler office. The new signs -- it looks like there will be a grand total of two -- will feature the new VANOC Olympic Winter Games Emblem and wordmarks. One of the signs will be at the entrance to VANOC's downtown headquarters, on the wall behind the receptionist, while the other one will be above the door of VANOC'S chalet-style building in Whistler.

In this first phase of the procurement process, VANOC has issued a Requests for Expressions of Interest so VANOC can evaluate a supplier’s expertise. The EOI document itself runs 15 pages.

From the response to the EOI, will be drafted a short-list of six firms which will be invited to submit a proposal for the signage in April. They'll then have to include samples of the firm's creative work.

Qualified suppliers, in this first EOI stage, have to demonstrate, "specific and significant experience with the creative design and production of office-and-building signage."

But nobody actually gets to see the shape or dimension of the logo -- on which, of course, the ultimate signs will be based -- until all of the following occur:

The EOI and the subsequent RFP processes, including selection of a supplier, are completed and, "The selected supplier executes a supplier-confidentiality agreement, and also presents a strategy acceptable to VANOC on mitigating the risk of any disclosure or leak of information regarding the content, colours or description of the emblem."

Procurement manager Jim Bornholdt reports about the headquarters location, "The dimensions of the wall space available for use are approximately 110”x77”. We are looking for a high impact, creative design in this space that reflects the organization’s clean and modern design aesthetic. Use of glass, metal and other composite materials are welcome." The current logo, which is in portrait format, occupies about a quarter of the wall space. At the Whistler Information office, Bornholdt adds, "The dimensions needed are approximately 3’x3 ’ and the design aesthetic required is more natural, but still modern and progressive in keeping with the design tradition of the area that features the frequent use of wood, stone and metal." In short, it's a small square sign above a door that can be seen from the street.

The schedule: the deadline for written applications for the EOI is March 17. Evaluation of the written applications is to be done by March 21. The distribution of RFP to the short list is to be done by March 24 and the selection of the official supplier is to be made by April 15. At which point, "VANOC will work collaboratively with the successful applicant to create signage that is reflective of VANOC’s organizational image and look."

If the standard VANOC contract is offered the eventual winner of the project, it'll contain a gag clause: they likely won't be able to tell anybody they're a supplier to VANOC.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 2, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #868
VANCOUVER APPROVES PLAN THAT INCLUDES 2010 ATHLETES VILLAGE; HUDSON'S BAY DEAL CURLS; 2010 LEGACIESNOW INDEPENDENCE CLARIFIED

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

The City of Vancouver last night finally approved the Official Development Plan for the area of Vancouver that includes in its centre the Vancouver Athletes Village for the 2010 Winter Olympics. The Village, paid for by VANOC, is to be built by the City as part of its redevelopment of the south-east side of False Creek, the last section of the former industrial area in the heart of the City to be converted from old warehouses and other abandoned buildings. The ODP was originally to have been approved last summer, according to scheduling documents prepared by the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) in 2003, and then again, last September. But that deadline morphed into late December, which also came and went as Vancouver's city council, with an eye to a much more extensive, expensive and greener development that will ultimately surround the Village and its legacy use as apartment buildings, asked for extensive and on-going changes to the layout of the various developments. The next step in the process is detailed planning for the first phase, which is the Athlete's Village. That planning has to occur before the City can formally tell VANOC the property is ready for the Village, and VANOC requires this notification to occur by the end of April for its own scheduling. City planning staff knew they weren't going to officially have the amount of time they needed to do that planning work, so, even though they were supposed to wait for the ODP to be approved before starting on it, they have been working on the first-phase planning in the background in an effort to make VANOC's deadline. By the way, there's word the City will likely spend about C$30 million between now and 2010 to eliminate the possibility of raw sewage occasionally overflowing into four storm sewers that empty into False Creek, where south-east Creek coliform station counts hit the stratosphere following heavy rainfalls as sewage sewers overflow into the rainwater sewers. Apparently three of the four storm sewers will be protected by 2010, but fixing the fourth will take longer, according to city engineers.
VANOC's marketing department and the marketing department of whatever is the newest sponsor to sign on love to do a media event for the TV news cameras. In these situations, adults who would not normally be caught doing goofy things in private get to do them in public, often in front of their own employees, just to break up the apparent monotony of talking heads during TV newscasts and thus to pad out the amount of time a TV newscast will spend on their story. This morning's announcement about the Hudson's Bay Company's retail-distributor sponsorship with VANOC was no exception. The chief executive officer of Canada's oldest department store, George Heller of the Hudson's Bay Company, VANOC CEO John Furlong and Chris Rudge of the Canadian Olympic Committee joined 1998 Olympic silver medallist, George Karrys, in, of all things, a curling demonstration in downtown Toronto, while Canadian freestyle aerialists demonstrated their skills by doing trampoline training while wearing full winter equipment. It is also apparent that the announcement was not meant for western Canadian TV cameras. Word of the event was sent out by VANOC's communications director, Sam Corea, at 5:27 am Pacific for a news conference that took place three hours later. There just aren't that many reporters on the west coast who even know the whereabouts of their lattes at 8:30 in the morning. When a bleary-eyed reporter suggested to VANOC's new vice-president of Communications, Renee Smith-Valade, that such a sequence might actually be an abuse of the PR process, she noted, via her Blackberry, "That's life...".
Here's a clarification to an aspect of a story we ran yesterday about 2010 LegaciesNow and its summer-camp subsidy program -- '2010 LegaciesNow pilot project to subsidize arts & recreation school summer camps in BC' [Morgan:News:2010:Number:865; Published on Tuesday, March 1, 2005]. We mentioned that "2010 LegaciesNow... is the joint program of the VANOC and the B.C. government". The director of Communications for 2010 LegaciesNow Society writes to say that 2010 LegaciesNow was established during the bid phase by both VANOC and the provincial government, but it has since become an independent society. "Like other societies, we have an independent board of directors and have no direct reporting relationships to either VANOC or government."

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 2, 2005

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #867
HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY SIGNS C$100 MILLION, EIGHT-YEAR, RETAIL DISTRIBUTION SPONSORSHIP

The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee and the Canadian Olympic Committee, in another blockbuster sponsorship deal, today announced that the Hudson's Bay Company have also reached an eight-year sponsorship deal valued by VANOC at more than C$100 million that expires on December 31, 2012, making the firm the third top-level category sponsor in Canada for VANOC.

The highlights:

HBC is the official clothing and luggage supplier to the Canadian Olympic Teams for the 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2012 Olympic Games. With HBC as the new official supplier of the Canadian Olympic Team uniforms for the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Torino, Italy, long-time Olympic supplier Roots Canada has been eliminated from the competition as the Canadian team's Olympic clothing until at least the winter games of 2014.
HBC is the exclusive department store and general merchandise retailer for VANOC in Canada until 2012;
HBC will be the official clothing supplier to the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Volunteers;
HBC will also develop exclusive Olympic merchandise that will be available in official Olympic shops that will be built in virtually all 550 of HBC's stores across Canada by this November. These include its big divisions: the Bay, Zellers, Home Outfitters, Designer Depot and Fields.
HBC has also committed to support Canada's winter and summer athletes through fundraising efforts beyond the guaranteed commitment.
There will be a host of yet-to-be decided merchandise, marketing and service concepts that HBC will provide in its role as a national partner to VANOC in the hosting of the 2010 Games.

An evaluation committee of VANOC and the COC chose HBC for the clothing contract after reviewing submissions from 12 companies, including Roots, that responded to a request for proposals that was issued in December. Merchandise experts were consulted in the process. The commercial terms of the agreement were not immediately disclosed.

Roots Canada Marketing manager Rich Patterson confirmed last month that his firm was optimistic after submitting a bid for the Team Canada uniforms, although he admitted to being "a little freaked out" when he heard about the size of the Bell Canada sponsorship bid for the 2010 telecommunications category, which VANOC valued at a record-breaking C$200 million.

But Roots, which made its name as the little-company-that-could by designing eye-catching clothing for the Canadian Olympic team for years was not even mentioned when the announcement was made. "We are delighted to be working with HBC which has a long tradition of supporting Canadian sport and athletes," said John Furlong, VANOC CEO of HBC, which is Canada's oldest company.

"Athletes work tirelessly to earn a spot on the Olympic team and to wear Canada's team uniform at the Olympic Games," said Chris Rudge, the COC's CEO. "We welcome HBC back to the Olympic family and look forward to working with them to create a clothing package that athletes will wear with pride and that reflects Canada's passion for Olympic sport."

The last time HBC outfitted a Canadian Olympic team was from 1936 to 1968. However, it has had a relationship with Canada's Commonwealth Games for the 2002 and 2006 Commonwealth teams as their official uniform designer and supplier, and it makes clothing for minor league soccer and hockey teams across Canada. George Heller, President and CEO, HBC, adds, "We are fully committed to supporting the hopes and dreams of Canada's amateur athletes."

The clothing package for Canada's 2006 Olympic Winter Games Team will include parade, podium and event wear such as coats, jackets, sweaters, shirts, pants, shoes, touques, scarves and gloves. HBC will also supply luggage for the team, which was also part of the bid request.

HBC designers, with input from as-yet-unidentified "world-class design partners," according to VANOC spokesman Sam Corea, will develop the Team Canada uniforms, but Corea also confirmed that Canadian athletes, as per the terms of the bid package, will have input into the design and development of the clothing and luggage.

BACKGROUND

The Hudson's Bay Company, established in 1670 to sell beaver pelts and other furs to England, is Canada's largest department store retailer and oldest corporation. The Company provides Canadians with a selection of goods and services available through retail channels that include 550 stores in several divisions: The Bay, Zellers and Home Outfitters. Hudson's Bay Company is also one of Canada's largest employers with 70,000 staff, and has operations in every province in Canada.

RESOURCES

The Hudson's Bay Company
http://www.HBC.com

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 2, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #866
PORT MOODY CONSULTING FIRM TO STUDY WHISTLER TRAFFIC PATTERNS

A 12-year-old consulting firm from Port Moody, a city just east of Vancouver, has been awarded a contract to provide detailed baseline studies of Whistler's traffic patterns for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC), and has already begun work.

Creative Transportation Solutions Ltd. will be advising VANOC on how people and goods move in the area on a daily basis until the end of March, which corresponds to the time in 2010 when the Olympic and Paralympic Games will be held there.

The study is to particularly look at the flow in, through and around Whistler of commercial vehicles moving goods, the use of non-public parking lots and pedestrian flows, the flow of commercial vehicles and goods into and around the Creekside and Function Junction areas near Whistler, and the flow of such goods between Function Junction, which is south of Whistler, and Pemberton, the village to the north of Whistler. The Function Junction area is near where the Whistler Athletes Village and Whistler Olympic Broadcast Centre are to be built.

The new information, which is to be made available to VANOC by March 28, will be incorporated into a final report that will also include a review of existing traffic-pattern and parking-lot usage studies done of the area for other purposes by Whistler and by the provincial government's Ministry of Transportation, which is responsible for highway and major secondary road planning and use.

RESOURCES

Jan O. Voss, PEng, PTOE
President, Creative Transportation Solutions Ltd.
202 - 2615A St. Johns Street,
Port Moody, BC, V3H 2B5
Phone: 604.936.6190
fax: 604-936-6175
E-mail: < mailto:jvoss@cts-bc.com >

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 1, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #865
2010 LEGACIESNOW PILOT PROJECT TO SUBSIDIZE ARTS & RECREATION SCHOOL SUMMER CAMPS IN BC

2010 LegaciesNow says it is offering subsidy grants of up to C$5,000 each in a pilot project for B.C. schools or school districts that provide summer camps for kids this July and August that bring sport and recreation instructors or local artists "into direct contact with schools, teachers and students."

The concept is related to the 2010 Winter Games as part of the general promise to the International Olympic Committee by the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) and the B.C. government to provide cultural and sport opportunities to the public as part of the lead-up to 2010.

But applicants have to move fast for a bureaucracy -- the application deadline is the end of this month because of the timing of the provincial government's fiscal year -- and there's a batch of conditions and paperwork that needs to be done in connection with the program, which is called "Explorations." The program is funded by the B.C. Ministry of Education and 2010 LegaciesNow, which is the joint program of the VANOC and the B.C. government.

The program, according to guidelines from 2010 LegaciesNow, is "designed to provide quality summer experiences for students" from kindergarten to Grade 7 in arts -- such as dance, drama, music and the visual arts -- sport and recreation -- such as the SportFit program or what's known as "Foundation Movement Instruction" -- or both.

The program requires that each camp be made up of between 20 and 25 students, have two qualified camp leaders -- a camp co-ordinator, and either an arts specialist or sport & recreation instructor, who have to go through the standard criminal check -- and at least of two camp assistants, which can be high-school students who can use the program as credit toward their work credits.

School facilities for the Explorations summer camps have to be provided by the applicant school or school district although "specialized facilities" can also be used for the camps. In addition, each camp must be at least two weeks long and run for the full day. Camps of one week or half-day camps are also eligible but they will only be eligible for a partial grant. The applicants must also show that their students "currently have few opportunities to receive quality experiences in arts or sport & recreation due to issues of access -- geographically remote from existing resources and opportunities -- and/or equity -- other barriers to existing resources and opportunities. 2010 LegaciesNow says that priority will be given to schools where both access and equity issues exist.

Applicants also have to submit detailed budgets by the end of May if their application is approved, and they have to write up an evaluation report on the program by the end of September.

There are some marketing opportunities -- once applicants are approved, they're allowed to promote the camps from May 5 to June 30 to students and their community.

BACKGROUND

Who's eligible, according to the program guidelines:

Camp Coordinators have to be teachers in K-7 or individuals designated by the appropriate parks & recreation commission or similar community agency and approved by the school district of the applicant school.

Arts Specialists:

Artists who have completed training in their discipline, who maintain a professional practice and who display or present their work through recognized professional organizations
Arts specialist educators who have completed BCCT-approved training in their discipline, maintain a valid certificate and are employed by a school district

Sport & Recreation Instructors:

Sport and recreation instructors approved by the local parks & recreation authority, applicable sport-specific Provincial Sport Organization or Level 1-certified coaches of the Pacific Sport Group Regional Centre
Physical education teachers who have completed BCCT-approved training in their discipline, maintain a valid certificate and are employed by a school district

RESOURCES

Program application guidelines in PDF format:
http://www.2010legaciesnow.com/pdf/explorations_guidelines.pdf

Program application forms in PDF format:
http://www.2010legaciesnow.com/pdf/explorations_app.pdf

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 1, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #864
BELL CANADA OPENS UP SEVERAL SENIOR POSITIONS TO SUPERVISE 2010 TELCOM SPONSORSHIP

Bell Canada has finally begun the work of restructuring itself to supervise its big telecommunications sponsorship that it reached with the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) five months ago.

The company is setting up three new senior-management positions: one is to be based in Vancouver, one to be based at its Montreal headquarters and both to report to a new company vice-president, also apparently based in Quebec. The sponsorship, valued at C$200 million by VANOC, includes providing all of the telecommunications work and equipment to run the 2010 Games; C$90 million in cash over the eight years of the agreement, and significant marketing support, as well as a wide range of other concepts, some of which have not even been roughed out. The sponsorship agreement, reached by special agreement between VANOC, the International Olympic Committee and Bell last October, began January 1 and runs until December 31, 2012.

The Director of Olympic Partnership, based in Vancouver, is to be responsible for directing and executing the sponsorship and related business activities of Bell's sponsorship. The new Director will have senior responsibility for western Canada. The second position will carry the title of Director of Olympic Partnership and will have similar responsibilities for eastern Canada. This person is expected to be based in Bell's head office in Quebec.

Both positions report to a new Vice President of Olympic Partnership, who will, in turn, report to the Vice President of Bell's Corporate Sponsorship team. Bell has nine people at the vice-presidential level, not including these positions.

The mandate of both Director positions, particularly for the Vancouver-based job, will be to maintain day-to-day contact with VANOC on all the sponsorship, marketing, communications and related activities that affect Bell. They'll also be asked to ensure that "all channels of internal and external communications related to the Olympic Partnership are active, consistent and effective," according to the job documentation which appears to be written primarily with the Vancouver position in mind.

In addition, the new Directors are to "help develop and execute" a strategy for implementing Bell's working relationship with VANOC during the 2006 Winter Games in Torino, Italy a year from now, for the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, Vancouver's 2010 Winter Games and the 2012 Summer Games, the host city of which is to be announced by the IOC in July. That will include helping to develop and participate in the hospitality programs all of those Games, and to represent Bell with all of the major stakeholders of the Olympic Games, both locally and nationally, which includes the national, federal and provincial governments, the municipal governments of Vancouver and Whistler, aboriginal bands involved with the 2010 Games and, ultimately the national and regional governments of whatever city hosts the 2012 Games.

The "critical and essential" job qualifications for the positions include dealing with corporate sponsorships at a middle management to senior management senior level, having a "passion for the Olympics and sports in general", and, as for the Vancouver position, either already living in the city or being prepared to locate to it. Bell says that although it will accept Canadian or international applications for the jobs, it would prefer to hire the people internally or from a company contracted to one of Bell's operations, since that would make the person knowledgeable about the operation of Bell and its various departments.

Bell expects to have hired the new Directors by the middle of this month.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on March 1, 2005

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