Morgan:News:2010:Bronze Edition: September 2005

Friday, September 30, 2005

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Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #1205
RONA STARTS DISCUSSIONS WITH VANOC ON HOW COMPANY WILL PROVIDE AID TO 2010

Rona, the renovations sponsor, and officials of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) have started meeting about the pragmatic shape the company's C$68-million sponsorship will take.

The company's sponsorship was announced last spring.

Russ Jones, the Vancouver-area manager in charge of Olympic arrangements for Rona, says the discussions involved a preliminary look at the company's support of part of the 2010 Whistler complex. "We have dedicated out of our [sponsorship] funds C$16 million specifically for the Athletes Centre. The Resort Municipality of Whistler is the developer of the Centre, and my understanding is that they are working on their plans. Rona will be a major sponsor of one of the buildings." The municipal government has set up the Whistler 2020 Development Corporation, with its own board of directors and staff, to deliver the Village, which is the core part of a much bigger, longer-term housing development.

Robert Dutton, Rona's president, who took part in a part of the discussions, says "One of the reasons why we're there is because it is for the athletes. That's our priority."

Jones says it was his understanding, going into the talks, that "we should be in construction in 2007."

Jones says that part of the meetings in the last two weeks have involved getting VANOC set up so that it can begin drawing down on the portion of the sponsorship devoted to providing renovation materials from Rona stores.

Jones says VANOC will be set up on the accounting side as normal, though large, customer. "Yes, we'll have them set up in our systems just like a big construction company, and we'll deal with them out of our Commercial Accounts division."

Jones says there are different funds allocated out of the sponsorship umbrella for various VANOC projects, "and I believe the large share of the [drawdown] will be between 2007 and 2010, right up to the final, temporary structures that are being built as part of the Olympics overlay. We'll be very involved in the overlay."

Jones says there are some interesting aspects to Rona's side of the project that is being discussed right from the start. "One of the unique components of the overlay is the sustainability factor. We're really driving for some of those materials to use them in a way that we'll be able to reuse them in some kind of a legacy project. We'll take care of them right from the time the materials are procured, to the assembly. For example, we might use screws [during assembly] so that they can be taken out afterward, and we're not dealing with a lot of nails and dangerous materials; that sort of thing. It will make it easier to recycle them, knowing that we or VANOC will use them in some sort of legacy project."

Going into the discussions, Jones wasn't sure about whether Rona would be involved in the decommissioning part of the Olympic overlay and temporary structures, which would take part in March, April and May of 2010. "That's yet to be determined at this point. We'll be working with VANOC; I just don't know how far they want us to go, yet, but certainly we'll assist VANOC with a lot of the logistics of the overlay."

Dutton says he's impressed with the VANOC team. "The people there are very, very nice, and very efficient. I'm very confident."

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1204

Here are three more moguls we ran into today:

NORTHERN TRUST FUNDS 2010-RELATED FIRST PROJECT

The board of directors of the Northern Development Initiative Trust in Prince George have approved the first project to receive funding, and it will help support 2010. The Village of Valemount, in the BC Rockies southeast of Prince George, will receive C$345,300 as a repayable grant to help it build the Valemount Gateway Visitors Information Centre. The facility will include an Interpretive Centre to promote the themes of Spirit of 2010, and host a permanent multimedia show about the 2010 Olympics. The C$135-million Trust was set up by the BC Liberal government in 2004 from part of the funds received for disposing of BC Rail. The full mandate of the Trust is to "strategic investments" in forestry, transportation, tourism, mining, energy, 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games opportunities, small business and sustainable economic development."

CHILLIWACK NIXES MINI-STORAGE IN FIGHT TO DRAW 2010 TOURISM
The City government in Chilliwack, just off the Trans-Canada Highway in the Fraser Valley east of Vancouver, has blocked development of a mini-storage facility on an odd-shaped piece of property at the main exit from the highway to the city. It did so because city councillors were convinced that property should be used as gateway to draw 2010 tourists into the city, and a mini-storage would isn't the kind of thing they think would do the trick. City councillor Mark Andersen is working with a committee to create something in the area that will draw tourists off the freeway and into the community; one of the ideas is a "15-foot replica of Mount Cheam," a local mountain. Andersen suggests every Fraser Valley community by 2010 will be "battling to get those tourists" to help local businesses.

10-33
Psst! Yeah, you. I've just infiltrated your earpiece, so just listen; I've got a 10-14 for you. You have a Top Secret Security Clearance from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. You have a background in critical-incident command. You have expertise in figuring out "vulnerabilities" in issues that might "challenge" security forces during a major event. After that messy business back east, you are wondering what to do with your time for the next few years. Just say "10-4" if I'm right so far. OK. The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) has just the job for you: Director of Security Liaison. You'll be responsible for co-ordinating and communicating security issues between VANOC and the Vancouver Integrated Security Unit (VISU), which looks after all the security planning across police and military agencies. Of course, you'll also have to be able to decode VANOC bureau-speak, such as the part of your job description that says: "Utilize creative and innovative thinking in applying principles, theories and concepts to a wide range of problems to contribute to long-term strategies between VANOC FA’s and VISU. Develop or engage others in developing conceptual solutions to complex, non-routine problems and issues that may impact the entire project or a significant portion." FAs? Functional Areas. You have until Wednesday to send VANOC your resume and salary expectations, but you already know the background of the person who'll receive it, right? That's a big 10-15. And, hey, let's do a 10-98 after you get the job, OK? Over.

RESOURCES
RCMP 10 code list
http://www.securityprofessionalssite.com/rcmp10codes.asp

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1203

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

NEW MANAGING DIRECTOR TO SUPERVISE WIDE RANGE OF VILLAGE DEVELOPMENT AND PROCUREMENT

The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) expects to have in place in the next two or three weeks a Managing Director in charge of the two Athlete Villages and a range of related accommodation. The new Manager of Villages and Accommodation will be responsible for supervising all the planning, as well as the delivery of operations and services of the Village. This involves the capital developments, but also the temporary portions that will be used only for the delivery of the Olympics, such as security and accreditation. The City of Vancouver's process for building its Athletes Village is in the early but intense planning stages now, and the Whistler Village is at roughly the same stage, but not quite as far along. There is a third, unheralded 'village' that the new manager will supervise. They'll work with the 2010 Accommodations Department to ensure the development of the so-called "media village." The media villages portion of the job involves finding, contracting and managing accommodation and related services in the Sea to Sky corridor between Vancouver and Whistler. VANOC has promised the International Olympic Committee that it would find 1,500 temporary media beds. VANOC has to manage the allocation, collection, payment and disposition of these rooms "in a manner that meets hosting obligations and objectives, limits VANOC's financial exposure, and promotes Vancouver, Squamish and Whistler as desirable destinations for repeat visitations." The job also involves procuring and managing contracts for operations and services "to ensure delivery of agreed athlete and media experiences in the Villages."

NBC COLOURS MARKETING PROGRAM FOR US PROMOTION OF 2006 WINTER GAMES
NBC, the American television network that will be broadcasting the Torino 2006 Winter Olympics and, later, the 2010 Winter Games is part of a deal to promote this coming February's Games and the US teams that will be a part of it. The key is distribution throughout America of a colouring book with pictures of all the winter sports that will be at the Games. In the case of the US Olympic Ski Team, for instance, the back page of the book is a pre-addressed fan letter to the athletes of the US Ski Team and US Snowboarding Team. In addition, the US National Ski Areas Association, an industry group, will ask each of its 326 member resorts to create a banner supporting the US teams or individual athletes. The banners will be sent to Torino and presented to American athletes. Photos will be taken of various parts of the promotion and e-mailed to resorts for distribution to local media, staff, and guests in time for display during the NBC Olympic broadcast. The promotion also includes a US Ski Team Day on Saturday, Feb. 11, in which participating resorts nationwide can show their support of the U.S. Ski Team through various activities. The Torino Games will be held February 10-26.

LOGAN LAKE EYES CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING SUPPORT FOR 2010
The announcement this week of a five-year extension to the life of Cominco's Highland Valley Copper mine at Logan Lake, near Kamloops, could have a 2010 ripple effect. The additional lifespan means five more years of the mine generating healthy taxes and economic activity, and Logan Lake expects to be debt-free early next year. That means, according to mayor Ella Brown, may allow investment into cross-country ski-training facilities for Olympic teams, for example. "I'd like to raise the level of the projects we're doing to another level," she's quoted as saying, "Let's look at the 2010 Olympics as an example."

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

Thursday, September 29, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1202

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

WHISTLER WASTEWATER UPGRADE PROJECT PROMPTED BY 2010

The Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) wants to beef up its sewage treatment plant by 2008 -- a project that is expected to cost more than C$26 million -- because of increased housing pressure due to the 2010 Olympics, and to eliminate, um, smells. Community planning in Whistler is performed using “bed units.” For various reasons, the RMOW had a bed-unit cap of 55,000, but when it and Vancouver won the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, the bed cap was seen as being more restrictive than it should be, so it's currently being reviewed, and, according to a planner, "will likely increase by approximately 6,500 bed units over a fifteen-year period." As well, the treatment plant is not far from the intersection where the Whistler Nordic Centre access road meets Highway 99. As the planner puts it, "Odours from a number of process areas continue to be a problem. With encroaching development and the forthcoming 2010 Olympics, the RMOW has committed to a program of reducing odour to an acceptable limit." In addition, the quality of the plant's discharge water into the nearby Chekamus River, has "exceeded" its cleanliness criteria "from time to time," a situation not in keeping with VANOC's environmental-quality promises to the International Olympic Committee. Whistler only has about C$20 million set aside for the capital cost of the project, and it knows that the C$26 million cost, estimated in 2003, doesn't reflect the recent price surge in rebar/cement construction projects in western Canada. It still wants to own the facility, but it thinks it might be able to do business with a company that is willing to finance the balance of the capital cost, and accept cash-flow payments during the upgraded plant's operation.

MORE DEMOGRAPHICS OF TORINO WINTER OLYMPIC VOLUNTEERS RELEASED
Here's some more data, released today, on the volunteers that the Torino Organizing Committee chose for interviews and training to take part in the 2006 Winter Olympics, which start in February. The formal application process began in January 2004 and ended last July 31; the Torino Organizing Committee, TOROC says it will need about 25,000 volunteers to stage the Games. A little more than 41,000 filled out applications to take part. Of these, 27,000 have been given their first interview and have been involved in the training courses. 20,000 will be working to stage the Games, which include the Olympics and Paralympics, and 5,500 will be helping to put on the Opening and Closing Ceremonies. Those 41,000 applicants are 55% men, 63% of the total applicants are between the ages of 18 and 35. About 75% are well educated; 55% have diplomas from senior schools and 25% are university graduates. About 18% of the applicants are between 36 and 54 years old, and 19% are over 55. Among the young people, there is a high level of foreign-language fluency: 85% know at least one language beyond their own, and 51% know two or more. More than 22,000 of them, 57%, live in Torino and its neighbouring valleys; 27% come from the rest of Italy and 16% from abroad, mostly from the alpine countries, including Canada. The volunteers who are chosen will be working mostly in transportation (22%), in sports (14%) and in spectator services (13%). About 56% of the volunteers chosen will be assigned to jobs in the city of Torino, and about 44% in the mountains. They'll be given a uniform that won't be for sale to the general public, designed in the colours of the Italian Games: a red, grey and yellow anorak (a waterproof jacket with a hood), a red and yellow sweater, a long-sleeved T-shirt, a pair of padded trousers, a woollen cap, a pair of snow gloves and a rucksack. The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) has said it will need about 25,000 volunteers as well.

ALPINE CANADA SIGNS UP SEVERAL CORPORATE SPONSORS
Alpine Canada has been signing up a batch of new corporate sponsors in the last little while. The latest is Inniskillen, the wine-maker from Niagara Falls, Ontario, which says it will support Canada’s governing body for ski racing through cash and "in-kind contributions" aimed at enhancing, among other things, nationwide “Towards the Podium” fundraising dinners. Yesterday it signed Mt. Kirby Skis and Boards, of Oshawa, Whitby, and Peterborough Ontario. It's a two-year deal, as is Inniskillen's. Also a new sponsor: Oberson, which sells specialized sporting goods in Montreal, Québec through two large stores. Oberson, for its part, gets to sell goods with Alpine Canada's logo on them, and it will be given access to the technical knowledge of the Canadian Alpine Ski Team in ski-boots adjustments and skis maintenance. Alpine Canada official retail sponsors already include Tommy & Lefebvre, Sporting Life, Snowcovers, Wild Willies, Monod Sports and Ski Cellar Snowboard. In total, they contribute more than C$100,000 to Canada’s ski racing professional and development levels.

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

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1201
DEADLINES FOR 2010 LIVE SITES COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM APPLICATIONS EXTENDED

The BC government has reset the deadline to give B.C. communities more time to apply to its 2010 Olympic Paralympic Lives Sites program.

BC's Economic Development minister, Colin Hansen, who is now the BC minister responsible for BC's aspects of the 2010 Winter Games, made the announcement at the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention that is underway this week in Vancouver.

“Communities have told us they recognize the important economic impact the Games will have on the province and expressed an interest in having a larger window of opportunity to apply for legacy funding,” said Hansen. “Today we are giving more communities the chance to establish a legacy from the 2010 Games.”

The deadline for applications to the C$20-million program has been extended to March 31, 2007 and the deadline for completing projects has been extended to March 31, 2008.

The Live Sites program, which got underway last November, provides up to C$330,000 in funding for projects in communities outside of Greater Vancouver and beyond the Whistler-Squamish corridor. So far, 50 projects in the province have received a total of C$7.96 million in funding from the B.C. government. Much of that was announced during the run-up to last spring's provincial election and was conditional on legislation approving the funding be passed by BC Legislature during this fall's sitting, which is now underway.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |IOC
VANOC| #1200
2010 CHIEF TELLS 2014 PROPONENTS THAT LEARNING AND LOCAL PARTNERSHIPS KEY TO SUCCESSFUL BID

2010's CEO, who was also the former president and chief operating officer of the Vancouver 2010 Bid Corporation, has told representatives of the seven applicant cities for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games that their organizing committee’s structure and its partnership with public authorities is important.

John Furlong, CEO of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC), made the comments earlier today during a briefing seminar for the 2014 proponents in the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Furlong said that he was speaking from experience, saying, “We came here [to meet the IOC] thinking we knew everything, but we didn’t know anything at all.” And, he told the proponents, it was this realization that was one of the factors that contributed to Vancouver 2010 becoming what he called 'a learning organization right from the outset."

He also emphasized the importance of learning from the Olympic movement because, he said, "if you learn and you create a strong legacy from the bid, then, even if you don’t win, you will at least have created a strong project that will help your country in years to come." And he added, “Only one city will go home a champion, but everyone wants to go home a winner.”

He also spoke about the importance of the relationship between the organizing committee and the public authorities of a host country. Furlong used the example of the Multi Party Agreement (MPA) that Vancouver 2010 set up with all of their local public authority partners -- including the Government of Canada, the Province of British Columbia, the City of Vancouver and the Resort Municipality of Whistler. Furlong told the group this "critical document" was a key success factor for the organizing committee in bringing the Games to Vancouver, because it guaranteed the unity and partnership between all the principal stakeholder groups in Canada, and laid the ground for a smooth transition from bid committee to organizing committee.

The close cooperation, he said, “created an environment where every partner was respectful for the legacies of the other.” The concept of legacy is an important element of every Olympic Games, as the IOC has emphasized with its Olympic Games Study Commission report, he said.

Furlong described how legacy and sustainability are at VANOC’s foundation, not simply in terms of construction and venues but also in terms of the social impacts that the Games will have on people. Staff working for VANOC, for example, work under the fundamental principal that they are “contributing to nation-building, and contributing to something important to their country.”

The seven cities are still in the early preparations of their bid, and the meeting, called by the IOC to last four days, is designed to provide background and experience to the process, and they'll hear from other Games organizers as well. A decision on which city will be awarded the Games, which are the ones that follow 2010's, will be made in 2007.

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

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #1199
RONA CEO SAYS SPONSORSHIP OF 2010 GAMES DONE FOR ITS VALUE AS A ROLE MODEL TO YOUNG EMPLOYEES

The president and CEO of 2010 Olympic Games sponsor Robert Dutton says the business rationale for supporting the Games wasn't his prime motivator for being a sponsor: it was just something he really wanted to do for his employees.

Dutton, who works at the company's headquarters in Quebec, says that over the years, he's had the chance to talk to a lot of young people about his job, their careers and their work at Rona stores. Now, Dutton, for the first time, explains why he ensured his company became involved in the Games with a C$68-million sponsorship deal reached last spring; a deal which includes about C$38 million that will go towards development of an "Athletes' Centre" in Whistler. In his own words:

"I realized that lots of young people don't have a chance to have a dream. They don't have a chance to say, 'What can I do in my life?' They don't have a [role] model. I was upset with myself, and I asked myself, 'What can I do?' Well, I can create jobs in Canada, and I want young people to have interesting jobs in Canada. And we have to give young people a model.

"When my marketing people came to me with the possibility of working with the 2010 Olympics, I was excited about the fact that we could put it in our stores as a model. Athletes are role models. For two, three, five, 10 years, they train themselves for one or two minutes of specific competition. They can win, they can lose, but they have strong values. They are models of courage and determination, and that's why, for me, [the 2010 Winter Games are] a huge opportunity to give to my 22,000 employees in our stores a model than can inspire them and help them to have a dream.

"When they told me that I was going to meet John Furlong [CEO of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC)] in Vancouver, I thought his ego was going to be huge. But the guy is fantastic. I was impressed with the values of this guy, the dream he has, the fact they don't want them to be BC's Games or Vancouver's Games, he wants them to be Canada's Games. He wants to be sure that all parts of Canada are going to be involved in the success of the Winter Games in 2010.

"It was those two factors that encouraged me to participate in [the sponsorship arrangement with VANOC]. It was not only a question of business. I'm sure that if you are a good company, with social participation, you are going to have success, but that's the reason why we are with the Olympics."

The home-renovations supplier has about C$4 billion in annual revenues, and operates a network of 530 franchised, affiliated or corporate stores of various sizes and formats throughout the country. In addition to the Athlete Centre funding, Rona will contribute C$22 million towards VANOC's own logistical and materials-support as the 2010 group begins its renovations of several venues in the Greater Vancouver area, and C$8 million will go toward support and sponsorship of the Canadian Olympic teams that will be going to the next four Olympic Games: 2006 in Torino, Italy next February, the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver and Whistler, and the 2012 Summer Games in London, England.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 27, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1198

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

USER SATISFACTION REPORTED AVERAGE FOR LEED BUILDINGS, SAYS NEW STUDY

The 2010 Winter Olympics construction policy is to build the Vancouver and Whistler Athlete Villages and some venues to LEED Silver standards, but a new California study shows user satisfaction with LEED buildings is no better than average, particularly in light and sound factors. The first consistently performed study of satisfaction, "Occupant Satisfaction with LEED Buildings--A First Glimpse", was done by the University of California at Berkeley’s Center for the Built Environment (CBE), and its first, admittedly preliminary, results show that in the 13 LEED-built projects of 180 buildings in the CBE's database, "Occupants rate the air quality and thermal comfort of their LEED buildings quite highly, but feel mixed about the lighting and are generally dissatisfied with the acoustics. Interestingly, occupants gave their 'overall building' a higher rating than they gave their 'overall workspace.' But even that's not much. Five of the 13 buildings got good overall reviews, while the others were deemed average at best. In the workspace category, seven of the LEED buildings were rated as average. For lighting, seven of the 13 rated poor to average, while all 13 projects rated poor to average in acoustics -- and users across the board are not all that happy with building acoustics at the best of times. The CBE said the acoustic issues had to do with sound, usually people talking, carrying across the open spaces that such buildings tend to have. The CBE concedes that "occupant satisfaction isn’t easy to measure, and good data is hard to come by." The 180 projects, the study notes, are weighted toward US government office buildings for various reasons, but there are a range of complexes included. Further details of the study are to be released in November.

VANOC BRIEFS 2014 GAMES DELEGATES
VANOC CEO John Furlong is on the agenda of a four-day series of briefing meetings at the headquarters for the International Olympics Committee in Lausanne, Swizterland, which got underway today. The seminar is for prospective cities vying for the 2014 Winter Olympics: Almaty, Kazakhstan; Borjomi, Georgia; Jaca, Spain; PyeongChang, South Korea; Salzburg, Austria; Sochi, Russia and Sofia, Bulgaria. Furlong and his 2010 group will be discussing lessons learned during the 2010 bidding process, as part of the IOC's formal Transfer of Knowledge program. IOC president Jacque Rogge, who opened the meeting today told the proponents' representatives to develop a strict focus as they prepare their bids, such as "managing the cost and complexity of the games; putting athletes and sport at the heart of your bid; and on focusing on technical excellence, not on things which are not essential." The cities have until February to reply to a formal IOC questionnaire. The IOC executive board will meet next June to decide whether to accept all the bids or create a short list. The host city will be selected by the full IOC delegates in Guatemala in July 2007.

CANADIAN WOMEN'S HOCKEY TEAM MEMBERS FUNDED TO 2010
There's been some additional funding provided to the Canadian Women's Hockey team in the time leading up to the 2010 Winter Olympics. Hockey Canada reports that Dan O'Neill, who stepped down from the presidency of the huge brewing firm, Molson, has donated C$500,000 to the Canadian Hockey Foundation. The Foundation, in turn, will use it to provide C$5,000 to each woman hockey player named to Canada's final roster of major international tournaments, starting with those named to the 2006 Winter Olympics, which is to be held in Torino, Italy, in February. About 27 women, training in Calgary, are eligible at the moment. Further donations will be made to those named in future championships between then and the 2010 Games in Vancouver. Molson, as a corporation, has donated to the Canadian Women's Hockey team in the past.

RESOURCES

Here is the CBE's distribution chart showing how 13 LEED buildings, which are circled, fared in user satisfaction against 180 non-LEED buildings. (The designation "CBF" stands for a particular project highlighted in another CBE study):
http://www.buildinggreen.com/articleimages/1406/LEED_chart.jpg

More detailed information is available in a PDF (870kb) of a presentation done by the CBE:
http://www.cbe.berkeley.edu/research/pdf_files/ULI_June2005.pdf

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 27, 2005

Monday, September 26, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1197
2010 LEGACIES NOW LAUNCHES WEBSITE TO RECRUIT A MILLION CANADIAN VOLUNTEERS BY 2012

2010 Legacies Now, a non-profit society, has launched an Internet-based registration system on a website for volunteers, and it says it has a target of registering one million Canadians on VolWeb.ca by 2012.

The website will initially connect volunteers across British Columbia with organizers planning sporting and community events such as the Grey Cup Canadian football championship, the World Junior Hockey Championships in Vancouver this December, and the annual Hyack Community Festival in New Westminster. Part of the concept is to help develop a volunteer base experienced in hosting large sporting events prior to volunteers being recruited for the 2010 Games. About 25,000 volunteers are expected to be needed for the Games themselves.

The new program was unveiled at the launch of Volunteers Now, part of a plan by 2010 Legacies Now to develop Canada's volunteer sector for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, but also to expand it into a legacy program following the Games.

As part of the registration process, volunteers must agree to a 4,411-word legal agreement that, among other things, absolves 2010 Legacies Now of any problems or issues associated with using the site to volunteer, including a discussion of how personal information is handled and the fact that the organization isn't necessarily responsible for vetting an organization seeking volunteers. Besides providing the information to those seeking volunteers, the agreement says LegaciesNow might also provide it, with some protections, to "to its affiliates, agents, suppliers and service providers."

The program, called “Everyone has a Gift to Give”, was publicized this morning at Richmond City Hall and included the Linda Reid, BC's minister of state for Early Childhood Development, Marion Lay, the president and CEO of 2010 Legacies Now, the member of the BC legislature for Richmond-Steveston John Yap, and a director the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC), Charmaine Crooks.

Lay says the website, "will help capture the enthusiasm and excitement people have about the numerous events coming to British Columbia and Canada over the next few years.”

The launch promotion previewed the web site, which was developed by Volunteers Now in partnership with Volunteer BC, Sport Web Canada, and other volunteer organizations, to attract and place volunteers.

Olga Ilich, who is BC's minister of Tourism, Sports and the Arts as well as an MLA for Richmond Centre, says, “Volunteering is such an important part of B.C.’s high quality of life, both as it benefits the community and as it benefits the volunteers themselves. With major events like Grey Cup and the World Junior Hockey Championships fast approaching, there are more opportunities than ever for British Columbians to share their time and talent." She added that the website would "make the process of matching organizers and interested volunteers so much easier.”

Crooks, a five-time Olympic athlete who is also titled "Honourary Ambassador" for the Volunteers Now program, says that, “As an Olympic athlete, I fully understand the important role volunteers play in helping to make community and sporting events a great success. With the overall rate of volunteerism on the decline throughout Canada, VolWeb.ca will play a crucial role in helping to reverse that trend over the long-term.”

RESOURCES

The 2010 Volunteers website:
http://www.volweb.ca

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 26, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1196
BC ADDS ANOTHER C$3 MILLION TO 2010-RELATED ABORIGINAL CENTRE IN WHISTLER

The BC government has decided to double to C$6 million its support for the Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre in Whistler, partly the outcome of an arrangement to gain support of the Squamish and Lil'wat aboriginal groups for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

That appears to bring the amount of financial support for the complex, budgeted at C$19 million, to at least C$13.7 million (we are still checking this, due to the wording of funding documents as it may be up to C$16.7 million). It also makes the BC government the single largest contributor to the project. In 2003 the Squamish and Lil’wat aboriginal bands received C$3 million in provincial "economic measures" funding and C$4.7 million from the federal government for the development of the centre. And, as part of its sponsorship arrangement with the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC), Bell Canada said last spring that it would contribute C$3 million to the funding. VANOC itself is not funding any aspect of the project, and it's not part of VANOC's list of venues.

Three of VANOC's major venues are to be built on land claimed by the two aboriginal groups. The announcement today stems from a Mutual Letter of Understanding written by VANOC on February 2 and co-signed by the bands, in which VANOC makes a list of promises. One of those was that it would continue advocating for "more support" for the Squamish-Lil'wat Cultural Centre. The promises were in exchange for the Squamish and Lil'wat giving their approval on a required environmental certificate, for the start of construction, then imminent, of the Whistler Nordic Centre and the Whistler Sliding Centre, and for agreeing to set up separate negotiations about the extended trail system of the Nordic Centre.

The centre is scheduled to open in the summer of 2007 and, so far, is being built solely by aboriginal companies, including New Haven Construction, a firm 51% owned by the Squamish band. Lumber is being provided, and the foundation work is being done by aboriginal firms as well.

BC Premier Gordon Campbell announced the decision alongside Jack Poole, chairman of the VANOC Board of Directors, Squamish chief Gibby Jacob, who is also a director of VANOC, Lil’wat chief Leonard Andrew, and representatives from Bell Canada and the acting mayor of Whistler at a ceremony marking the start of the facility's construction. The participants signed a scroll about the project, and placed it in a tube in the building's cornerstone.

Campbell says, "This project, which is already bringing jobs to this area, will be a permanent Olympic legacy. This centre will be a first-of-its-kind cultural tourism attraction, promoting understanding across cultures and across generations." Poole says the centre is the outgrowth of "a new respect and appreciation for the contributions" of aboriginal groups in BC, adding, "We are proud to have played our role to create this legacy," which he called "a great addition to 2010, and for many years to come." Linda Oglov, Bell Canada's vice-president of Olympic Planning for Bell Canada, says the centre, "is going to be about connecting people, which is something that Bell does every day."

Located on 1.6 hectares of leased provincial Crown land in Whistler’s Upper Village, the Centre will promote aboriginal cultures in British Columbia, Canada and internationally.

A permanent display area will contain Squamish and Lil’wat cultural and heritage materials; another display area will offer visiting collections. The entire project will be a main building of about 2,600 square metres (28,000 square feet) and a so-called "eco-tour" building about 220 square metres (2,400 square feet). The building will act as a ‘doorway to the forest’ and is being constructed to qualify for certification under the Canada Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program.

The project will provide approximately 45 full-time jobs over the construction period, an estimated 20 permanent jobs once it's in operation, and 20 part-time jobs during the peak tourism months, according to planners.

Recognizing the 2010 Winter Games will take place in the shared territories of the Squamish and Lil’wat Nations, the provincial government, the Vancouver 2010 Bid Corporation, and the Squamish and Lil’wat Nations signed a Shared Legacies agreement in November 2002. The agreement includes land for economic development, a skills and training project and a naming and recognition project.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 26, 2005

Friday, September 23, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Government, VANOC| #1195
2010 WHISTLER ATHLETE VILLAGE'S INITIAL PLANS SHOW DEVELOPMENT, CONSTRUCTION TIMING TO BE TIGHT

The resort municipality of Whistler and the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) have released their first outline of how the 2010 Whistler Athlete Village is to be developed.

The development, in a general sense, is be built in a similar way to how VANOC is dealing with the Vancouver Athlete Village: VANOC and Whistler Council have agreed that Council will look after the planning and development of the Village according to some general and specific guidelines provided by VANOC, along with some specific timelines and the promised funding of the construction of the Village and related areas.

The funding of C$46 million is made up of C$26 million that will be provided to Whistler for the project, while an additional C$13.5 million is allocated for a proposed Athlete Centre, which is to accommodate up to 500 athletes in Whistler for training or competition, is also proposed as a permanent structure. The remainder is C$6.5 million for aboriginal housing.

The 2010 Village is to be constructed, as best possible, so that it can be used for resident housing after the 2010 Games are finished. Whistler is responsible for the overall integration of the Village into its short- and long-term requirements for the wider area, and much of the draft plan is focused on that entire location, not just the Village.

And, just as it's done with Vancouver, VANOC will take possession of the constructed Whistler Athlete Village by August 31, 2009, install VANOC's overlay requirements -- security, medical and commercial services, primarily -- use it for the duration of the Games, and then, once it removes its overlay by May 31, 2010, the village will be turned over to Whistler for continuation of the residential area.

There are some differences. Vancouver has decided to set up a neighbourhood development office as part of the city bureaucracy that will develop the southeast False Creek 2010 village as part of a much larger urban renewal project. That bureaucracy will hire consultants, architects, engineers and a developer as needed to deal with the aspects of that project. That's the same model Vancouver used for development of other parts of the False Creek area over the past three decades.

Whistler, on the other hand, has set up a stand-alone development company under the Business Corporations Act of BC, the Whistler 2020 Development Corporation, with a board of directors that's heavy on business people with real estate experience but with municipal and VANOC staff as well, to oversee its project. It's job is to do the planning, figure out the financing and then develop the Village and deal with it after the Games are gone. To help it do that, it's hired a firm from Vancouver, Ekistics, which is working with the Whistler firm of Brent Harley Associates, as the primary consultants responsible for preparing the master plan and getting the necessary municipal approvals. A company called Squirell & Associates has been hired to oversee the financial aspects.

The Village is to be located on the south side of the municipality and, if you're coming to Whistler from Vancouver on the Sea-to-Sky highway, you'll encounter it a few minutes after you pass the turnoff to VANOC's Whistler Nordic Centre and a few minutes before you arrive at Whistler. It'll be located across from the Function Junction neighborhood, and has the Whistler Interpretive Forest -- a joint project of the municipality, the BC government's Ministry of Forests and Western Forest Products, a forest company -- and the Cheakamus River adjacent to it. It is 10 kilometers from Whistler Village and 12 kms from the Nordic Centre in Callaghan Valley.

The Village is planned to be about 30 hectares (75 acres) on the 300-acre parcel of land that's been donated to Whistler by the BC government, with about one million square feet of development, half of that allocated to 478 units of Olympic housing. It is to house about 2,800 athletes, including support staff. Since the 2010 Paralympics will take place entirely at Whistler -- assuming the controversial sledge-hockey arena is built there -- so the entire area is to be designed to be accessible for these athletes.

There are five main components and these are the same as the Vancouver Athlete Village: a residential zone, an international zone that will have a security fence between it and the residential area during the Games, a transport mall, a main catering facility, and an operations-support area. There will also be facilities for teams, a "multi-faith religious centre," medical clinics, recreation facilities, some retail space -- Internet cafes, dry-cleaning and that sort of thing -- a 24-hour catering operation, some areas set aside for VANOC's warehousing requirements to support the Village, a drivers' lounge for the busses that will be used to take athletes between the Village and the Games venues in the Whistler area, plus some office space, support space and the Village media centre, which will be used for interviews and anchor desks.

The Village will be in use by VANOC for only two months. The media centre is expected to open for business on January 15, 2010 as an estimated 5,000 reporters and technical people arrive to set up their equipment and begin their commentaries on the area for an audience estimated to be just over two billion people around the world.

The Village itself will open on February 5, 2010, for about 3,000 Olympic athletes and their supporting staff from about 80 countries. The opening ceremony for the 2010 Games is set for February 12, and the closing ceremony on February 28 and the Village will be temporarily closed on March 3 while workers prepare it for the Paralympic athletes. The 1,700 Paralympic athletes and their supporting officials from 40 countries will start to arrive at the Village on March 6. The opening ceremony for the Paralympic Games is scheduled for March 12, 2010, and the closing ceremony on March 21. The village will close permanently on March 24, and the Olympic overlay will be removed over the next two months.

Site servicing and architectural design will begin shortly, as adoption of the planning and the required zoning aspects for the whole area, along with an official Canadian environmental assessment review that began earlier this year, will occur by March. Construction, which can't start until the environmental review certificate is issued, is expected to start next spring, and it's expected to take two years to be completed. The village, like the one in Vancouver, is to be built to at least a LEED Silver environmental standard and it's proposed that it focus on other environmentally desirable aspects, such as alternate ways of using or recovering energy. The location is near the site of a Whistler garbage land fill that is due to be closed in November, and the soils in some of the areas are quite contaminated, according to studies done by the Cascade Environmental Resource Group, but there are significant contamination issues at the site of the Vancouver Village as well.

Engineering consultant and the principal of Keen Concepts, Jennifer Sanguinetti, says the Village will need 4.3 million kilowatt-hours of energy per year, with a peak demand of 2.6 million kilowatts in the dead of winter. She's whittled the energy-use options to seven for the Village, ranging from expensive bio-mass plants -- the ones that are likely to be touted as providing environmental "leadership"-- to much less expensive, but ordinary electrical baseboard heating using the local BC Hydro power grid. Option 5, which involves using landfill-generated methane with natural gas from a Terasen pipeline, seems the most likely compromise between price and "leadership."

It looks like Function Junction will be the access to the Village from Highway 99, but for security and servicing purposes, there will also be a secondary road, which appears to involve a second bridge over the nearby Cheakamus River, built to the Village and it's not yet decided whether that road will be made permanent. Traffic will loop through the Village and then back out to the highway again, with quite a bit of pedestrian orientation within the Village itself.

There's still lots of fact-finding work to do.Consultants are currently working on a housing-needs assessment, a separate commercial-needs assessment, a business plan for the Village to ensure it is financially self-sustaining after the Games, and a financial pro-forma analysis.

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

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1194

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

WHISTLER DEADLINE FOR SLEDGE-HOCKEY ARENA RESET TO OCT 31 AND MAYBE LONGER

Whistler Municipal Council has accepted an offer by the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) to extend the sledge hockey arena decision for one month. A decision on the location of the arena is now due October 31. VANOC has also offered a further extension if a referendum is necessary. It's also told council that it has reduced the required number of seats at the arena to 2700 from 3000. Council has also scheduled an open house for the public with what it calls "new information" has been scheduled for October 6, from 3 pm to 7 pm at Whistler's Spruce Grove Field House. The open house will discuss in detail the different options for the development proposed by Whistler's design consultant, Eldon Beck, and by Norbert Doeblin, a local business executive, for one of the key properties in the Village suggested for the arena, Lot 1/9, as well as new information on programming and sponsorship potential, plus comparative costs of arenas in BC.

WHISTLER ATHLETE VILLAGE PLAN MADE PUBLIC
Whistler got a good first look at the proposed development of the 2010 Athlete Village this week. We'll have a detailed report on Friday, including timelines, environmental issues and concerns, and how 2010 sponsor Rona is to be involved.

NORDIC GROOMING MACHINE FUNDED BY BC GOVERNMENT
The Wells Gray Outdoors Club, located north of Kamloops in BC's central interior, will be able to purchase a new Nordic grooming machine thanks to $106,000 in funding from the province's Olympic/Paralympic Live Sites program. Funding for the project comes from the province's $20 million commitment to the Live Sites program, which ensures that a share of the benefits of hosting the 2010 Winter Games are made available to residents of the province, beyond the immediate Olympic-venue towns and cities.

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

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1193

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

COMPRESSIVE PERFORMANCE ON OVAL LANDS

The silty Fraser River delta lands on which the City of Richmond is building the C$60-million speedskating oval for the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) requires preparation measures that are unusual in most other locales. The local construction industry has a lot of expertise with it, however. Construction on the oval, which has been underway for two months now, involves compression -- densification is the word that is used -- of ground on the large Richmond Oval site. Vibration compactors, which begin the compression sequence, will be working on the site for the next few months, with preloading of the site to begin shortly. About 100,000 cubic metres of sand will be placed on the building site; the weight of the sand helps ensure the ground on which the Oval is to be built will be stable. The sand pile is to be about six metres high and about 200 metres square. To give you a sense of how big that is, picture an international-sized hockey rink and now make a square with six of them. The pre-load will be in place until construction of the 33,000-square metre Richmond Oval sports complex will begin in May. Total cost of the Oval and its related projects, including the waterfront park, plaza and parkade, is C$178 million. Richmond is responsible for funding the complex above the amount provided by VANOC for the oval. Dominion Fairmile Construction is acting as the City's construction management team; Cannon Design is working on the complex itself; foundation contracts were dealt with during the summer -- Agra Foundations Ltd had the low bid of C$2.87 million, but scope of work was reduced and the Agra's final arrangement was for C$2.79 million. The preload contract was won by Delta Aggregates on a tender of C$326,885.

VISA CANADA LAUNCHES KIDS' ART PROMOTION AS 2006 TIE-IN...
Visa Canada, the Canadian branch of the credit-card company, which is also an international sponsor of the Olympics and the 2010 Winter Games, is using VANOC's help this year to promote its regular national Canadian kid's art contest that uses the Olympics as a theme. The idea, now in it's 11th year, is to market Visa's Olympic connections as the Torino Winter Olympics, set for February, approaches; VANOC goes along with it because it has agreements with the Canadian Olympic Committee to pitch the Torino Games in Canada, but it also shows how VANOC sees itself working with sponsors. The marketing includes a media event at a local school for each of the major cities in Canada that interests Visa Canada; the Mount Pleasant elementary school, for instance, was used in Vancouver today. Running until November 25, the 2006 Visa Olympics of the Imagination Art Challenge (VOI) encourages Canadian children between the ages of nine and 13 to draw a flag they've created. The flag is supposed to represent the Olympic Winter Sport in which the child would most like to compete. From the entries -- Visa Canada expects thousands -- it will select one artist each in December from four of what it considers to be the main regions in Canada - Western Canada, Central Canada, Quebec and the Maritimes. The choice, says Visa Canada, is to be based on "artistic merit, originality and ability to communicate the theme in their art." These four are to compete with other winners of similar contests from around the world for "Best of Show" at the Torino Games in Italy, with the prize at trip for two to the 2008 Beijing Summer Games in China. You can expect something similar from Visa for the Beijing Games when they roll around, and, in turn, the 2010 Games as well. Andrea Shaw, the vice president of Sponsorship Sales and Marketing for VANOC is being quoted in the marketing as saying, "The VOI program is so unique because it gives Canadian children the opportunity to use their artistic talent to learn about the most celebrated sporting event in the world, while at the same time giving them the chance to be a part of the Olympic Games. As we gear up for Vancouver 2010, we're looking forward to seeing some of the amazing artwork submitted by Canadian kids in this year's competition, and will be cheering them on as they vie for a chance to attend the Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games."

...AND SO DOES MCDONALD'S
Speaking of international Olympic sponsors, the Torino Games and marketing, McDonald's Restaurants, also another 2010 sponsor via its Canadian section, has launched its "Go Active! Fitness Challenge" program in Canada. The Challenge, it hopes, will become an annual program in which Canadian elementary schools can take with the goal of "helping keep students active." Elementary schools in the provinces of Quebec and Newfoundland & Labrador have chosen to not take part. Participating teachers are to test their students on a series of six exercises, consisting of sit-ups, push-ups, the 50-metre dash, a shuttle run, a standing long-jump and an endurance run. The test happens once in the fall and again in the spring, and they kids are told to aim for their own improvement. Schools can earn up to C$500 in credits towards new gym equipment for themselves if they complete the program. You're right; we've reported on this before. Last year, it was a pilot program. McDonald's reports that during that session, 141 schools and 16,333 students completed the Challenge. It says they were able to improve on all of the six exercises involved by an average of 7%. McDonald's has had an active community-relations department, which includes things like this, for more than a decade, and the company is good at it.

RESOURCES

An earlier story we wrote that puts McDonald's marketing in perspective:

'McDonald's ties 2010 Olympic branding to 'Lifestyles' marketing program until new plans are finalized with VANOC'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:914; Published on Friday, April 1, 2005]

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 20, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1192
RICHMOND SEEKS OUT ART CONSULTANT TO DEVELOP PUBLIC ART PLAN FOR 2010 OLYMPIC OVAL

The City of Richmond is looking for an art consultant to help it prepare a public art plan as well as a strategy to implement it for the 2010 Olympic speedskating oval.

The idea, according to Richmond planners, is to identify "specific integrated public-art opportunities as part of the facility and [its] surrounding open spaces, and project opportunities before and after 2010." A budget of C$70,000 is offered for the planning.

The City wants the consultant to deal with public art themes and concepts, look for ways to integrate public art into the design of the oval complex's building systems and elements, flag public-art project locations within the oval and on its surrounding public areas, consider possible future public art opportunities, figure out a budget for each project, and recommend priorities for various projects -- for instance, should they be implemented before or after 2010.

The City is asking for proposals by prospective consultants, saying that drafts of the plan will have to be cleared by a committee comprising City staff, the oval's architectural team -- headed by Cannon Design -- as well as the Public Art Commission, Richmond's Oval Community Committees and, of course, City Council.

There's a bit of a rush on it. Right now, the architectural design team is nearing completion of the schematic design and planners expect the design development phase for the complex will be completed by January. In order to incorporate art into the building design, its fabric and systems, most of the work on the public art plan has to be completed before construction drawings are started in January. Construction itself is due to start next May.

Those interested in the concept have to get their proposal into Richmond city hall by October 3. That document, besides outlining the proponent's philosophy of art, experience and references, is also to include a "detailed proposal of what will be delivered, including the expected outcome and benefits to the City of Richmond."

Staff will draw up a short list and give it to the senior management group about a week later. A report on the short list will go to Richmond City Council's General Purposes Committee for its October 17th meeting. It is to make a recommendation on who to hire to city council at its October 24 meeting, and the consultant is expected to start work with the architects the next day.

The first draft of the art plan is expected by November 18, with presentations to be made from November 23 to 27. The plan is to be considered by city council December 12. The implementation phase runs from there until 2010.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 20, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Government
VANOC| #1191
WHISTLER 2010 OLYMPIC ATHLETE VILLAGE MASTER PLAN TO BE UNVEILED TOMORROW

The public will get its first look tomorrow at the draft master plan for the Whistler athlete village and its use after the Games as a new resident-restricted neighbourhood.

The Whistler 2020 Development Corporation, formed by the municipality to develop the village and neighbourhood, will present the draft master plan and the Spruce Grove Field House, followed by a question-and-answer.

VANOC is following essentially the same course in Whistler as it is in Vancouver: it has turned the development process over to the city so the city can plan for legacy uses of the buildings required by VANOC, which contributes a specific amount of funding and expertise to the project for its portion of the development, and imposes a timeline for what it needs. The community, in turn, hires the consultants and developers and decides what it will do with the area beyond Olympic requirements according to its own community needs and planning.

The planning process began nine months ago, after the site was chosen during a lengthy public process, with surveys of the site, located in the Cheakamus valley across from Function Junction.

Surveys, geotechnical assessments, site analysis, natural hazards assessments, environmental screening, sun orientations, views lines and heritage studies were all ordered for use during the design and construction phase. The prime consultant, Ekistics/Brent Harley Associates, was selected and a 30-person design exercise -- which they called a "charrette" -- was held to come up with the what the Village would look like as far as its environment, natural spaces, and affordability in 2020.

As that was established, the group worked with VANOC to figure out how the Games would use it, including how the VANOC overlay, which is to be set up in the village in the summer of 2009, would work.

VANOC needs 325 dwelling units in a mix of housing types, along with other services, such as transportation, catering, and operations. The area can accommodate significantly more than what is required by the Games.

The master planning process also involved incorporating the Comprehensive Transportation Strategy developed by the municipality's transportation advisory group, the Whistler Housing Authority data and design philosophy by Eldon Beck, the designer of Whistler Village.

After the public meeting, plans for the village will be finalized and the rezoning process is expected to begin in December. Site preparation is slated for 2006 with construction beginning in 2007. The Olympic village will be completed and turned over to VANOC for overlay and its exclusive use by August 31, 2009.

BACKGROUND
==========

What's a charette?

According to Martin Aurand, the Architecture Librarian and Archivist at Carnegie Melon University, "the term “charette” evolved from a pre-1900 exercise at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in France. Architectural students were given a design problem to solve within an allotted time. When that time was up, the students would rush their drawings from the studio to the Ecole in a cart called a charrette. Students often jumped in the cart to finish drawings on the way. The term evolved to refer to the intense design exercise itself. Today it refers to a creative process akin to visual brainstorming that is used by design professionals to develop solutions to a design problem within a limited timeframe."

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 20, 2005

Monday, September 19, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #1190
COMMERCIAL ORGANIZATIONS LINE-UP TO SUPPORT WHISTLER-BASED SLEDGE HOCKEY FOR 2010

Three major commercial organizations and a former member of the 2010 Bid corporation have all urged Whistler City Council to proceed with the controversial sledge-hockey rink proposed for the city by the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC).

In letters sent to Council in the last few days leading up to a debate by alderman on whether to accept a VANOC proposal to extend its required deadline for an answer to October 31, the support arrived from Tourism Whistler and the Whistler-Blackcomb Mountain Resorts company, as well as from a founding director of BidCorp, Don Rosenbloom, a Vancouver lawyer with the firm of Rosenbloom and Aldridge.

Rosenbloom told council that, "In the early days of the bid, we had a vision of Whistler living the Olympic legacy for decades after the Games... I always envisioned an Olympic structure within the town centre that would stand for generations as a monument and a memory of our participation in this wonderful world celebration... The only proposed structure of any importance in the village centre that would offer Whistler that legacy was the Paralympic sledge hockey rink."

Rosenbloom adds that "It is critical than VANOC and the municipality appreciate that we are not talking here about a Paralympic sledge hockey rink. The proposed building must be seen as Whistler's Olympic Centre, the focal point of the main games and the Paralympics."

Tourism Whistler president Barrett Fisher says his organization supports, "building a new NHL-sized ice rink in Whistler for the benefit of the community, business and tourism" and it also supports "building an interactive tourism amenity... Before 2010 which would serve as an Olympic legacy for Whistler."

Meanwhile, Dave Brownlie, the chief operating officer of Whistler Blackcomb Resorts, says "we support development of the hockey arena" in either of the proposed locations, but, he adds, if there is a commitment to build the arena in the Meadowpark area, there "must also be a commitment to build an interactive tourism amenity" on the other location, "which would serve as an Olympic legacy for Whistler."

And the chair of the Whistler Chamber of Commerce's Board of Directors, Greg Newton, says his group also endorses the NHL-sized rink and "interactive tourism amenity."

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 19, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1189

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

VANOC EXTENSION FOR SLEDGE HOCKEY DECISION CONSIDERED

The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) has offered to extend the deadline for a decision from Whistler on the location of the sledge hockey ice facility to October 31. The extension would enable municipal staff to pursue in further detail the various options, including one put forward by a local business owner, and allow for more public input. Council is considering the extension at its meeting tonight.

ITALIAN GAMES PROMOTIONAL TOUR STARTS IN VANCOUVER THURSDAY
TOROC, the organizing committee for next February's Winter Olympics, has put together a promotional tour about those Games that's going to select cities in select countries, and Vancouver is one of them. The tour, which consists of 12 panels, eight screens and 12 banners, opens at the city's Harbour Centre on Thursday and will be open to the public until October 1. The marketing for the tour itself includes a preview of it for media on Thursday, hosted by TOROC vice-president, Bruno Rambaudi, the consul general for Italy in Vancouver, Uberto Vanni D’archirafi, and the Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Vancouver, Antonio Cosenz. The Institute is a major contributor to the Italian Games. Other cities on the tour, which began a few months ago: Berlin, Paris, London -- where the 2012 Summer Olympics will be held -- Sarajevo, Aichi, Zurich, Beijing -- home of the 2008 Summer Olympics -- and New York, to name many of them. Why Sarajevo? In the Bosnian capital there will be an event connected with a project to clear the Sarajevo Olympic sites of mines laid during the Bosnian civil war, and the city will sign TOROC's official appeal from October 25 to the 27th for an Olympic truce during the Italian Games, which the United Nations is expected to accept with a vote on a resolution in New York on November 3.

SUN PEAKS TO VIE FOR 2010 SKIER TRAINING
The ski resort of Sun Peaks, near Kamloops, in BC's south-central area, is joining the list of locations that's after 2010 Olympic-bound nations with offers for practice. The first part of a three-phase project to revamp the resort, headed by former ski Olympian Nancy Green Raine, is designed to meet International Ski Federation specifications for both slalom and giant slalom, and cost about C$1 million, including snow-making equipment safety netting and wiring for electronic time-keeping has been installed. It's expected to open for the season in November. Resort manager Darcy Alexander says the development, part of a long-range plan, was accelerated once the 2010 Winter Olympics were awarded to Vancouver and Whistler. Invermere has a similar site.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 19, 2005

Friday, September 16, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1188
KARACTERS DESIGN GROUP AWARDED RFP FOR PARALYMPIC LOGO AND 2010 BRANDING

The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) has selected Karacters Design Group, an integrated design and branding division of DDB Canada, to design the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games emblem. The logo is expected to be introduced before the Torino 2006 Winter Games takes place next February.

Karacters has headquarters in Vancouver, with offices in Edmonton and Toronto, and specializes in branding.

Unlike the controversial contest that resulted in the development of the main 2010 Olympics logo, Karacters was chosen through a competitive Request for Proposals process that began June 20 and that VANOC says drew interest from design firms across Canada.

The RFP that Karacters won included development of the Vancouver 2010 image and brand-identity system that will form the creative platform for all Vancouver 2010 design applications and includes letterhead, colours, typefaces, posters, banners and the like.

There will be one more design aspect, which is the Games-time program - also called "Look of the Games".

As VANOC prepares to send a team to the Torino 2006 Winter Games, Karacters will work with the Organizing Committee staff to develop specific communications materials about the 2010 Games, and these materials are to be officially unveiled in Torino.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |IOC| #1187
PARALYMPIC ORGANIZATION ON VENUE TOUR AS TRANSFER-OF-KNOWLEDGE WORKSHOP ENDS IN VANCOUVER

The International Paralympic Committee executive today wraps up a three-day, closed-door meeting with the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) by touring Game venues in Vancouver and Whistler.

IPC CEO Xavier Gonzalez, whose headquarters is in Bonn, Germany, says, "The Paralympic Workshop has given the IPC an excellent opportunity to bring the Paralympic movement and what we are about closer to VANOC staff."

The Paralympic Games in 2010 are expected to be staged only in Whistler. It's expected there will be five Paralympic sports in 2010 -- alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, biathlon, sledge hockey and wheelchair curling. It's possible that list could change, but the expectation that it would do so at this stage is not high. The Resort Municipality of Whistler is debating whether it wants to host sledge hockey, which would involve construction of a rink that appears to be too expensive. Council is expected to debate the matter on Monday. VANOC has said it has discussed the possibility of hosting sledge hockey with the towns of Squamish and Pemberton, but won't make any decisions on the matter until it hears from Whistler.

VANOC staff characterized the meetings as a transfer of knowledge and experience from the IPC to VANOC. The first day, which, they said, was attended by almost all VANOC staff, included an overview of the IPC and the way it works, the Paralympic movement -- such as sponsors, coaches and athletes -- and the way it and the IPC see the Games, as well as lessons learned from previous Paralympic Summer and Winter Games.

On the second day of the workshop, the current state of VANOC's planning for how the 2010 Games are expected to be operated -- including sport, venues, accessibility, media operations, communications and marketing -- were discussed with staff from various VANOC departments, with the IPC staff commenting on their aspects of it.

This final day, a venue tour is taking place in Vancouver and Whistler.

VANOC CEO John Furlong has often said that he is committed to staging a Paralympic Winter Games that are essentially seamless. Today, he reiterated that, adding, "We will look at what has been done by others and we will raise the bar.”

Vancouver, though it chose to stage the Paralympic Games, will be the last city with that choice. Following an agreement signed between the IPC and the International Olympic Committee in 2001, the city chosen to host the Olympic Games will be obliged to also host the Paralympics, starting with the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, England.

The Paralympic Workshop is conducted by the IPC as part of the Olympic Games Knowledge Management, a process that was formalized by the IOC following the Australian Summer Olympics in 2000.

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

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #1186
FAIRMONT HOTELS TO SELL LAND NEAR 2010 MEDIA CENTRE FOR LUXURY HOTEL, CONDOS FOR C$68 MILLION

Fairmont Hotels & Resorts Inc (TSX/NYSE: FHR) has agreed to sell some undeveloped land adjacent to the expansion of the Vancouver Convention Centre to Westbank, a Vancouver-based developer in partnership with Peterson Investment Group for C$68 million. The sale is from a joint venture that's 75% owned by FHR.

Westbank plans to develop a hotel and residential condo project on the site, and has hired FHR on a long-term agreement to manage the hotel. The closing date for the land sale is anticipated to be no later than November 30, 2006.

The planned 415-room luxury hotel will be adjacent to 200 residential condos. The hotel is expected to open in mid-2009, shortly after the Convention centre expansion is complete and before the 2010 Olympics. The expansion will house the 2010 Media Centre in 2009 and 2010. The hotel will be branded a Fairmont hotel and will have prime views of Stanley Park, the Vancouver harbor skyline and the North Shore mountains.

"This real estate transaction completes the sale of the last significant block of undeveloped land in Vancouver, and furthers Fairmont's strategy of expanding our management portfolio," said William Fatt, FHR's CEO. "This latest hotel will build on Fairmont's strong existing presence throughout Vancouver while strengthening the top segment of the market in a key gateway city."

FHR expects to recognize a gain of approximately C$30 million to C$36 million on the land sale.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1185
SPEEDSKATING OVAL GROUNDBREAKING CEREMONY TO TAKE PLACE MONDAY

The City of Richmond will hold its official groundbreaking ceremony on Monday to mark the start of construction of the Richmond Oval sports complex, home of the speed skating competition for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

Construction began on the oval earlier this month with site densification and preloading, which is necessary on the delta lands of the Fraser River, where the huge project, destined to become the most noticeable venue of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) for tourists arriving by air, as it's not far from the Vancouver International Airport. Building construction is scheduled to begin next spring.

Scheduled to open in 2008, the Richmond Oval will be home of long-track speedskating events for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, with a 400-metre track and a venue capacity of about 8,000. As many as 12 medal events are planned for the complex in 2010, with a potential 36 medals to be awarded.

The event next Monday, is expected to show the future location of the speedskating track and the footprint of the 33,000-square metre Richmond Oval. There will also be a sport demonstration by speed skaters from the BC High Performance Team. The speeches will come from VANOC CEO John Furlong, Richmond mayor Malcolm Brodie, the federal minister of State for Sport, the provincial minister of Tourism, Sport and the Arts, Olga Ilich, and chief Ernie Campbell of the Musqueam aboriginal band.

The federal and provincial governments have committed C$30 million each toward construction of the Oval. The City of Richmond is responsible for additional project funding. Total budget of the Oval and related projects, including the waterfront park and plaza and a parking structure, is C$178 million.

Also on hand will be Steve Matheson, VANOC's senior vice president of Venue Development as well as Cathy Priestner Allinger, an Olympic speed skating medallist and VANOC's senior vice president of Sport

The Richmond Oval site is located at 6080 River Road in Richmond.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #1184
RONA TO START 2010 PROMOTION CAMPAIGN WITH C$250,000 FUNDRAISER FOR OLYMPIC-BOUND ATHLETES

The president and CEO of Rona, the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) renovations sponsor, says the company will start implementing its marketing of the Games with a national promotion to raise $250,000 for athletes.

Robert Dutton says that since 85% of the people in Canada live less than 30 minutes from a Rona store, "this provides a tremendous platform for promoting Canadian athletes and the 2010 Winter Games."

Speaking in Vancouver shortly before meeting with VANOC officials, Dutton says Rona will launch next month a program in which each renovation purchase by customers of more than C$250 will mean Rona will donate C$10 to the "Own The Podium" fund co-sponsored by the Canadian Olympic Committee and VANOC. The program will end when a quarter million dollars has been donated "In addition," he says, "customers who take part in this promotion [will receive] a rebate on any total purchase of C$250 or more."

This will be just the first of a series of tie-in promotions that will connect Rona with the 2010 Olympics. "During the next few years," he says,"we will introduce other promotional and fundraising campaigns throughout the country. They will be similar in nature to this one, and complete our efforts to bring sports and the Olympics to the forefront of the national agenda."

Dutton says it's important to start such promotions now, because they will help support Canadian athletes heading for next February's Winter Olympic Games in Torino, Italy. VANOC has taken over the Canadian marketing and Team Canada support aspects of the Italian games for the Canadian Olympic Committee as part of their overall agreement until the end of 2012.

Dutton, whose corporate headquarters is located in Quebec, not far from Montreal and whose current push is to increase its market share in western Canada, adds, "So, I guess you could say that thanks to this partnership with the 2010 games -- BC's Games -- and the growth of our store network in the province, Rona is becoming a little more British Columbian with each passing month -- without ceasing to be Quebecois or Albertan."

Dutton also says a program is underway to connect athletes to stores. As he puts it, the program is to "maximize the visibility of our athletes, we hope that every [Rona] store across the country will be represented by one Olympic hopeful." RONA operates a network of 530 franchised, affiliated and corporate stores of various sizes and formats. It has about 20,000 employees working under its family of corporate banners across Canada and about 12 million square feet of retail space. The network generates nearly C$4 billion in annual sales.

It's arrangement with VANOC, valued now by Dutton at "C$68 million plus", is to provide the 2010 organizers with materials and their logistics, construction, decoration and venue set-up expenses.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1183
BELL CANADA, 2010 LEGACIES NOW SET UP BC TOUR TO PROMOTE "SPIRIT" OF 2010 WINTER GAMES

2010 Legacies Now has joined with a major sponsor of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC), Bell Canada, to mount a touring display that will travel to nine BC communities this fall "to share the spirit of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games with British Columbians across the province."

The Connecting Communities Tour will be presented by Bell, which is contributing $1 million to support it. The fall ramble is just the first phase. During the next four years, officials say there are plans to take the tour to "dozens of communities across British Columbia."

The Tour, a 2,400 square-foot display, features information panels and interactive activities, such as a hockey shoot, a ski simulator, and a children’s art centre. Visitors to the Tour can also send a good-luck message to Canada’s athletes who will be competing in the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy, next February, connect to business opportunities through the 2010 Commerce Centre web site, and sign-up for local volunteer opportunities. The displays will be open to the public from Wednesday through Sunday in each community.

It's first stop is in West Vancouver, which is the municipality that includes VANOC's Cypress Bowl venue, but it's the only place on this initial phase that is a venue community. The Tour will then travel to Prince George, Nelson, Cranbrook, Kelowna, Vernon, Victoria, and Burnaby between now and November 13.

Marion Lay, president and CEO, 2010 Legacies Now, says The Connecting Communities Tour will "inspire citizens from all over BC to learn more about how to develop legacies leading up to and beyond 2010." She says her organization's partnership with Bell Canada and the Province of British Columbia is designed "to inspire communities and to assist them in creating unique opportunities in the areas of sport and recreation, arts and culture, literacy and volunteerism.”

From Bell's point of view, business is also a part of the project. "At Bell, we take pride in connecting communities to opportunities that help foster economic growth," said Justin Webb, Bell Canada's Vice President of Olympic Services, a function that was created within the company after it won the telecommunications sponsorship with VANOC. "Supporting initiatives that help build strong and vibrant communities is our priority," Webb says.

From the provincial government's point of view, the Tour is about benefits and that there will be more such activity to come. Olga Ilich, Minister of Tourism, Sport and the Arts, says, “We look forward to working with 2010 Legacies Now on programs like this to convey community benefits as a result of the 2010... Games.”

RESOURCES

Here's the fall list of places and dates for the Tour:

West Vancouver - Park Royal - September 15-18
Prince George - Pine Centre Mall - September 21-25
Nelson - Chahko Mika Mall - September 28-October 2
Cranbrook - Tamarack Centre - October 5-9
Kelowna - Orchard Park Shopping Centre - October 12-16
Vernon - Village Green Mall - October 19-23
Victoria - Mayfair Centre - October 26-30
Nanaimo - Woodgrove Centre - November 2-6
Burnaby - Metropolis at Metrotown - November 10-13

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1182
2010 LEGACIES NOW ISSUES CALLS FOR A PR FIRM AND GRAPHICS COMPANY TO SUPPORT BC WINTER HOCKEY TOURNAMENTS

2010 Legacies Now is in the planning stages for its sponsorship of the 2006 community hockey tournaments around British Columbia. It's going to be another big production, and it's looking for a PR company and a graphics firm to work on them.

The successful PR firm will deal with the sponsorship and branding of more than 175 amateur hockey tournaments involving about 33,000 youngsters in more than 80 communities across the province, and it will supervise the successful graphics firm. This will be the third year that 2010 Legacies Now has been involved in this project.

The first major event the PR firm will be asked to stage is to design and implement a media event in Vancouver about mid-October to announce the launch of the tournament series. Besides coming up with the theme of the event, the firm will look after venue selection, event staging, getting media to it and looking after their requirements during and after it, deal with VIP invitations and the RSVP process, and arranging for amateur hockey players and various dignitaries for the photo-ops. Afterwards, it will be sending out news releases and photos to editors, and arranging for media interviews that are to include the project's sponsors.

After that comes the grunt work of organizing the marketing of all those tournaments. For instance, the PR firm is to work with all the minor hockey associations, tournament organizers, local municipal and provincial government representatives, Spirit of BC Community Committees and sponsors, and it will also have to contact all of the B.C. minor hockey associations to get the names of the estimated 350 local tournament coordinators to ensure they confirm they want to be one of the Spirit of 2010 tournaments, and then co-ordinate registration and all the tournament details. Of course, it will also have to send copies to local MLAs, Spirit of BC Community Committee members and mayors of all the sponsorship letters and registration media releases.

The PR firm won't have to produce all of the supporting materials for the tournaments , such as 60,000 posters, 180 banners, 60,000 tournament hockey pucks and 180 trophies for the local hockey associations and tournament organizers. There's a separate contract offered for that. But the PR firm will has to distribute all that collateral.

And, to launch the tournament, the PR firm will be creating a second media event -- primarily a photo-op -- in Vancouver about the middle of next February, and going through the process of notifying all the politicians and tournament organizers, then doing individualized tournament news releases is all 80 communities. And, of course, that involves quotes form and contact info for BC members of the Legislature, Spirit of BC Community Committees and mayors. A wrap-up news release will also be required.

2010 Legacies Now also wants promotion of Spirit of 2010 trophy presentations. It figures there will probably need to be about 40 separate photo opportunities during the first spring school-break weekend with the remaining 100 or so photo ops taking place over the two-week spring school-break period. The tournaments are usually scheduled for that break.

Companies -- the PR firms and the graphic-production houses -- have until next Thursday to reply to their respective 2010 Request for Proposals, and the contracts are expected to be awarded by September 29, with work to start the following day.

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

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1181
BC OPERATIONS SPENDING ON OLYMPIC SECRETARIAT TO DROP BY C$36 MILLION, ACCORDING TO UPDATE

The BC government's provincial budget update shows it expects operational spending in its current fiscal year on its 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Secretariat to reach C$109.6 million.

That's about 11% of the spending the government expects to do through the Ministry of Economic Development, which supervises the Secretariat, but it's less than the amount the government, in its budget earlier this year, projected would be spent this year. Last February 15, it expected C$145 million would be spent during fiscal 2006.

However, the government's Strategic Plan update claims no change in the government's perception of what the Games can do: "The 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games are a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for British Columbia to showcase the province on a global basis, to celebrate provincial accomplishments and to create lasting economic opportunities for British Columbians. Government is committed to ensuring businesses throughout the province are prepared to take advantage of 2010 Games opportunities."

The current fiscal year ends next March 31, and this update isn't a full-fledged Budget; the next Budget isn't expected to be tabled until early next spring. The figures released today, however, compare with the estimated actual operational spending in the previous 12 months of C$3.19 million.

Capital expenditures through the Secretariat are expected to be C$620,000 during this year, compared with a net of C$50,000 during the previous period. That is also down from what it expected to spend when the government tabled its major budget last spring. At that time, it expected to spend C$640,000. This year, it intends to spend about C$50,000 just on office furniture and equipment alone, and the rest, C$570,000 is to be spent on information systems.

The Secretariat is the BC government agency through which it provides programs and funding through to the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC), as well as to a host of other activities. The Secretariat is also responsible for running the 2010 Commerce Centre website, and supporting a large number of seminars it's been hosting in various towns and cities around the province this year on how to do business with the 2010 Winter Games.

The Secretariat co-ordinates VANOC and Olympic relationships both within the BC government and between BC and other governments. It is also used to fund programs or projects that support the Olympic and Paralympic Games in some way, and it is also used to supervise various economic-development activities related to the Games throughout the province, including its portion of governmental support for VANOC. Some costs are partially recovered from external organizations for program services, but not much -- perhaps C$1,000 -- is expected, at least this year.

This operational category, by the way, doesn't include the BC government's executive management costs, such as the operational expenses for the office of the Minister of Economic Development nor executive administration, nor ministry executive support, including the deputy ministers' offices, financial and human resources, legislation and administrative services, library operations, records management, and information systems. They're all covered under a different category.

Elsewhere, the provincial government's Olympic Arts Fund, which spent C$620,000 during the last fiscal year, will spend that amount again, plus an additional $C50,000, all of it by way of grants.

BACKGROUND
==========

According to the detailed breakouts the Finance Ministry also made available today, the government expects to spend the following amounts this year (all figures are Canadian dollars and rounded, in the case of millions, to the nearest $100,000, and to the nearest $1,000 in the case of thousands):

FOR THE SECRETARIAT:

REMUNERATION
Base Salaries: $1.4 million
Supplementary Salaries: $3,000
Employee Benefits: $354,000
For a total of $1.8 million (rounded)

OPERATING COSTS
Public Servant Travel: $120,000
Professional Services: $2.8 million
Information Systems: $30,000
Office and Business Expenses: $30,000
Amortization: $20,000
Building Occupancy Charges: $120,000
For a total operation costs of: $3.1 million

TRANSFERS AND AGREEMENTS: $104.8 million

EXTERNAL RECOVERIES: $1,000

TOTAL: $109.6 million

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 14, 2005

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #1180
VANOC SENIOR VP ATTENDS OPENING OF MAJOR SPONSOR'S NEW RETAIL STORE

Dave Cobb, the senior vice-president of Revenue, Marketing and Communications for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) was among the dignitaries on hand today when the president of VANOC sponsor Rona opened a big new retail store in Richmond, south of Vancouver.

The new 75,000 square-foot facility is the first store of its kind for Rona in Western Canada, which says the store will be "a reference for big-box stores in the home-improvement retail industry."

RONA president and CEO, Robert Dutton, and members of his senior management team were joined in the opening by a winter Olympic medal winner, snowboarder Ross Rebagliati and two Summer Olympic athletes, gymnast Lori Fung and wrestler Daniel Igali. Raymond Chan, Richmond Liberal member of Parliament and minister of State for Multiculturalism as well as Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie. Richmond is to be the site of VANOC's flagship venue, a huge sports complex housing VANOC's long-track speedskating oval.

Dutton said during the opening that, "With our Olympic sponsorship we have taken this to a whole new level. The Olympics represent a lot of the same values we see as a priority here at RONA, including determination, teamwork and a desire to be the best."

RONA’s Olympic sponsorship, reached last spring, was valued by VANOC at C$68 million, primarily for various renovation products that VANOC will be needing in connection with its venues, and that amount includes C$7 million in sports projects, such as the RONA Youth Aspiration program and the Canadian Olympic and Paralymic Committees's "Own the Podium" programs, which are set up to help Canadian athletes win more medals at the 2010 Winter Games.

RONA operates a network of about 560 franchised, affiliated or corporate stores of various sizes and formats across Canada, with more than 22,000 employees. The RONA store network is now more than 13 million square feet of retail space and it reports annual retail sales of C$4.8 billion.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 14, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Paralympic| #1179
CANADIAN PARALYMPIANS AIM TO WIN AT LEAST 10 GOLD MEDALS AT VANCOUVER 2010 GAMES

The Canadian Paralympic Committee has worked out how it believes Canada can rank within the top three medal winners at the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver. It has to win at least 10 gold medals to do it.

It's done so in draft 2 of a report on its portion of the national "Own The Podium" program, for which the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) and the federal government have raised millions of dollars.

The report is authored by the Canadian Sports Review Panel and reviewed by the Own the Podium Independent Task Force - the same group that prepared the Olympic Own The Podium Report -- with input from Paralympic experts.

The review panel also held talks with all participating of the national Sports Organizations connected with Winter Paralympic sports: Hockey Canada, Alpine Canada, Cross Country Canada and the Canadian Curling Association. As well, says the report, those organizations met with the Paralympic and Olympic sport funding sponsors, representatives from the Canadian Paralympic Committee, the Canadian Olympic Committee, the Calgary Olympic Development Association, the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC), and 2010 LegaciesNow.

The report says that after all this consultation, "It was agreed that Canada must change the way it delivers sport in order to accomplish this goal."

"The report looks at each sport, assesses strengths and weaknesses, and offers a recipe for success for each sport," said Brian MacPherson, chief operating officer of the CPC, said today in Ottawa. "The CPC provided extensive support to the task force and we're pleased with the results. We're on track to realizing the Paralympic community's vision of Canada's performance at the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver."

MacPherson says the report demonstrates how to get "maximum value" for the additional C$2 million that is to be contributed each year until 2010 in support of the top-three goal, with C$1 million each from the Own the Podium program and Sport Canada.

The program, according to the report and MacPherson, will support Paralympic Winter athlete recruitment and development as well as coaching and sport sciences, primarily. The idea is to nearly double Canada's recent gold medal performances at the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games, from six to 10 gold medals.

The sports organizations and their sponsors and other funding agencies, according to the report, have now committed to the same eight principles as their Olympic counterparts in order to get to the 2010 Games medal-count goal.

Canada achieved its greatest Paralympic success only recently. The country finished third overall in the Summer Olympics at Sydney, Australia, in 2000 and in Athens lat year, but only sixth overall at the most recent Paralympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City in 2002. But the report notes, that countries participating in the Paralympic Winter Games are expected to continue to rise rapidly from the 35 nations competing in Salt Lake City; 40 countries are expected to field delegations in Torino 2006 next February.

However, according to the draft report, "Our current strong results simply cannot be maintained without a significant transformation of Canada’s Paralympic high-performance system and athlete-development strategies."

The report adds, "An increased focus on athlete-development initiatives to enlarge the size of the potential medallist pool, coupled with an increased investment in maximizing the training and competition programs of our identified podium-potential athletes, demonstrate a significant improvement in Paralympic nations medal standings can be achieved in a relatively short timeframe."

The report says the Panel is not projecting any new full-medal winter sports will be added to the Paralympic program in time for the 2010 Games. "As a result, medals will be available in the current four sports (5 disciplines): alpine skiing, wheelchair curling, Nordic (cross-country skiing and biathlon) and sledge hockey. Although there have been recent informal discussions regarding the possibility of adding the sport of snowboarding to the 2010 Paralympic program, no concrete information currently exists indicating it will be added as an official medal event by 2010 and therefore snowboarding was not examined in the context of this report."

The report says Canada has to focus on specific countries if it wants to achieve its medal plans in 2010. "In order to achieve our goal of a top 3 ranking in 2010, Canada must not only overtake one of the traditional top 3 countries (Germany, USA, Norway), but also the emerging countries such as Russia and Japan, [which] have recently been edging ever closer to top 3 status."

The report's conclusion is clear, "Canada possesses the expertise to develop athletes into podium performers -- our winter sports simply do not currently have enough athletes in their high-performance programs to develop the required number of podium potential athletes. Given our strong medal conversion rate, the CSRP strongly believes the critical challenge in order for Canada to achieve a top-3 nations ranking in 2010 is to tremendously increase the number of participants and potential medalists meeting Paralympic qualification criteria for the Vancouver 2010 Games."

RESOURCES

A Word document of the full, 31-page draft 2 report is available here:
http://www.paralympic.ca/english/word%20documents/sept_2005/Paralympic_Own_the_Podium_2010_Final_Report.doc

BACKGROUND
==========

Here are the eight principles accepted by the Paralympics, which were earlier endorsed by the Canadian Olympic Committee:

Creation of a sustainable sport system.
Maximizing the potential for Canadian athletes to win medals.
Adhering to performance-centred decision-making in all areas relating to athletes, coaches, officials and business acumen.
Positioning winter national sports organizations (NSOs) as the leaders in developing their respective sports in Canada, and being accountable for their results.
Encouraging co-operation and open dealings amongst the sports organizations and Paralympic sport funding partners in order to collectively advance winter sport in Canada.
Supporting collaboration with the Paralympic funding partners such that the winter NSOs will mutually establish and monitor an agreed upon state of benchmarks and measures of future success and the winter NSOs will be held accountable for these measures.
Allow the funding partners to commit, within their own funding criteria, to support the agreed-upon objectives of the NSOs, and
Assuring the winter NSOs meet on a regular basis to collaborate and share information.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 13, 2005

Monday, September 12, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1178

PARALYMPICS TO REPLACE ABBOTT MEDALS

In mid-June, thieves stole the Paralympic medals and memorabilia from the house of wheelchair basketball star Marni Abbott, who lives in Vancouver. Despite news coverage, a police investigation and public pleas, the medals haven't been returned or located. Abbot won a gold medal in both the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, the 1996 Games in Atlanta, where she was also Canada's flag-bearer, and the 2000 Games in Sydney, Australia, and she coached Team BC at the 1999 Canada Winter Games. The Canadian Paralympic Committee, the International Paralympic Committee and the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) will hold a ceremony in Vancouver tomorrow to replace Abbott's medals. Only the Barcelona and Sydney medals were stolen.

VANOC TALKS UP GAMES AT PARALYMPIC CONFERENCE
Representatives from most of the 26 sports affiliated with the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) were briefed yesterday by VANOC in Bonn, Germany, during the 15th IPC Sports Council Conference. The IPC's headquarters is in the German city. The audience for the briefing on the state of the 2010 Games included technical representatives of the International Organizations of Sports for the Disabled, and regional technical representatives from African, Asian and European countries.

PLANNING AND TORINO VISIT "COMPELLING"
Heard in passing: John Furlong, CEO of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC), commenting on why it's a good idea to send half of his staff to Italy to watch the back-of-house operations of staging the 2006 Winter Olympics, and why careful upfront planning strongly figures into the ultimate success of the Games, "Dave Cobb [Senior vice-president of Revenue, Marketing and Communications] and I went to Beijing [last fall] for the debrief of the Athens Olympic Games, and it was very compelling, listening to them talk about what they wouldn't do if they had to do it over again, and the things they would change, and where they got into trouble. And we've talked to organizers from other Games who've told us that they've reinvented portions of their project too many times, where they've tried something, and realized after two years they had to go back and do it again."

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 13, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1177
BC LIBERALS SUGGEST 2010 GAMES WILL "ADVANCE" ITS FIVE "GREAT GOALS" AS LEGISLATURE OPENS

The BC Liberal government's Speech From the Throne, which today opened the latest session of the BC Legislature, says the 2010 Winter Olympics will "advance" the government's five "great goals" it wants to achieve.

Lieutenant Governor Iona Campagnolo, speaking in Victoria, outlined the goals in the traditional and ceremonial speech, as written by the government:

1. To make B.C. the best educated, most literate jurisdiction on the continent.
2. To lead the way in North America in healthy living and physical fitness.
3. To build the best system of support in Canada for persons with disabilities, special needs, children at risk and seniors.
4. To lead the world in sustainable environmental management, with the best air and water quality, and the best fisheries management, bar none.
5. To create more jobs per capita than anywhere else in Canada.

She added, "These great goals will be advanced by the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. The Olympics offer a once-in-a-lifetime chance to showcase the best of B.C. to the world as we reach out to one another with common pride and purpose. The Games will be a Canada-wide catalyst for excellence in athletics, a flourishing of artistic talent, and untold economic opportunity."

There was no other mention of the Games in the speech, which is traditionally general and offers only a brief sketch of the government's legislative plans, nor was there any insight offered as to how the Games might advance the goals.

The speech opened what is formally known as the first session of BC's 38th Parliament.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 12, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1176

"GOING FOR GOLD" TRADEMARK TUSSLE IN ONTARIO

A member of Ontario's provincial legislature, MPP Peter Fonseca, has agreed to drop the use of the slogan "Going for Gold II" for a political fundraiser on October 19 following objections by the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) that he was infringing on a slogan it has copyrighted. Fonseca, a former Olympian, says he's also dropping the use of the phrase "Olympic Spirit" for the same reason. Proceeds from the event at the Olympic Spirit Centre are to go to Fonesca's Mississauga-East Liberal Riding Association. Interestingly, "Going for Gold" isn't a trademark that's owned by VANOC; it's actually owned by the Ontario Lottery Corporation. VANOC's version, which it is still in the process of acquiring and hasn't yet been finalized, is "Go For Gold". VANOC's law firm for such things, Borden Ladner Gervais of Vancouver, filed the VANOC version with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) on June 14, and it wasn't even advertised until August 17. The Ontario Lottery Corporation's version was filed May 18 -- almost a month before VANOC's version -- and CIPO formalized it on June 2. Even more intriguingly, CIPO reports a logo with "Going for Gold" as an integral part of the design has been owned by Cargill Inc., now of Minnesota but formerly of Winnipeg, since February 2003. The trademark "Olympic Spirit", on the other hand, has been the property of the Canadian Olympic Committee since 2003, and VANOC has an agreement with the COC to manage its trademarks between now and 2012.

VANOC VENUE INCREASES SNOW-MAKING INVESTMENTS
Bob Dalfour, the vice-president of operations at Whistler Blackcomb, which will host the 2010 alpine skiing events, says the warm and rainy winter experienced by the west coast this past winter showed the company that more investment in snow-making capacity was necessary, and sooner rather than later. He says that improvements to snowmaking technology, as well as increased capacity on Whistler Mountain, will be in place by November. Automatic snow-making guns should make the process more efficient. And, he says, Whistler Mountain will see ongoing investment in snowmaking over the next four years. "Our crews learned a lot about the mountains and what it really takes to keep them going, through the challenging weather we experienced last winter. "This year's planned improvements are partially due to [what we learned] and will help us to deliver more consistent terrain and snow conditions from opening day in mid-November to closing day next June." The average annual snowfall of Whistler/Blackcomb is 30 feet or 9.14 metres. It usually has the longest snow season in North America. Whistler Blackcomb will officially open for the this coming winter's season on November 24.

VANCOUVER ATHLETE'S VILLAGE COULD BE "DOODYVILLE"
Vancouver's civic elections are scheduled for November, with several strong candidates vying to replace mayor Larry Campbell, who is stepping down. The city is known for attracting candidates who are, shall we say, less strong. One of these potential fringe candidates appears to be running mainly on the fact that he has an idea for the 2010 Olympics mascot. When Calgary held Canada's first Winter Olympics in 1988, it had a white bear as a mascot, which it called "Howdy." Brian Slater says if elected he'd push to see VANOC adopt a similar white bear mascot, but with the name of -- and this is the way he spells it -- "doodY".

RESOURCES

For those who are too young to get the references in the last item, an education awaits:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howdy_Doody

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 12, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1175

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

SLEDGE RINK A HAMMER IN WHISTLER POLITICS

Whistler's civic elections are to take place in November, and the 2010 Winter Olympics, and particularly the fate of the Paralympics' sledge-hockey stadium has become an issue in the mayoralty race. There are two contestants so far to run for the position of mayor, which incumbent Hugh O'Reilly is vacating. Long-time councillor and lawyer Nick Davies is running against former Whistler mayor and BC cabinet minister Ted Nebbeling, who owns business properties in Whistler. When Nebbling was in the BC Liberal government, he was minister of state responsible for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Nebbling is strongly in favour of having the sledge-hockey rink in Whistler; Davies hasn't formally taken a position, but his comments indicate he's unhappy about the potential liability for Whistler businesses. The rink, long proposed to be one of Whistler's venues, has been running into trouble because the cost of the current configurations is quite a bit more than the C$20 million offered by the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC). Whistler council is expected to make a decision shortly on whether it will proceed with the rink, and VANOC has been hedging its own bets by having discussions with Squamish, to the south of Whistler, and Pemberton, to the north, about the feasibility of the rink being located in their jurisdictions. Pemberton is closer to the Whistler Athlete's Village than Squamish, which is a strong factor that VANOC weighs along with other pros and cons when locating a venue.

STOKES STOKED BUT COMPOSED
Tobin Stokes, a North Vancouver composer who provided some of the music used by the 2010 Bid Corporation, has been named as Composer in Residence by the Victoria Symphony. Stokes, who now lives in Victoria, is to compose original works for the symphony, among other duties. He replaced outgoing composer-in-residence Douglas Schmidt, 49. Schmidt, who, by the way, wrote a 15-minute work inspired by the 2010 Winter Olympics, called "Games of Good and Evil." It was based on the concept that some people liked the idea of the Games, while others did not, and was played by the Symphony for the first time last April. Stokes was chosen by a panel that includes musicians and executives from the Victoria Symphony.

ITALY HOLDING PEACE CONFERENCES WITH OLYMPICS TIE-IN
It hasn't been making much of a splash yet outside of Italy, but TOROC, the organization putting on the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino next February, has put together a series of events, meetings, conferences, exhibitions, seminars and exhibits on the themes of peace, co-operation and justice. There's no word on whether VANOC might do the same, but in Italy, these events will start in the next few weeks and will run until the Torino Games start. It's an outgrowth of a formal implementation -- follow us now -- by the organizers of the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City of an IOC idea that had been on the backburner since 1992, which is when the IOC decided to resurrect the tradition of the Olympic Truce that was introduced by in Greece in the 9th century BC; participants weren't allowed to take part in the games if their country was at war. The modern Italian implementation gets its publicity kick from a ceremony in which senior politicians and members of the International Olympic Committee, and others connected with the Games sign an Olympic Truce Declaration in support of the Games. The International Olympic Truce Centre thus creates a “declaration of personalities all over the world in support of the Olympic Truce”. It is a symbolic gesture, through which the signatories undertake to act as “Truce Ambassadors”, promoting "peace and understanding through sports" in their countries of origin. And all those events, meetings, conferences, etc... Well, they all need sponsors, and modern Games organizers control the connections to those operations by way of access to the use of the Olympic brands.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 12, 2005

Thursday, September 08, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1174
THE VANCOUVER ATHLETES VILLAGE -- THE GENERAL LAYOUT OF HOW IT WILL WORK

The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) has decided that the Vancouver Athlete's Village will have its front door on Quebec Street, its back door below the Cambie Street Bridge, and the whole Village will be sealed off to the public during operation for security reasons.

The Village will have four zones, according to overview documentation provided to the City last month by Mark Cutler, VANOC's man in charge of working with the City of Vancouver as it develops the Village, and other material developed over the summer by Via Architecture, which has been working on the main planning of the Village's orientation and layout.

Cutler's material is careful to say that the information is provided for "illustrative" purposes only and "is not to be relied upon for any purpose." However, at this stage, a wide range of people will be relying on the information for VANOC's general thinking on the Village's organization, knowing there is a lot of design and development work that needs to be done between now and next summer, when construction work is expected to start. City and VANOC officials are working feverishly at the moment to prepare detailed information for developers to consider.

Moving eastward from the Village's main entrance on Quebec street, between First Avenue and the south-east corner of False Creek opposite an existing MacDonald's restaurant, the first zone is currently nicknamed the Transport Mall. (Note that although the McDonald's Restaurant across the street from the Village entrance has been in this area for years, McDonald's is an international fast-food sponsor of the International Olympics, and the restaurant is expected to be its flagship facility for the 2010 Games.)

The Mall is primarily an extensive parking lot, capable of holding up to 40 mini-buses, up to 10 full-sized coach-type buses and up to 300 vehicles that will be reserved for use by the national Olympic committee (NOC) team officials. The vehicles be constantly arriving and leaving, loading and unloading. The northwest corner of Quebec and First will be set aside for use by Translink and its buses, and First Avenue will be closed to public use from Quebec to Cambie, in part for security reasons and in part for use by the Village occupants, when VANOC has possession of the Village from November 1, 2009 to March 31, 2010.

There will be separate entrances off Quebec Street for athletes and for NOC officials, and a third entrance for the adjacent International Zone.

The International Zone is located immediately west of the Village entrance and on the False Creek shoreline. This area is currently planned to contain commercial, media and ceremonial services and facilities that aren't directly related to the housing accommodation. The media centre will be used for athlete interviews, as well as small-scale entertainment and ceremonies. VANOC expects this area to average about 1,000 visits a day from accredited guests and dignitaries while the Games are underway. This area also includes a shopping mall and an entertainment area for villagers, as well as a dry cleaning shop and a beauty shop, a florist, a travel agent and an Internet café, among others.

A collection of buildings that have yet to be designed and built, to the south of the International Zone and north of the NOC parking lot, will be used to house NOC representatives and provide working space for them. The area will also be used to check and clear and otherwise process gift packages going to or from the village residents, as well as handling baggage coming in from, or going out to, the airport.

A small village square separates the International Zone from the Residential Zone to the west, but the Residential zone, which is where the athletes and other NOC officials are to be housed, will also be separated, according to VANOC, by a "fence line and/or other structures, and is a zone to which a higher level of security is applied to ensure preservation of privacy and the well-being of the athletes and officials." The Residential Zone will be operating 24 hours a day, week in and week out, while the Games are underway, and there will be security checkpoints between the International Zone and the Residential Zone which will also be manned around the clock.

The athletes and their coaches will sleep in individual rooms, in townhouse-style buildings yet to be constructed, but with dormitory-style living areas. Each Resident Centre -- which may be a single building or a small cluster, depending on the final development -- will have a front desk, an information centre and a communal lounge. The NOC residents will also have offices, meeting rooms and massage rooms. There will also be operational areas for the Village's support work force and storage areas for each team.

As many as four restaurants will also be located in buildings yet to be constructed on the western side of the central square, along with a food-fair type of layout for casual eating in the main dining area. In buildings just to the west, are areas set aside for a leisure area, for meeting with visitors, and another Internet café. This building, after the Games are finished, is to be converted into a community centre. Also in the Residential Zone are weight rooms and a gymnasium.

To the west of the Residential Zone and its buildings is an area set aside for parkland, but it will be used for a number of environmental site services, such as solar energy panels, systems for extracting heat for the buildings from the adjacent sewer lines.

From the eastern edge of the park to the Cambie Bridge is the Supply Zone. This area is used for a wide range of VANOC logistical purposes, such as temporary warehouses for storage of ceremonial materials, Village maintenance yards, VANOC vehicle storage and parking for more than 700 buses that will be used to transport teams to and from venues in the Greater Vancouver area.

VANOC will take possession of the entire area November 1, 2009, to construct the temporary overlay facilities, such as security and accreditation areas, medical facilities and ceremonial or media materials, and the like. It will return it to the City by the end of March, 2010, about six weeks after the Games conclude, after removing the overlay, so that City developers can take the buildings and services and convert them into their permanent use as a major neighbourhood that, by about 2018, will be linked into the much larger SouthEast False Creek area.

RESOURCES

The City of Vancouver has provided a PDF file of a PowerPoint presentation of slides that provides a number of maps for the Village and its context, as well as a range of preliminary information about the Village itself. The file is large, more than 7.5 megabytes. Note that due to a City programming error, during the initial download, the browser window name may be incorrect until the downloading is complete. The resulting file is correct, however. here is the link:
http://www.vancouver.ca/bid/bidopp/PS05071Pres.pdf

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1173

Here are three more moguls we ran into today:

NEW FEDERAL SPORT MINISTRY RECOMMENDED

The Member of Parliament that Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin asked for recommendations on ways to boost high-performance sport is recommending in a report that the federal government create a new Ministry of Sport. Paul DeVillers, who is also a parliamentary secretary, said a new department would allow the government to focus on programs that promote healthy living by the public, as well look after programs that would support elite athletes. He says Canada hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver makes the time right for the federal government to raise the importance of sport. Ottawa is considering the report, but hasn't yet decided to make any structural changes.

17 FIRMS ATTEND VANCOUVER ATHLETES VILLAGE BRIEFING
Here's a list of the companies that attended a developer's briefing last week as part of the City of Vancouver's selection process for a developer to build the 2010 Athletes Village on the edge of False Creek in the city's downtown area. The names are in alphabetical order.

Acton Ostry Architects, Vancouver, BC. 604.739.3344
Alsop & Partners, Toronto, Ontario, 416.515.8375
Bastion Development, Vancouver, BC, 604.731.3500
Carruthers & Wallace, Toronto, ON, 416.789.2600
Concert Properties, Vancouver, BC, 604.602.3701
Concord Pacific, Vancouver, BC, 604.895.8286
GBD Architects, Portland, OR, 503.224.9656
GWL Realty Advisors, Vancouver, BC, 604.713.6464
Hamilton Associates, Vancouver, BC, 604.684.4488
Hotson Bakker Boniface Haden, Vancouver, BC, 604.255.1169
James KM Cheng Architects, Vancouver, BC, 604.873.4333
Ledcor Construction, Vancouver, BC, 604.699.2903
Polygon Homes, Vancouver, BC, 604.877.1131
PWL Partnership Landscape Architects, Vancouver, BC, 604.688.6111
Stantec, Vancouver, BC, 604.696.8000
VIA Architecture, Vancouver, BC, 604.683.1024
Wall Financial Corporation, Vancouver, BC, 604.893.7137

TICKET SALES FOR 2006 OLYMPICS HALTED FOR THREE WEEKS
TOROC, the organizing committee for the 2006 Winter Olympics, has halted European and Italian ticket sales to the Games until September 29, even though the Games are less than six months away, so that computers can match the roughly 500,000 tickets sold so far to actual seats in the venues for specific competitions. They weren't able to assign seats as the tickets were sold, because the computer programmers weren't able to get all the data they needed to do it. Why? Because some of the venues hadn't yet been completed to the point where officials knew exactly how many seats they had, and in what locations; now they have to do catch up during a prime sales season. One of the main reasons they need to be assigned is that TOROC doesn't want a repeat of what happened during the early days of the Athens Summer Olympics, where TV cameras had to show vast areas of unsold seats. The computers will assign the seats to "guarantee the optimum placing of the public within the Games arenas." When the ticket sales reopen, TOROC will launch another major marketing push as the Christmas-sales period begins. To reduce the opportunities for counterfeiting, the tickets won't be sent to ticket holders until January 2, about five weeks before the Games begin, on February 10. Around 2,500 athletes and 650 judges are expected to participate. TOROC is hoping for 1.5 million spectators.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1172

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

SHAKERS TO GET MOVERS

The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) has decided to set up a formal arrangement with a professional moving company to ensure the senior managers it hires between now and when the 2010 Games begin get first-class treatment if they have to move to Vancouver. VANOC's entire staff only numbers about 120 now, including CEO John Furlong and his eight-person team of executive vice-presidents. But it expects to hire more than 1,200 people, most of them in 2008 and 2009, as preparation for the Games ramps up, so VANOC is offering to set up the professional-mover deal over four years, to be called upon as needed. It says the majority of moving the manager's personal possessions, from wherever they are living when they're hired to Vancouver -- which could be provincial, national or international in scope -- will take place next year and in 2007. Moving methods could include ocean, air, truck or rail. Services are expected to include moving household goods, personal belongings, the staffer's vehicles, art, antiques, electronics and "any other special moving needs."

DELAYED SURVEY STALLS RESERVOIR DEAL
Contractors interested in bidding on the new reservoir VANOC wants to build this late this fall at its Cypress Mountain venue have been given an extra week -- until September 22 -- to respond. That's because a key document VANOC was to supply, a detailed site survey, has also been delayed a week. The reservoir project is budgeted at C$400,000.

BOARD OF TRADE TAPS 2010 LEGACIESNOW PROGRAM
2010 LegaciesNow is one of three organizations nominated by the Vancouver Board of Trade to receive an award for LegaciesNow's new program, "Chill." The social program was adapted, with the help of a C$25,000 grant from 2010 sponsor Bell Canada and a plethora of assistance from a number of other companies and organizations, from an American program to get inner-city youth aged 12-24 involved in snowboarding to provide them with the opportunity to "experience success and increased self-esteem through sport." The Board's Community Organization Award recognizes "an outstanding single or ongoing community contribution that benefits the community through creativity, volunteerism and new ideas." The Vancouver Agreement, a deal between the federal, B.C. and Vancouver City governments, is paying C$10,000 to fund the Chill initiative. Chill Vancouver was set up to provide up to 100 people with everything they need to snowboard: equipment, transportation, clothing, lift tickets and instruction. In addition, Burton Snowboards of Burlington, Vermont, which has been involved in the Chill program elsewhere for years, is providing the snowboarding equipment; West Vancouver's Cypress Mountain, which is a 2010 venue, supplied lift passes and access to the mountain’s facilities; and Schenker Logistics, of the U.S. and Canada, is helping with the shipping and customs clearances necessary for the program to work. Several Vancouver agencies are taking part in the Chill program, as well, to ensure the program gets to the people being targeted: the Broadway Youth Resource Centre, Dusk to Dawn, MoreSports, Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, Vancouver Parks Board and Urban Native Youth Association. The awards, part of the Board's "Spirit of Vancouver" campaign, will be given out during a luncheon ceremony aboard a Holland America Lines’ cruise ship on September 16.

RESOURCES

The earlier story we wrote about the snow-making reservoir:

'Snowmaking reservoir to be VANOC's first Lower Mainland construction project -- and first step in Cypress Bowl venue work'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:1158; Published on Wednesday, August 31, 2005]

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

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1171
OFFICIALS ARE CIRCUMSPECT, BUT FISCAL ISSUES ARE TOPICS OF VARIOUS DISCUSSIONS

The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) is now into its third fiscal year, and preliminary reports indicate that while there are likely to be no surprises when the audited financial statements of year two are released this fall, it's been necessary to deal with some cash-flow issues.

But, because the audited statements have not yet been released, and a wide range of stakeholders, including the BC and federal governments, are keeping a close watch on VANOC's fiscal state, all of VANOC's management is careful to only speak in generalities. VANOC's fiscal year starts August 1.

For instance, a sensitive political issue for VANOC is whether the project will go over budget on the capital side and there is strong pressure to prevent the 2010 Organizing Committee from doing that. However the idea of moving expenditures from the capital column to the operations column to preserve the sanctity of the projected C$620 million capital budget figure is one way that could happen.

The executive director of the International Olympic Committee, Gilbert Felli, says it's relatively normal for the IOC to have discussions with a Games organizing committee about whether certain costs can, or should be, transferred between the operations budget and the capital budget, and how much of any particular costs might be involved.

Says Felli, "We have seen, because of the different structures in various countries -- and we're sitting here with the bid of Vancouver -- some capital costs will be paid by the Organizing Committee but were financed by the public funding. It is a question of who is going to operate the spending of this budget. And that, of course, will have a little risk, because if you increase the money you ask for on day one, maybe five or six years later, it's different. But we are confident that [VANOC's budget] will be balanced. Now, we are not concerned that some part of the money may go to some investment costs, because the border for investment of long-term legacy for the Games preparation, such as Olympic overlay or temporary construction, is not very clear. We are confident it will have a profit. And you should not forget that a legacy fund for sport has already been secured, so we are not concerned about the situation."

Felli gave an example of an organizing committee building a stadium with 10,000 seats because that's what's needed for the Games, but only 5,000 are needed for the stadium after the Games are gone. "The 5,000 temporary seats, who will pay for them -- the organizing committee, the owner, or the community? Or if you need an access road, what about the last kilometre or 500 metres, which can't be used again? Who is going to pay for this part of the road? It's one of the things you discuss."

Jack Poole, the chairman of VANOC's Board of Directors, says of the past fiscal year, "No surprises yet. Everything is tracking exactly as anticipated." That confidence didn't hold up under questioning, however. It turns out that VANOC is currently relying on its lines of credit with the Royal Bank Financial Group to carry itself forward, though it doesn't concern him. "I think the banks are pretty comfortable about lending against [VANOC]."

Poole says negotiations between VANOC and the federal government continue over the timing of financial contributions to the organization. "They're evolving. Both the senior governments are currently working with the timing and the amount of the funding. We're close to that. The [calendar] year end should see all of that, sort of, in place." He's quick to add, however, that there's no question about the intent of the government funding commitments. "It's just that we've got to get through the bureaucratic process, and get the money into our account."

Later, a part of an answer to a somewhat different question, he said, "A business plan, in its simplest form, has got two lines, revenues and costs. Costs are going to go up, revenues are going to go up. At the end of the day, we intend that revenues will exceed costs. It's too early to say what the numbers are going to be, but the objective is to have no worse than a balanced budget."

Poole, who gets regular reports on the financial status of VANOC, was also quite careful when asked about whether VANOC, during its second year, had more revenues than costs. He says that there was "more cash committed than we spent, but the timing of expenditures with cash coming in will never be in perfect balance, so we'll be in and out of bank lines [of credit] from time to time, and we'll have money in the bank from time to time. But it's uncomplicated -- it's cash in and cash out, and at the end of the day, they have to balance, and that's what management is there for, to make sure they balance. There will be, in VANOC's case, there will be relentless effort on the cash in, and there will be tremendous, hard-nosed discipline on the cash out."

VANOC's financial vice-president John McLaughlin, who is always as forthcoming as he can be in the conext, also chose not to talk numbers until the audited statements are released, but, in general terms, felt the second fiscal year tracked well according to predictions. And, he confirms, that if capital spending is included, the organization is currently spending between C$4 million and C$5 million per month.

Furlong says, "One of the pieces of information we need to consolidate our costs is the Torino experience. The Torino debrief will take place in Vancouver next summer, we'll get findings from there, then we'll take a look at our budget, and hopefully we'll be able to tighten up our costs and understand a bit more about what we're facing. Construction costs are just one area; there are lots of pieces of the project that will have to be put together. In order to be responsible, today we're focused on revenue and, as Jack said, we hope to generate more revenue than the costs we ultimately will face."

And, he adds, "We're in the early stage of the key venue work, and we've done small amounts of construction, and there's more coming, and, as the project rolls, the community is going to want to know more, and we're going to have to communicate more."

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1170

Here are three more moguls we ran into today:

POOLE UNCONCERNED ABOUT DEVELOPER WORRIES OVER VANCOUVER ATHLETES VILLAGE

The chairman of the board for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC), Jack Poole, says he expects that the City of Vancouver will have sufficient time to provide a fully developed Athletes Village, despite developer worries. Poole, who is a developer himself, brushed aside concerns with the time frame that developers expressed during a briefing meeting on the project with the City and VANOC representatives last week. "We're comfortable that the City knows what they're doing. They've done this kind of stuff before. It's a City project and they're going to deliver what we need in an Athletes Village. The developers shook their heads during the briefing, and some laughed out loud, when the City said it was only allotting a month to six week from the time the project developer is chosen, which will probably occur around December, to have the building designs approved by the City's rezoning process. That approval is necessary before construction can start.

EAST ASIAN HOCKEY TEAMS AT 2010? NOT LIKELY
The chairman of the IOC's 2010 co-ordination commission, Rene Fasel, who is also head of the International Ice Hockey Federation, says it will be "tough" for men's hockey teams from Japan, Korea or China to make it to the 2010 Winter Games. There are nine teams, but "it's a lot to do. You cannot have a really competitive teams. The goal [for their appearance at an Olympics] should be 2014. But for Vancouver 2010, it will be difficult for an east Asian team to be here. In China, they have only 400 hockey players. We work very hard with the Chinese, to push them, but they need venues." On the other hand, he notes, the Chinese have only 67 women hockey players and they are qualifying within their league at a higher level than the men. As he puts it, "Strange, huh?"

HEADS UP OVER OLYMPIC COINS
We got a little too eager yesterday in pronouncing that VANOC and the Canadian Mint have reached a deal to produce a series of Olympic coins, even though the Mint expects to launch the program next spring. The concept of a deal came as a surprise to VANOC's senior vice-president of Revenue, Marketing and Communications, Dave Cobb. "We've probably had half a dozen meetings with them, and we're just figuring out what the deal's going to look like. They want to do a very ambitious program, but we're still working through the details. We'll do a deal, but we just haven't figured out all the details yet. We would like to get something done in time for the Torino Games for coins in Canada, but that's quick, and we're not there yet." Cobb, on another topic, says VANOC is still working on the complicated deal for a major vehicle sponsor to underwrite the cost of between 4,000 and 5,000 vehicles that VANOC will need for supporting the Games. "There's a lot of complexity around that -- how they're valued, what types of vehicles. We want advanced-technology or hybrid vehicles in at least part of the fleet, so there's a lot of internal work we have to do to figure out exactly what we need before we could really nail down what we'd ask a sponsor for." That is likely to be the last Tier 1 deal. Preliminary discussions continue, he says, with at least a dozen companies in a number of different categories continue on the smaller-deal Tier 2 arrangements. What about an airline deal? "We've started on it, but we're nowhere near there yet."

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1169

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT...

One of the difficulties the news media as well as any member of the public has in assessing just how well the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) is doing is due to the fact that its reports to the International Olympic Committee happen behind closed doors. The same goes for the IOC's comments to VANOC staff. And, of course, not all the details and issues that VANOC staffers encounter make it into the IOC presentations. Every once in a while, there is some leakage to show that side occurs, and happened in a comment made today by IOC executive director Gilbert Felli in Vancouver today after being briefed by VANOC staff, including CEO John Furlong, on the state of the Games. In various articles Morgan:News:2010 has reported over the past half year about the behind-the-scenes difficulties it has had with the aboriginal "host" groups, even though all seems right with the world publicly. Felli, referring to a comment made by Furlong during a public portion of their meeting, spoke about VANOC's relationship with its aboriginal "partners." As Felli, talking about VANOC commitments, says, "One of the promises made during the Bid was to try to work to integrate the First Nations in the bid process and the organization of the Games. And knowing that the work [on the Whistler Nordic Centre site] has been achieved by a First Nation company is something great."

IOC TO TALK ABOUT REMAINING 2010 BROADCAST RIGHTS IN OCTOBER

Felli says there's been no change in the status of the auction of the Australian broadcasting rights for the 2010 Games: they're still on hold until the country can sort out its regulatory issues. The auction was underway earlier this year, and the rights were to have been awarded by now -- with a corresponding entry in the revenue column for the 2010 Games. Felli says there's no timetable for resuming the auction; that is, he says, up to the Aussie government. "Historically," he adds, "for Asia and Japan's rights, we often start later and they will start soon." But he could offer no dates, other than to say the IOC's executive board will discuss the matter at its October meeting."

VANOC SKI JUMPS STILL GETTING MAJOR AIR

Furlong says VANOC continues to plan for constructing only winter ski jumps -- that is, temporary ski jumps that are currently expected to be removed following the 2010 Winter Games -- at Whistler. "We're building for the Games and, as other things unfold in ski-jumping elsewhere in this country, we'll continue to take the matter under advisement. But we're building for the Games; we're not building practice jumps. What will happen to it when the Games are over has not yet been determined." VANOC switched from permanent jumps to temporary jumps last year when it became apparent there wasn't sufficient commercial support for legacy ski jumps. The Calgary Olympic ski jumps are to be closed this year for the same reason.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1168
HALF OF VANOC TO OBSERVE TORINO GAMES NEXT FEBRUARY

The CEO of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC), John Furlong, says he expects more than half of his staff, which currently number 120, will be going to Torino to see the operation of the 2006 Winter Olympics.

"We will be taking a fairly significant delegation to Torino next year in February," says Furlong, who will also be going. "We've spent quite a bit of time over the past few months trying to understand and analyze who on our team needs to learn from the Torino experience."

Furlong says the final count for the contingent may yet change. "We will be taking a group of people over there, probably approaching 70, but we're not quite there yet in our planning. We're working through this now. Each person will go there with a key responsibility to learn, and we're working with the [International Olympic Committee] now to see that we get the kind of access that we need to properly learn from what's happening there."

Furlong says the upcoming Winter Games is "the least expensive way there is to train people to be Olympic-ready and Paralympic-ready."

And what would they learn? "We'd get people to have a look at what's going on with such areas as transportation, security, venue operations, media-centre operations, television operations, overlay" -- which is all of the facilities at the venues for staging the Olympics, such as security and accreditation -- ", the sport program, and how they work, how they're designed, and how they're put in place."

Furlong says that to "put people on the ground is the only and best way to properly learn that. And, it's really the only major opportunity that we're going to have [for Winter Games] before we get to stage the Games here."

Torino is also the place where the hand-over of the Olympic flag from Italy to Canada takes place, during the closing ceremonies. "It's an important time for Vancouver 2010, and it's a time where we can showcase a little bit of what people can expect when the Games are staged here in Vancouver, Whistler and Canada in 2010... We're planning that [part of the closing ceremonies] now." Furlong says VANOC staff are working with Torino's ceremonies officials "as we speak."

Furlong also says that Torino gives VANOC's partners, whether they are government or commercial, "a chance to showcase their activities... And what they're about, and the contribution they're making to the Games."

Furlong also points out that Canadian athletes are currently preparing to go to Torino, and that the Canadian Olympic Committee has been planning to become the country that takes home the third-largest number of medals. "And that will set the stage for our team to prepare, so we can be the best country in the world [for medals production] by 2010."

Furlong says, in a reference to his proposed cross-country speaking tour, that following the Torino Games, "we'll be bringing our vision to life across Canada, taking the project to the country, sharing it with Canadians in all parts of Canada."

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Business, VANOC| #1166
ABORIGINAL BUSINESS PROTOCOL STILL IN THE FUTURE AFTER MONTHS OF DISCUSSIONS

It's been a methodical, lift-yourself-by-your-bootstraps type of process, and it's a long way from being finished.

Last November 24, the four aboriginal groups whose lands are affected by the development of the 2010 Winter Games -- the Lil'wat, Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh -- signed an agreement with the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) to ensure that their protocols and traditions would be acknowledged and respected throughout the planning, staging and hosting of the Games in Vancouver and Whistler.

In exchange, these bands agreed to work, according to the wording, in a "co-operative and mutually supportive manner in order to participate fully in the Games and to take advantage of the social, sporting, cultural and economic opportunities and legacies that will arise as a result of the Games." The document became known as the Four Host First Nations Agreement.

While all that sounds quite friendly, and it is, on the surface, below the surface, there have been blistering letters and demands of VANOC from the key aboriginal leaders, particularly as VANOC was attempting to get environmental approval of its major construction projects in the Whistler area. Still, the struggle on other levels to work together continues.

The four bands eventually formed a Secretariat, made up of two representatives from each of the four aboriginal groups, with the idea of reaching a protocol agreement with VANOC by this spring, a process that began more than year ago.

It's first and so-far interim executive director is Tewanee Joseph, who was born in North Vancouver and who is half a Squamish aboriginal and half Maori, an aboriginal group in New Zealand, and who was on a championship lacrosse team for some years. He was first elected to the Squamish tribal council when he was 21 and was on the council, with Squamish chief Gibby Jacob, who is now a VANOC Board of Directors member, for eight years.

Joseph intermittently runs a multimedia consulting business, the Tewanee Consulting Group, which specializes in aboriginal planning and strategic communications. Joseph says the firm also works on land codes and legislative consulting for aboriginal groups.

Now, though, the Aboriginal Secretariat has him focused on quite a different challenge.

Joseph, who helped connect the four aboriginal groups to achieve the protocol over the course of about a year, says, "Our focus is really about 2010, and what kind of opportunities that there are going to be there, not only for the four First Nations but how we can work with VANOC and its partners to build processes for aboriginal people across the country."

Joseph says that what he is trying to do, with a small team of people, is build a partnership with VANOC and its partners. "We want to make sure there are opportunities for the four [aboriginal] host nations, for other aboriginals and even employment opportunities through VANOC. We want to make sure we do all those things, and set the bar for future Games. We've looked at Australia [host of the 2000 Summer Olympics], at Salt Lake City [host of the 2002 Winter Olympics] and aboriginal participation wasn't as much as it could have been. After these Games, we want to set the floor for aboriginal participation in future Games. It's a lot of work, so far, but it's been a good challenge, but there has been a good commitment [from VANOC] to try to bring this together and develop our business plan. VANOC's been working closely, hand in hand with us. We've had good support from VANOC and their partners in this."

VANOC has agreed to set aside 15% of its capital construction budget for direct award in contracts to aboriginal-based firms. Joseph says, however, that although construction on some of the major sites has started, and that aboriginal firms, such as Creekside Resources, the development arm of the Lil'wat band, was tapped to do much of the work in the initial stages of VANOC's Whistler Nordic Centre, there is more work to do with VANOC on the negotiation side to broaden the aboriginal category of contracting.

"It's an important time right now," says Joseph, "because not only VANOC, but the partners that are involved in the Games need to really -- and I stress the word 'really -- need to come up with a process that aboriginal businesses can understand. A lot of the questions you get from aboriginal businesses, at least that I've found, are 'What are the opportunities?', 'How can I align myself with those opportunities?', and 'What's the process to align myself with those opportunities?'."

Joseph notes that the provincial government is working on its 2010 Commerce Centre project and developing tool kits for aboriginal entrepreneurs and VANOC's construction opportunities. But the initial contracts awarded in the Callaghan Valley for the Whistler Nordic Centre sprung from the Legacies Agreement, according to Joseph, but a much broader working agreement with VANOC is needed.

"What we're talking about now is about the opportunities beyond that," says Joseph. But you'll notice that so far he is speaking in future tense.

"What [VANOC and the Aboriginal Secretariat] are doing right now," he says, "is working jointly on a plan that would identify a clear process for aboriginal entrepreneurs and business people."

VANOC's primary negotiator in this process is Linda Cody, VANOC's vice-president of Sustainability. She moved into the role from being vice-president of the Pacific Region for the World Wildlife Fund Canada. She worked for more than 20 years in the private sector, mostly in forestry. She held the position of vice president for BC forest giants MacMillan Bloedel and Weyerhaeuser's British Columbia's Coastal Operations. She is also a member of Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin's National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy, which, among other things is developing a long-term energy and climate-change strategy for Canada.

Joseph agrees that a VANOC-oriented process should have been developed a couple of years ago, well before VANOC began contracting work, and he says the reason it's not happened until now has to do with the then-lack of unity the four host-nation groups showed until the VANOC agreements were negotiated. "You have the nations involved and their traditional territories -- that's one aspect -- but now it's really reaching out to all aboriginals across the country, so this protocol with VANOC will provide a framework where we can work with VANOC and its partners."

Joseph says the protocol negotiations are still only partially done. "We haven't finished our protocol with VANOC yet, but we've identified in it some economic opportunities. We haven't specifically got into all the details yet. But we've also identified areas around security, tourism, communications and such. Right now we're waiting to hear back from VANOC on where else we can work together. VANOC has a responsibility for inclusivity, as does the federal government and BC. Our mandate is really for the four [aboriginal] nations, but to work with the partners to develop the other processes."

Joseph says the negotiations are give and take. "We take the lead in some areas, for instance, identifying procurement opportunities, and channel people to where those opportunities might be."

Joseph says that, "We had a lot of business proponents -- at least Squamish -- Lil'wat had, and the other [aboriginal] nations -- asking the question of 'Where can we partner to do things together?', and so we're looking at aboriginal businesses. Construction is one area, but other areas might in flooring, or cabinets. You have different aboriginal businesses across the country that do things. So we're trying to do that outreach now, beyond the four [aboriginal] nations."

Joseph notes that an aboriginal business connected with the Westbank aboriginal group, located near BC's Okanagan city of Kelowna, specializes in flooring work, while an aboriginal business in the Cowichan area of Vancouver Island north of Victoria focuses on cabinets. And several aboriginal groups in BC and elsewhere in Canada have construction expertise that could be used by VANOC.

Joseph says there is sufficient corporate infrastructure within the aboriginal business community do certain aspects of the work VANOC has to offer. "It comes down to the needs assessment that's been going on that the two nations -- Squamish and Lil'wat -- have had to do and now the other two will have to do." Joseph says that assessment identifies for everybody involved, particularly VANOC, what aboriginal business is capable of doing on its own and where we need to partner... The capacity is there, and we want to build our own people to broaden that capacity through their own skills and development."

Joseph agrees that there may be non-aboriginal businesses that want to develop their own partnerships with aboriginal firms as well, so they can bid on future contract opportunities with VANOC. "There might be First Nations that do strategic alliances with some of the bigger corporations, or where they might to sub-contracts with companies that already have VANOC contracts."

Joseph says that while the decision by VANOC to set aside part of its construction budget to ensure aboriginal businesses are involved is welcome, "Aboriginal businesses that I've seen should, and will, be able to compete with any other businesses. I believe that 100%."

Joseph says that his commitment to the host aboriginal groups -- and that's why he's an interim executive director -- was to get the aboriginal secretariat established and operational, and set up its Board of Directors. "Once that's finished, the Board will decide on my position and all the positions within the Secretariat. It's been a great learning experience, and seeing the [VANOC] developments taking shape, well, the next four and half years until 2010 are going to go quickly. If the First Nations will have me, there's nothing more that I'd like to do than work on this file, that's for sure."

RESOURCES

Tewanee Consulting Group
208 Mission Rd.
North Vancouver, BC, V7M 2Y6
Telephone: 604.230.3126
Fax: 604-925-6662
Email: tewanee_joseph@squamish.net
Web: http://www.tewanee.com

BC aboriginal-business website portal:
http://www.firstbusiness.ca

Squamish aboriginal band website:
http://www.squamish.net/main.html

Lil'wat aboriginal band website:
http://www.lilwatnation.com

Tsleil'Wautut website:
http://www.burrardband.com

Musqueam website:
http://www.musqueam.bc.ca

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

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1165
WHISTLER NORDIC CENTRE CONSTRUCTION SWITCHES TO PHASE 2

The second phase of this year's Whistler Nordic Centre construction project for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) is underway in the Callaghan Valley near Whistler, and it's essentially an extension of the first phase.

Since this spring, a joint venture between two aboriginal-based companies with one owner, Creekside Resources and Resource Business Ventures Limited Partnership, has been clearing swaths of the valley and setting up pads that will eventually be used for a number of the buildings that will be constructed during next year's building season. The work involves clearing, grubbing and rough grading for the compound areas to support the temporary requirements for the 2010 Winter Games, and construction of various access roads (but doesn't include the major work on the access highway between Highway 99 and the future resort; that's a separate contract offered by the BC government's Ministry of Transportation).

"The total value of what we're spending with these guys is on the order of C$6.5 million," says the head of VANOC's Venue division, Steve Matheson. "The first phase was for basic site clearing and preparation of some of the initial compounds. The balance of the work we're going to do there this year is similar. It involves compounds for areas such as the broadcast centre, athlete areas and spectator areas. It's clearing, and we're preparing the base for the various sections involved in the venue."

VANOC CEO John Furlong notes that "This contract represents a fulfillment of a Vancouver 2010 Bid commitment made in the Shared Legacies Agreement to offer 'significant contracts in the Callaghan Valley to be undertaken directly by the Squamish and Lil’wat First Nations.'

The work on phase two is expected to continue until October. Construction season in the area is determined the arrival of the area's normally heavy snowfalls; design and engineering work for the Nordic Centre's main buildings and stadium continue, and are expected to go through the winter. Matheson says construction contract for those structures are expected to be let next spring.

The WNC involves competition trails, ski jumps, a biathlon facility, three temporary stadiums each with spectator capacity of 12,000, services for sewer, water and power, parking lots, lodges and a host of related infrastructure facilities.

Creekside Resources is corporate branch of the Lil’wat aboriginal group, also known as the Mt. Currie band, which is located at the village of Mt. Currie, not far from Whistler. Resource Business Ventures Limited Partnership is an offspring of it. Justine Wilson, CEO of Creekside Resources, is also working on having the BC government accept a three-year, two-stage C$760,000 proposal to help the government manage Sea-to-Sky highway portion of a massive beetle infestation that is killing pine trees in the province. Creekside's concept is reportedly supported by the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District, as well as the municipal governments of Whistler and Pemberton, since the death of the trees along the highway has ramifications for the tourism industry.

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

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1164
Here are three more moguls we ran into today:

VANOC AND MINT REACH COLLECTOR COINS DEAL FOR NEXT YEAR

We've learned that VANOC has reached a co-marketing deal with the Canadian Mint, and that the Mint will launch the official 2010 Olympics coin collector's program early next year, following shortly after the end of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino. The coin program will lead all the way up to the start of the 2010 Games. In addition, the Mint is starting to look for companies to give it quotes on the packaging of the coins. The packaging firm will be asked to deal with all aspects of the packaging project, from concept and design to manufacturing and delivery of the packaging. Companies interested in the idea have until December 31 to contact the Mint. To give you an idea of how this concept compares with the 2006 Winter Games, the Italian Mint, under an agreement with the 2006 Olympic Organizing Committee, TOROC, produced a series of 11 gold and silver commemorative coins. It got wide-spread publicity in Europe, and in numismatic circles around the world for its launch. The coins are being issued in stages through four different releases but the program didn't start until the one-year-out mark, which was last February. Italy started with the least expensive coins, and ramping up in price to the equivalent of gold coins worth about C$80 to capitalize on public collection interest as the start of the Games nears. The final Italian release of coins, later this year, is to feature an image of the torch relay. Commemorative coins have been a feature of every Olympics since the Helsinki Games of 1952.

BRUMWELL, FRASER ADDED TO VANOC COMMUNICATIONS
The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee's (VANOC) marketing and communications division is continuing to strengthen. Chris Brumwell, who has been the director of Media Relations with the Vancouver Canucks National Hockey League club since 1998, has been hired as the new Manager of Media Relations for. He starts October 3rd. Mary Fraser, the manager of Media Relations and Communications for the Canadian Freestyle Ski Association in Vancouver, will become VANOC's Communications Manager, and she'll start in two weeks.

IOC HOPES FOR ASIAN TEAMS IN 2010 ICE HOCKEY
The head of the International Olympic Commission that oversees the development of the 2010 Winter Games, Rene Fasel, who is also president of International Ice Hockey Federation, is hoping that there will be Asian hockey teams at an Olympics, and the 2010 Games are the earliest where that's possible. Asian teams didn't qualify, for various reasons, for next February's Olympic Winter Games in Torino. One of his goals in launching an Asian league at the end of this month is to "help Asian teams to qualify for the Olympics" because he believes the league will promote the popularity of the sport and improve it at grassroots level. But, he notes, there are limited facilities in countries such as Japan and China. The only Asian team that has so far taken part in a Winter Olympics was from Japan, and only because it was the 1998 Games in Nagano. By the way, Fasel and the executive level of the IOC's 2010 Olympics Commission, are in Vancouver this week for their semi-annual inspection and to get formal reports from VANOC staffers of progress in areas that include reports on subjects such as: technology, marketing and communications, construction, accommodation, sport and "authority relations." Gilbert Felli, the Olympic Games executive director, is also with Fasel. During their visit, they'll be meeting with he group to meet with representatives of VANOC's major stakeholders including the Canadian government, the Canadian Olympic Committee, the Province of British Columbia, the cities of Vancouver and Richmond, the Resort Municipality of Whistler, key aboriginal groups and Legacies Now. The full Commission of nine people only come here once a year at this stage, and are scheduled to arrive next spring.

RESOURCES

The Canadian Mint's website:
http://www.mint.ca

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 6, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1163
BC RCMP TO CONSIDER PORTABLE LICENSE-PLATE RECOGNITION SYSTEM FOR 2010 VENUES AND OTHER "HIGH RISK" AREAS

The RCMP's Integrated Municipal Provincial Auto Crime Team is about to start assessing the usefulness of an automated license-plate recognition system for use in areas around the 2010 Winter Olympics and "other locations deemed a high risk."

The Team is asking contractors to supply it with five such systems for evaluation in a pilot project, and, if they work as expected, the federal government's Public Works department documents say the Team is likely to order 20 additional units over the next two years for use by various RCMP detachments and other police agencies in British Columbia. Some of the other areas considered the Team considers to be high risk include the "Vancouver International Airport, Canada-United States border crossings and Pacific coast ports."

ALPR technology, originally developed to deal with the IRA bombing raids on Britain's financial district, is widely used throughout Europe and is also being tested in the United States. The general concept is for police cars to have cameras mounted on them that read license plates and automatically check their validity with a central police database that matches them against various people and vehicles police are investigating.

BACKGROUND

Automated license-plate recognition (ALPR) is a self-contained combination of cameras connected to a computer-database system that is installed in a police vehicle. Potentially, the computer could also be networked to a central on-line police database.

It doesn't matter if the police vehicle is moving or stationary. As many as four cameras are mounted inside the vehicle so that they face forward and to the rear. These cameras capture images of vehicles that are either parked or moving while they are on public streets or park on public property. The plates are lit up using infra-red lights, in part to removes picture-taking problems, such as glare or rain, but also so it can be used at night. Colour cameras are also used to capture an picture of vehicles which help identify their make and colour.

The pictures are then transferred to a computer where the image is mapped using a GPS system to locate it. The ALPR software isolates the license plate from the picture and sends the plate info to databases of known license plates and compares the information. If there is a match, the computer alerts the operator.

The databases include the standard one used by the Canadian Police Information Centre, known as C-PIC, as well as that used by the BC Motor Vehicle Branch. The database, if it's not networked in real time with the police vehicle, is updated in the patrol car daily. Amber Alert or high-profile vehicle info received by the officers in the patrol car on the road can be entered manually.

The database info includes data on: stolen vehicles, stolen license plates and to unregistered or uninsured vehicles. As well, information on what are called pointer vehicles is included. These are associated with prohibited drivers; unlicensed drivers; people charged with crimes, vehicles used in crimes and people who are wanted by various police agencies.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 6, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1162
HEADQUARTERS CONSTRUCTION-PROJECT MANAGER NEEDED -- MOVE EXPECTED IN MID-FEBRUARY

The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) is looking for a construction project manager to supervise the work that will need to be done to get its new headquarters buildings ready for operations in mid-February.

VANOC planners want construction work on the first part of the fit-up for the two adjacent buildings in east Vancouver to begin no later than December and finish no later than the end of January.

But that means somebody's got to co-ordinate the work of the prime contractor and its sub-trades on the 230,000 square feet of buildings on Graveley and Kootenay Streets, and prepare a preliminary budget and schedule for the work by mid-October, so that requests for construction quotes on the first phase of the three-part project can go out by mid-November.

Candidates for the role of construction project manager have to notify VANOC by September 13, so they can receive the full Request for Proposal documents, which are to be issued two days later.

According to VANOC documentation, candidates for the work will have to, "demonstrate specific and significant experience with the construction management of significant tenant improvements to leased-office premises using a model of value engineering, and have the experience to assist in the achievement of VANOC’s sustainability objectives."

The mid-February timing of the headquarters move for an estimated 200 personnel isn't expected to disrupt VANOC day-to-day operations too much; a large contingent of VANOC personnel will be in Italy in mid-February to watch the backroom operations of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino during that time. Depending on the actual timing of the work for many of them, they could be leaving for those Games from their downtown Vancouver headquarters and returning to their new offices in east Vancouver.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 6, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1161

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

ITALIAN GAMES LICENSEES NOW UP TO 30

The Torino Olympic Organizing Committee, TOROC, has released more details about its merchandising program; this might give you a sense of the kinds of things that the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) may be considering. TOROC has licensed 30 companies to produce and distribute the official merchandise of the 2006 Winter Games, which start February 10. It expects merchandise "turnover" -- its documents, translated from Italian, don't explain what it means by that word, but the sense seems to be gross revenue -- to be about e400 million; that's about C$600 million. The companies include Asics Italia (sportswear), Caffarel (chocolate), Cattaneo Cravatte (ties and scarves), Codital (slippers), Ferrino (mountain and trekking equipment), Fontanafredda (wines), Giemme (pens and umbrellas), Ikon (medals), Kelemata (perfumes), Lanterna Magica (cartoons), La Stampa (special projects), Mondo (balls), Leone (candies), Seri System (suitcases) and Trofe (key holders). "There are more than 2,000 official products, covering all categories," explained Lorenzo Giorgetti, who is in charge of the Torino 2006 merchandising, in a news release. "These products will be manufactured and distributed with the Olympic label 'Torino 2006' which is TOROC's exclusive property." The licensed companies will have to pay TOROC royalties of between 12% and 18%. The products are already on sale in five official shops in Turin: "There will be 37 of these shops by February," Giorgetti says, "and they will have 400 employees." The products are also sold in 1,200 other shops throughout Italy. That's expected to be about 5,000 shops by February. They're also being sold on TOROC's Games' website. Last February, we also told you that TOROC had teamed up with the Italian Mint to produce a range of coins that could be used for either currency or collectibles.

SMITHERS PONDERS SKI-HILL USE FOR 2010 CROSS-COUNTRY TEAMS
The purchase of the ski hill complex at Smithers, in north-central British Columbia, by 20/20 Properties has raised the possibility the company might try to encourage national Olympic cross-country ski teams to consider the area for practice leading up to the 2010 Winter Games. However, 20/20 vice-president John Dalton says that an extension to the Smithers Airport's main runway, to allow larger jets to land, would likely have to be built first. The competition has a jump on Smithers in that regard. Terrace, a town only half-an-hour's flying time to the west and which also has a pretty good ski hill, celebrates the opening of an airport runway extension this week.

2010 HEADHUNTERS GET NEW GIG
The international headhunter company that the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) uses to find its senior executives has just been appointed by the equivalent London organization to find itself a chief executive officer for the 2012 Summer Olympics. Odgers, Ray & Berndtson got the nod today.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 6, 2005

Friday, September 02, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1160
LANGUAGE CZAR TO BE HIRED BY END OF SEPTEMBER

The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) is expected to start putting considerably more emphasis on the use of Canada's official languages by the organization this fall when it hires a full time manager to co-ordinate language use.

VANOC's communications department has routinely provided news releases, brochures and similar documents in English and French, and its website is also in the two languages. The lengthy and expensive 2010 Bid document was made twice the size in order to accommodate both French and English.

As VANOC grows bigger and bigger, however, making decisions about when to use both languages, and when to use just one, or when to use others, is becoming more difficult to coordinate, and affects more than just the communications function. As well, some ripple effects of those decisions aren't always obvious. Olympic Villages having signposts in both languages, for instance.

The new VANOC Languages Co-ordinator, expected to be on the job by the end of this month, will be responsible for ensuring VANOC keeps its commitments on the use of official languages, as well as to help implement language-support services during test events, which are expected to start as early as the fall of 2007, and the Games themselves.

They will also define what's required to provide the Games workforce with capability in languages other than French and English at venues and at the Athletes villages to support the needs of other nations involved in the Games, work with the Games workforce to ensure that there are enough translators, and make sure that the translators and equipment are available for public announcements and sport presentations in various languages.

The person is also to ensure there is "an on-going, internal, corporate-wide, awareness program" among VANOC staff about the language commitments. The idea is also to help develop VANOC into a bilingual workplace.

French and English are the two official languages of the International Olympic Committee, which is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, however, at official IOC sessions, simultaneous translation is also provided into German, Spanish, Russian and Arabic. The IOC says that in the event of any discrepancy between the French and English in the Olympic Charter or any other IOC document, the French text prevails. A convention signed under the Olympic charter ensures that announcements before, during and after sporting events are made in both French and English.

Several Games in the 1990s, including the Lillehammer and Nogano Winter Games and the Atlanta Summer Games, were opened using only the local language, causing increasing pressure by the French on the IOC to enforce the use of both languages.

The use of both languages by VANOC, particularly in bilingual Canada and with federal money and politics helping to support the Games, is seen as routine. However, Vancouver also has large populations of people who speak versions of Chinese as well as various East Indian languages, and large organizations in the City routine offer documents in those languages. All of VANOC's major corporate sponsors have operations in both English- and French-speaking areas of the country.

Not surprisingly, the job qualifications require VANOC's new co-ordinator to speak French and English fluently.

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

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1159
ROOMFUL OF POTENTIAL OLYMPIC VILLAGE DEVELOPERS FRET ABOUT VANCOUVER'S TIGHT DEADLINES

A standing-room-only crowd of developers ruefully shook their collective heads at their briefing by the City of Vancouver about the development of the city's 2010 Winter Olympic Village.

The reaction occurred when the City's project manager for the Village and its surrounding Southeast False Creek redevelopment area, Jody Andrews, presented a slide about half-way through the 90-minute meeting. The slide indicated the City expected the detailed rezoning of the four city blocks of land that will become the Village to be prepared and finalized within about a month of after the City chose the developer for the Village.

About 35 representatives of more than a dozen major developers in Greater Vancouver crowded into City Hall's largest meeting room to hear the briefing, the first step in choosing a developer for the work, which will expand beyond the Village after that part is done, to the much larger surrounding lands. Expressions of interest documents from developers need to be filed with Vancouver City's South East False Creek Development Office by September 14. After the documents are evaluated, Andrews and other city officials will pick a short list of three or, perhaps, four developers, and invite them to respond to a formal Request for Proposals; the winning developer will be chosen and contracted to the City, probably in December.

A few minutes later, the crowd of developers laughed nervously as Andrews got to the zoning section of the slide in his presentation, when he confirmed, "Yes, there is a bit of time compression here." Later, he added, "2010 kind of snuck up on all of us."

Under planning from some years ago, the City was supposed to having this briefing meeting late last year, but city council spent much longer than the time originally set in setting out conditions for developing the South East False Creek lands.

Andrews says the City was trying to pick the best balance between providing time for the rezoning process and the much longer time that will be necessary for construction of the Village's buildings. The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC), represented by its Village project manager Mark Cutler at the meeting, needs a minimum of 654 accommodation units and at least 77,000 square feet of commercial space built on the False Creek foreshore in downtown Vancouver by the summer of 2009. VANOC will take over the village exclusively on November 1, 2009 to set up security perimeters and complete the installation of its Olympic faculties overlay, and return it to the developer by April, 2010, after the Games.

Developers also heard for the first time at the briefing that VANOC will be taking over the entire False Creek foreshore, from the Cambie Bridge to Main Street and south to Second Avenue during that November-to-April period for temporary storage and staging grounds on the west side of the Village, and for transportation compounds on the east side of the Village.

Andrews, and the city's chief Planner for the area, Ian Smith, repeatedly told the developers that they should not consider the relationship between the successful developer and the City a normal, or the project as a normal housing development.

Andrews puts it this way, "It's not a classic developer relationship. The [successful developer] will actually be working with the City's project office to deliver the development.

While Andrews said the City would not be taking any shortcuts in the development process, the City's deal with VANOC meant that the City was strongly motivated to help the developer through the design and zoning process, and that unlike most such projects, the City, using the engineering firm of Stantec, would be delivering, in parallel, fully serviced land to the developer, whose primary job would be to have the necessary residential and commercial buildings financed, designed and built.

Smith also said it may be possible, if developers were worried about the rezoning timeframes, that they could be extended by one or two months, even though that would cut down on the time available for construction.

VANOC's Village project manager, Mark Cutler, was asked if he thought there was enough time remaining to get the project done by the time VANOC needed it. He took a long time to answer, but finally said, cautiously, "I'm just going to wait for the responses to the EOI, and see what the development community tells us. We're building a fairly extensive construction timeline into the master program, and right now I would think there's sufficient contingency in that [timeline]. But it will be for the wider development community to tell us if that's right. I'm not going to be concerned about the timeframe until I get a response from the development community that tells me I should be concerned."

One of the candidates for Vancouver's mayor in November's election and a currently one of the city's most politically powerful councillors, Jim Green, was the only politician to attend the meeting. He shrugged when he was asked about the relatively short time remaining for the project.

"We have some deadlines that we have to meet, and that's the reality of dealing with the Olympics." he says, adding, "But I know the players and I know our staff, and it's going to work out fine. I have no doubts about that whatsoever." He also waved away suggestions that council took too much time last year. "The plan that we received from the previous government wasn't sustainable and didn't work. We had a letter from, I think, 12 of the leading architects in the city asking us to reconsider it. The work has to be done properly, or we don't get the product that we're looking for."

Green also says the vision for the project is strong. "It has to really showcase the values of Vancouver on an international plane, which we'll be on in 2010. The Olympics people are telling us we're the first sustainable Olympics, and that's because we've put in the human sustainability stuff that never had been there before."

Andrews also urged the developers to "be creative" in their financing arrangements and design-concept approaches for the buildings. "The idea is that this is a value-added process, so that [the developer] comes through with us, and we take the input as we go," he says.

Some developers, on the other hand, were clearly worried about what they termed "significant insurance issues" since even though they would own most of the lands and buildings -- or have a 99-year lease on the land -- they would be out of their possession for about half a year.

Andrews also revealed that the City would be building "a small island" in False Creek just west of the Olympic Village and just offshore as an offset for creating a small inlet east of the island to offset the inlet's land removal. The dirt where the inlet is to be dug is badly polluted from the years when the area was used for heavy industry and must be removed.

Andrews, after the meeting, said that while the developers were worried about various parts of the timeframes, "We can work on those dates. But I didn't hear anybody say they couldn't build it by the summer of 2009." Andrews says the pressures on the City and the developer will change once the rezoning is done, by next February or March, as they start worrying about availability of materials and labour. "We want to give as much time to that, and respond to those pressures as we can."

BACKGROUND

For details on the Olympic Village developer requirements outlined by the City of Vancouver, here's our previous story on it:

'Vancouver to developers: Are you interested in building the city's 2010 Athletes Village?'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:1140; Published on Tuesday, August 16, 2005]

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

Morgan:News:2010:Bronze Edition

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