Morgan:News:2010:Bronze Edition: December 2005

Thursday, December 22, 2005

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Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1385
FURLONG CONCERNED ABOUT MORE THAN CONSTRUCTION INFLATION PREPARING FOR 2006 CONSTRUCTION SEASON

The CEO of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) says the considerable size and number of large capital projects that are due to be built on the south coast of BC over the next few years are going to pose challenges for VANOC beyond cost control.

"We're in a frenzied marketplace for construction," John Furlong said, "Our worry, going forward, is labour availability, cost escalations, even having a place to house workers who will be working on the projects in Whistler."

The total cost of the Nordic Centre was originally budgeted at about C$100 million when the bid to host the Games was accepted by the International Olympic Committee, and the Sliding Centre at about C$60 million. But that was in 2002 dollars, as required by IOC bidding rules, and the sudden expansion in non-residential construction in the past 18 months, has forced an escalation of construction costs.

However, Furlong said the design of the Whistler Nordic Centre in the Callaghan Valley has been "tightened up dramatically" during the past few months in an effort to reduce construction costs. "We've reduced the complexity, changed the design a lot. We'll still have a fantastic Nordic venue, but we've tried to take out elements that are simply too challenging to build."

Furlong said the decision to make the ski jumps temporary, instead of permanent as urged by various athletic groups, means, "We've taken about C$5 million out of [the Nordic Centre cost] by building only the speed jumps that we need for the Olympic program, but there won't be summer jumps after the Games."

Furlong says work this past season on both the Whistler Sliding Centre (WSC) and the Whistler Nordic Centre (WNC) came in on time and slightly under budget. About C$6.5 million was spent by VANOC on this year's program on the steeply sloped WSC. Furlong says the contracting firm Emil Anderson and VANOC managed to reduce expenditures by about C$600,000 from what was expected to be spent. VANOC earlier indicated that about C$13 million was spent at the WNC so far.

Virtually all of the work done this past construction season -- the time that's bracketed by the area's heavy snowfalls -- has involved earthmoving, road-building and parking-lot preparation, along with construction of some compounds.

Furlong says the contractors used on both projects this past summer were well aware that the work had to be done properly. "They are very aware the work must be done well, and we must send a message to the world that we are on top of it, that it's under control. So far, our experience has been great."

VANOC is expected to issue more tenders in the next few weeks to deal with the major construction of the venues in the Whistler area, as well as other venue projects. Furlong says contractor proponents are being evaluated on more than just their pricing structure. "We are absolutely determined that no contractor will work on this project [the 2010 Games] who is not prepared to get into the trenches and work with us to make sure we get the most out of these projects that we can."

And, he added, "We have to get these [upcoming] contracts done early and buttoned down, to reduce the danger of possibly going up even further, and we have to continue to find the best people we can to work on these projects, to manage them, to secure them and to protect them."

The CEO said that VANOC has had discussions with the steel and concrete industries "to see if they can find ways to help us to reduce our costs," but he did not say what the outcome of the discussions, if any, might be.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1384

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

RICHMOND 2010 OVAL CONSTRUCTION TO START IN MAY

Richmond City staff now expect major construction of the city's sports complex that will house the 2010 Winter Olympics oval to begin in May, starting in the 6000-block of River Road. A total of C$5.9 million has been spent so far on the project, including C$2.3 million for design, C$960,537 for site preparation and C$175,240 for public consultation. An initial C$500,000 was spent on the application process, and studies leading up to it. The building, budgeted at C$178 million is the largest building being erected for the 2010 Olympics. Richmond is building the 33,750-square-metre facility, which includes the 400 metre indoor track -- with the help of C$60 million from VANOC, and, at last word, expects to complete the complex in the fall of 2008. By the way, just one of the many ironies coupled with the project: the Richmond politician that was particularly critical of the amount of money being spent on trips by politicians and staff to Torino for the IOC's observer program and to see how other jurisdictions deal with skating ovals was councillor Bill McNulty. He's been named by Richmond council as the leader of the group that will be going to Torino in early February.

BC GOVERNMENT EXTENDS ALBERNI LIVE SITE SPENDING DEADLINE BY TWO YEARS
The BC government has approved an extension to the March 2006 deadline that originally required key upgrades to the Alberni Valley Multiplex, based on government funding of C$330,000 from its 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Live Sites program. The new deadline is March, 2008. The C$600,000 project was originally planned to start last summer, but was delayed for various reasons and is now not expected to begin until the spring, when the arena's ice is removed. However, the government, in late November, sent Port Alberni a cheque for the first installment of C$110,000 from the Small Business and Economic Development Ministry. The Live Sites Award program is intended to increase participation by B.C. communities in the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. The local Spirit of BC Committee, which receives organizational help from 2010 LegaciesNow, hopes to attract national Olympic teams to the Alberni Valley for training and competition between now and 2010.

TORINO SHOWS OFF TALLEST CAULDRON, OLYMPIC VILLAGE
The Torino Olympics Organizing Committee today -- with only 50 days to go -- held a ceremony to draw attention to the Olympic cauldron for its Games. The 57-metre tower, about the height of a 20-storey building, with the cauldron atop, is the tallest in Olympic history -- the Olympic Stadium is only 26 metres tall - and it can be seen from almost anywhere in the Italian city. It will be lit on February 10 during the Opening Ceremony of the Games. The cauldron is one of the ways in which a host nation expresses its culture, spirit and history. The cauldron stands on five long tubes with a diameter of 60cm, that swells to three metres. A sixth, central, tube starts at the base and goes up to the cauldron, widening in the last three metres to give the burners the space needed to produce the flame. The five outside tubes twist in the final section, and the cauldron itself has a twist to it. The flame, supplied with methane gas by supplied by Italgas, one of the Games' sponsors, is expected to rise to a height of about four metres. The ignition system is expected to be kept secret until the runner carrying the Olympic flame enters the building. The location of the cauldron tower was determined by visibility studies. See the RESOURCES section below for a link to a photo of it. Meanwhile the Torino Olympic Athletes village was completed today.

RESOURCES

A photo of the Torino cauldron:
www.torino2006.org/ENG/OlympicGames/news/news_ita150403.html

A satellite map showing the location of the Richmond complex that will house the speedskating oval:
maps.google.com/maps?q=6200+River+Road+Richmond,+BC,+Canada&t=h&hl=en

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

Morgan:News:2010 |General| #1383
BC CENTRAL ECONOMIST WARNS THAT LABOUR-COST INFLATION MAY SOON REPLACE MATERIAL-COST WORRIES FOR VANOC

The economic weather forecast for the construction industry in which the 2010 Winter Games will be built just keeps getting worse -- for the Games and any other big-ticket item on a fixed budget.

First it was the price of construction materials skyrocketing in the last year or so. On the horizon, the cost of labour may follow suit. That's today's news from the economic folks at the Credit Union Central of British Columbia (CUCBC).

For just about anybody else that isn't footing the bills, it's a boom time in British Columbia's non-residential construction industry, one that is straining the limits of BC's building-supply pipelines.

Writing in the CUCBC's publication "Economic Analysis of B.C.", economist Dave Hobden says today that spending on non-residential construction projects totalled almost C$10 billion in 2004 and is forecast to jump to nearly C$14 billion in 2007. That represents average annual growth of almost 13% from 2005 through 2007, compared with 5% average annual growth from 2002 through 2004."

Although Olympic construction spending is less than 1% of that and has virtually no effect on it, the other 99% has a significant effect on building the venues for the 2010 Games because it has to compete with all the other projects for labour and materials, and both are in short supply.

And so the CUCBC's news is not good for Olympic organizers who are worried that inflation in labour materials over the last two years has increased substantially, forcing them to apply to the federal and provincial governments to guaranteed the value of their 2002 pledges of funds be held through 2007, when the bulk of VANOC's building will be nearing completion.

But the outlook isn't good for VANOC either. Hobden notes that, "Total investment in non-residential construction is expected to keep rising, both in quantity and price, at least through 2007. Real investment growth -- net of price inflation -- averaged 2.4% per annum from 2002 through 2004. In comparison, CUCBC forecasts [that] real investment will grow at an annual compound rate of 7.3% from 2005 through 2007. In addition to real growth, price inflation on non-residential investment is forecast at an annual compound rate of 5.1% from 2005 through 2007, up substantially from 2.5% from 2002 through 2004."

In addition, "Indications are the cost of materials, especially steel and concrete, has risen faster than the cost of labour over the past year or two, although this may reverse in the next two years. CUCBC forecasts price inflation on total non-residential construction investment will be 5.5% in 2006 and 4.2% in 2007. Price inflation on building construction in Greater Vancouver alone is expected to be higher, at between 5% and 6% annually."

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #1382
BELL CANADA TO BEGIN LAYING TELECOM BACKBONE FOR 2010 GAMES BETWEEN VANCOUVER AND WHISTLER IN FEBRUARY

Bell Canada, the telecommunications sponsor for the 2010 Winter Games, says it expects to begin laying its new fibre optic cable system along the Sea to Sky Highway between West Vancouver and Whistler on February 14.

The fibre-optic network will carry TV signals from the 2010 Games in Whistler and the nearby Callaghan Valley to the Vancouver media centre and its attendant satellite farm, as well as hundreds of telephone and Internet services between the two centres.

Since a considerable portion of the Olympics revenue is generated by broadcasting of the Games, the fibre optic network will be critical to its success. It will also carry all the computer data generated by Games. The line will also serve the new Nordic resort and the Whistler Sliding Centre under construction by the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC).

At the moment, the construction crews for those projects are relying on satellite-based telecommunications set up by Bell, particularly in the Callaghan Valley. In the years following, the fibre-optic line will continue to be a backbone of commercial and residential communications between Whistler, Squamish and Vancouver.

Laying down the communications backbone is a complex engineering job, with a batch of mundane trench-digging thrown in. The project requires trenches between three and five feet deep -- for the cable, its piping and assorted junction and access boxes -- to be laid the entire length of the 76-kilometre corridor. As it is being installed, it will also be placed alongside a set of well-used parallel railway tracks. And it will have to six streets in West Vancouver, from 13th to 16th streets, as well as Bridge Road and Ambleside Park.

In addition, the cable will be bolted to the side of 46 bridges and culverts along the route, and they total nearly two kilometres of work. And, as the job proceeds, the contractor will have to follow pages of instructions and requirements that stem from the regulations covering rail and road work, not to mention those of the various jurisdictions and other utilities that will be crossed in the process.

Also, the contractor will have to ensure that there are road and rail flagmen in place as the work proceeds, on a gruelling 10-on, four-day off schedule, in order to minimize the impact on traffic and maximize the timetable. Bell is supplying the materials for the piping that will hold the cable, as well as the cable itself, from a storage area in Squamish, which is roughly halfway between the beginning and the end of the cabling.

Bell says it will be taking any contractors interested in bidding on the work on a special train January 17 and a second run on January 18 so they can inspect the conditions where the fibre-optic lines are to be laid, but each contractor will have to pay C$1,000 just to board the train, and they'll have to get their proposals into Bell at its Calgary headquarters by January 25 if they want to be considered.

Bell say the three separate contracts for the work are expected to be awarded by the end of January. Time will be of the essence in getting the job done -- the cable needs to be in place to start carrying the communications traffic connected with the construction of the 2010 venues as work gets under way in the spring -- but the company is leaving it up to potential bidders to show them the estimated timetable, along with the projected cost.

The company this fall completed construction of its first Olympic-related, cellular base-station. The station is on Bowen Island, just north of Vancouver. The company is also working on a site at VANOC's Cypress Bowl venue, in preparation for work next year at the West Vancouver location.

BACKGROUND

A fibre-optic cable is a form of network cabling that transmits signals optically, rather than electrically, like coaxial and twisted-pair cable. The light-conducting heart of a fibre-optic cable is a fine glass or plastic fibre called the core. The core is surrounded by a refractive layer called the cladding that effectively traps the light and keeps it bouncing along the central fibre. Outside both the core and the cladding is a final layer, usually of a plastic material, called the coat or jacket. Fibre-optic cable can transmit clean signals at speeds as high as two gigabytes per second. Because it transmits light, not electricity, it is also immune to eavesdropping.
A high rail, also spelled 'hi-rail', is a special trolley mechanism that allows road vehicles, such as cars, trucks, pick-ups or vans, to drive on train tracks. The mechanism fits under the vehicle and the drive wheels of the vehicle propel it smoothly along the track.

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

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1381

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

VANOC EXTENDS CULTURAL PROGRAM DIRECTOR NET

VANOC appears to be having trouble getting qualified candidates for a job its offering to somebody with a lot of cultural experience: Program Director for its Cultural Olympiad. It first offered the employment in mid-November, and was hoping to pick somebody to start in January, or, maybe, February. It's now started to advertise much wider for the position. The Cultural Olympiad, a tradition with the Olympics, runs from 2006 to 2010 and parallels the development the Games themselves, and the job offer is now due to close January 16.

VANOC HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS, BUT OFFERS WEB CARD INSTEAD
The doors to VANOC's corporate headquarters in downtown Vancouver will be closing at noon on Friday for the holidays and they'll re-open Monday, January 2. The Vancouver 2010 Information Centre in Whistler will be closed as well, but only on December 25 and 26, as well as January 1. The Centre will remain open from 11 am to 5 pm otherwise. By the way, VANOC has also produced a primarily visual year-in-review, billing it as a holiday message, on a website with its own domain. (The domain is owned by VANOC but hosted by its telecommunications sponsor, Bell Canada, from a server farmer in Quebec.) The web address is in the Resources section below. There are also links for "getting involved", which includes getting e-mails from VANOC on various occasions. It's also started to use some of its corporate style. The website uses Flash technology for its animated effects. There's also a section to send messages to Olympic athletes.

ICE ARTIST IN ITALY TO HELP PROMOTED 2010 GAMES
Gordon Halloran of Roberts Creek on the coast north of Vancouver is now in Italy, organizing his idea of including Torino as one of his installations, and promote BC's Olympics while he's at it. He is the only BC visual artist on the 2006 Winter Olympics cultural schedule to take part in a show to promote the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver. He was invited by TOROC in July 2004, and raised C$125,000 on his own to finance his trip. He'll be promoting BC in an unusual way. The show, called "Paintings Below Zero" involves Halloran doing several large abstract paintings shortly before the Games on ice slabs hanging in the Fortezza di Fenestrelle, a church outside Torino. The church will be kept below freezing during the exhibit, which runs from January 28 to February 26. Halloran has several other installations along these lines. Griffin says Halloran, who is in Italy now, told him by e-mail from Torino, "There will be 1,500 square feet of paintings across the floor of the church and another 12 to fourteen, two-inch thick slabs that will go up the walls and across the windows of the church." The paintings will be centered in a series of historical forts and buildings, on floors, steps and up walls. There will be a "live" section of the painting: each day these sections will change, melting and freezing into different shapes, colours and depth.

RESOURCES
VANOC's year-in-review and holiday card:
www.salutations-vancouver2010.com

The website about the Halloran ice-painting project:
www.icepaintingproject.com/

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Torino| #1380
ATOS ORIGIN FINISHES WEEK OF TESTING '500 SCENARIOS' ABOUT WHAT COULD HAPPEN TO TECHNOLOGY DURING ITALIAN GAMES

Atos Origin, the huge networking company that will be working on the 2010 Winter Games, today completed a week of technological dress rehearsals for the 2006 Winter Games in Torino, which start next February.

It was the second and final major test of the systems the Games will be using, and it gives an idea of what to expect when Atos sets up for the Vancouver Games.

The rehearsal simulated the three busiest days of the Games, which TOROC expects will be February 15th to the 17th. It tested 500 different scenarios -- and only the senior managers knew anything about what they were or how they play out -- including hardware failures, security attacks, staffing problems and competition delays or rescheduling.

The week-long technical rehearsals were undertaken by a staff and volunteer group of 720 people, who work on IT systems, communication, sports, security, venue management and press operations.

About 40 officials, many of whom worked on setting up the scenarios, assessed the response to hardware failures, software bugs, sport changes, users' complaints, staffing problems, security attacks, network breaks and power outages. And the testing took place at 23 venues, both in city and in mountains, and involved all 15 of the sports. All the competitions were simulated from the actual locations, enabling the technical people to work directly with the Games infrastructure, and in real Games environmental conditions.

Representatives from the media and sports also took part in the trial, trying to apply for accreditation as they would do during the Games. Also tested was the Commentator Information System, a web browser-based application that displays results a fraction of a second after the event on touch-screen PCs at the venue broadcast sites. And also under the microscope: Info2006, an Intranet that will provide information to accredited media and the Olympic Family of athletes and IOC officials.

The system prepared by Atos works with the telecommunication company to distribute the information to radio, TV and Internet broadcast systems, and with Swatch, which will do the time keeping (in Vancouver's case, Switzerland's Swatch will be doing the timekeeping under its Omega brand).

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

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1379
VANCOUVER VOTES TO REWORK 2010 OLYMPIC VILLAGE HOUSING MIX TO RECOVER C$50 MILLION IN LAND COSTS

Vancouver City council has voted along party lines in favour of asking staff to report early next month on to report on how best the 2010 Olympic Village's legacy housing component can be revamped to recover the land value of the site over 15 years.

The decision -- for a staff report to the first Community Services and Budget Committee meeting of January 19 -- is a victory for newly elected NPA mayor Sam Sullivan, whose centre-right party gained a slim majority over the left-leaning parties that dominated the previous council. The Olympic village is the first phase of a three-phase, and much larger reworking of the decrepit industrial zone along the southeast shore of False Creek, in downtown Vancouver.

However, the decision, after a three-hour meeting that included a number of delegates urging Council to let the process proceed as the previous council planned. It comes at the 11th hour for the process that's designed by city staff to select a developer of about 1,000 units of housing over several buildings of relatively low-rise buildings, and get it built in time to become a place for 2010 athletes and their support teams to use.

The village has to be ready to turn over the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) by November, 2009, and the timeline is already extremely tight. The developer needs to be chosen quickly so that it can take the project's design through a formal public rezoning hearing, issue tenders and start construction by late this spring or early summer, while contending with a volatile and busy construction market. (The City is acting as its own developer of the public areas and services required, and it has committed to the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) that it will provide 250 units of "affordable" housing, which is about one third.)

The City has already issued a formal Request for Proposals to four developers based on the current legacy housing mix of a third for heavily subsidized families, a third of mixed-income families, and a third for housing based on what the market will bear. Changing the ratio changes the profitability of the project for the developers, and staff said that if council decided to go for, say, an 80% mix of market housing and 20% for income-tested residents, that could change the economics by as much as C$36 million, and would require the proponent developers to offer a different land price based on a new housing mix.

Sullivan told council that a housing mix split even at 80/20 is "rare" across North America. "They don't even have the concept of social housing in new developments. It's something we should be proud of."

However, there was some confusion as to whether council can legally make changes to the housing mix without making changes to the master Official Development Plan, which would take weeks to implement, so Sullivan asked staff to include comments from the City's legal department in the report it will provide, as well as whether the RFP process could be significantly changed without restarting it.

Sullivan and his fellow NPA councillors told staff they want a report by their January 19 meeting that will give them options of adjusting the Southeast False Creek Official Development Plan, Financial Plan and Strategy so that the City's Property Endowment Fund (PEF) recover the land value of the entire site, currently estimated at C$50 million, over the anticipated 15 year build-out by adjusting the housing mix and other public Amenities. They told staff they want "minimal impact on the other aspects of the development, with no adverse impact on the delivery of the Olympic Village for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

The PEF is a fund set up to help pay for public amenities in such projects, including, in this case, a community centre and quite a bit of the public infrastructure that would normally be built by a land developer.

And they told staff to issue an addendum to the RFP, to ensure the developers were fully aware there would be changes coming.

Sullivan told Council, as he argued in favour of the motion, that, "For the last 40 years, every council [before the last one] has respected the principle of financial sustainability for the PEF. And because of their discipline, we were able to purchase all the land in southeast False Creek. If it wasn't for their discipline in the past, we wouldn't have this project before us today, and if we are not prudent in the use of this Fund, future councils 50, 100, 200 years from now, won't have this incredible opportunity to make investments and do important projects." And, he added, "Not a lot of people get passionate about financial sustainability; I actually do."

Council still has several decisions yet to be made in 2006, no matter what happens with the housing ratio, including whether the land is to be sold or go to a long-term lease; it has done both in the False Creek area. Staff say that some of that information will also be in the January report, since they affect council's options.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Sports| #1378
PACIFIC SPORTS INSTITUTE CONSIDERS SETTING UP 'MEDICAL MALL' TO HELP SUPPORT 2010-BOUND HIGH-PERFORMANCE ATHLETES

The Pacific Sports Institute -- due to be set up at Camosun College near Victoria, on Vancouver Island, in time to have an influence on athletes for the 2010 Winter Games -- is asking corporate sport-medicine suppliers to contact it by January 16 about a concept its considering.

PSI, expected to be completed in 2008, is forecast to provide diploma, applied-degree and continuing-education programs in health, wellness and sport leadership, as well as athletic and coaching development. Since it will be focused on researching innovative sports technology, the Institute expects to be involved in athletic performances at the Beijing 2008 and 2012 British Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games, as well as the 2010 Winter Games.

At the moment, though, it wants to gather information about "the initial set-up and daily operation of a nationally respected sports-medicine facility within the Institute." In essence, it's thinking about setting up a type of medical mall within the Institute, and it wants to test whether companies would be interested in establishing there and, if so, under what conditions. As an Institute planner puts it, "Preliminary planning has allocated space in the range of 3,000 sq. ft., with design in the early stages. Service providers will have input on design and development for this space. It is expected that the space will be available for occupancy in March or April of 2008."

The medical mall, according to the concept, would be offering services to elite athletes, college students and the general population. The types of services they're thinking about would probably include chiropractic, massage therapy, physiotherapy, athletic therapy, related health and medical services, nutrition. They also suggest the services might include contributing to applied research in sport science and technology, and possibly the participating firms might be involved in helping to deliver sport-education programs. An educational component would be possible if it were aligned with the college's applied-degree programs.

Whether the concept goes to a formal Request-for-Proposals stage will depend on what Institute planners get from the information request.

RESOURCES

Pacific Sport Institute's website:
www.pacficsportinstitute.ca

PacificSport Victoria:
www.pacificsport.com

Camosun's website:
www.camosun.bc.ca

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

Monday, December 19, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1377
CREATIVE TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS WINS SECOND MAJOR TRAFFIC-STUDY CONTRACT FOR 2010

A 12-year-old consulting firm from Port Moody, a city just east of Vancouver, has picked up its second contract with the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC).

Creative Transportation Solutions (CTS) was awarded a contract last week to provide detailed studies of VANOC's Olympic and Paralympic parking requirements. As is usual with VANOC's use of BC's public bidding system, the value of the award was not released. Work on the contract is expected to start next month and take about six months to complete.

Parking and how people chose it will affect a range of VANOC's operations in late 2009 and the first half of 2010. So VANOC is asking CTS to detail whether Games spectators are likely to use public transit or their own vehicles to get to the Games.

CTS will also be figuring out where parking lots can be established around the venues -- in addition to lots that now exist -- how big those additional lots will have to be, and what kind of revenue VANOC could expect to be generated by the parking, along with what kinds of costs might associated with the lots.

VANOC is figuring on renting or leasing the necessary land for the lots, as well as generate revenue. And it wants CTS to cost out the property, plus the required Olympic overlay aspects, which will be installed starting in the latter part of 2009, such as signage, security, accreditation and the like.

Early last spring, CTS won its first contract: detailed baseline studies of Whistler's traffic patterns during the same time period when the Olympics will be running, to establish baseline information that was rolled into other traffic studies.

RESOURCES

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

Our original story on the traffic project, which goes into more detail about what VANOC requires:

'Venue parking, GVRD and Whistler transit flows to be studied starting in January'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:1294; Published on Monday, November 14, 2005]

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1376

Here are three more moguls we ran into today:

VANOC'S PHELPS TO ALSO CHAIR JUNIOR MINING FIRM

Michael Phelps, one of the 20 directors on VANOC's board, has been appointed to the chairmanship of the board of a Vancouver-based junior mining company. The announcement about the appointment of Phelps to oversee management operations of Kodiak Exploration (TSX-V: KXL) was announced today by the firm. The company has several nickel, copper and gold properties in Canada. Phelps is also chairman of Dornoch Capital, a private investment company. From January 1988 to 2002, Phelps was president and chief executive officer, towards the end of his tenure there, chair of Westcoast Energy of Vancouver. For VANOC, Phelps is chair of the Board's Audit Committee. The Kodiak job is not Phelps's only outside endeavour. He is also a director of several large companies: Duke Energy, Canadian Pacific Railway, Canfor Corporation and Fairborne Energy Trust. He is also chairman of the Board of the GLOBE Foundation of Canada, and Chairman of the Committee to Nominate the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. Phelps also serves on the board of the VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation, and is senior advisor to Deutsche Bank AG Canada.

MORE EVENTS SCHEDULED FOR VANCOUVER AFTER TORINO HAND-OFF
Still more information on various events in Vancouver to mark the start of the 2010 lead-up to the Winter Games. The start will be the February 26 hand-over of the Olympic flag by the mayor of Torino to Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan, followed by a VANOC artistic performance. In Vancouver, the City's Parks Board has authorized staff to spend up to C$50,000 lighting an long-time inukshuk sculpture made of rock near a city beach. The lighting is to be permanent, to be a remembrance of the Games after they're gone as well as leading up to them, and Board officials hope they will be a tourist draw. Meanwhile, the parks board will also offer free skating sessions on February 26, which is a Saturday, at all its arenas, and there will be athletes from from various local teams, such as women's hockey, ringette and figure skating taking part. Arts projects focusing on the inukshuk are proposed for the four rinks affected in some way by the 2010 Games themselves: Killarney, Trout Lake, Kerrisdale and Riley Park. And, officials say, stations will be set up to collect inukshuk stories, as well as places to help children make their own toy inukshuk sculptures to take home. The City will also be erecting street banners, and the unveiling an official countdown clock for the Games. VANOC's logo is based on the inukshuk design.

NBC REPORTS TORINO OLYMPIC PROGRAMMING AD SALES SURPASS PREVIOUS RECORD FOR WINTER GAMES
NBC, to counter industry discussion that time sales for advertising during its Olympic coverage of the Torino 2006 Winter Games is sluggish, today reports that it has sold 90% of its inventory, with two months yet to go. It hasn't provided revenue figures, but says it has surpassed the 2002 Winter Olympics revenue of US$740 million, but that it hasn't yet reached its record revenue target of US$900 million. It paid US$613 million for the American broadcasting rights to the Italian Games, and is said to have made a profit on each of the last two Olympics, the summer Games in Athens and the winter ones in Salt Lake City. Advertisers who have bought time on the network during the Games broadcast, according to NBC, include Anheuser Busch beer, Visa credit cards, Coca-Cola soft drinks, Allstate insurance and General Motors vehciles. New advertisers include such as Applebee's, Target, Exxon Mobil, Choice Hotels, Johnson & Johnson, AT&T and Lenovo, the Chinese company that purchased IBM's PC business. NBC will also be broadcasting the 2010 Winter Games to the United States.

RESOURCES
Here is Kodiak's website:
www.kodiakexp.com

Here is NBC's Olympic website:
www.nbcolympics.com

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1375
OTTAWA PONDERS FULL SHORTFALL COVERAGE OF 2010 ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

NewsWatch

The minister in charge of the federal government's part of the 2010 Winter Olympics, Stephen Owen, has told a reporter he expects Ottawa to share the cost with BC of any "unavoidable" shortfall in the 2010 Organizing Committee's operations.

The Vancouver Sun's Jeff Lee, in a report published Saturday, quotes Owen as saying, "I'd like to go out on a bit of a limb here. The Canadian government is a full partner," he said. "We're determined, on behalf of Canadians, that this will be a success, and we are not going to leave these Games in a deficit. We're certainly not walking away from cost overruns that are unavoidable."

Ottawa, Owen told Lee, would also cover the borrowing costs of funds it needs for its construction program because of delays by Ottawa in providing its previously pledged funding to the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC).

VANOC revealed in its audited financial report for its fiscal year ending July 31, which it released earlier this month, that it needed to set up a C$5 million line of credit to offset federal funding construction money shortages.

Owen told Lee that VANOC's first draft of its business plan, which VANOC said would be ready last spring but kept being delayed, didn't arrived in Ottawa until July. He claimed that was the reason that the pledged funding wasn't included in last spring's federal government budget. And, he said, the necessary funds were included in the supplemental estimates that were sent for approval by Parliament this fall, but the collapse of the minority Liberal government November 28 prevented it from passing.

Owen told Lee that the Heritage Ministry, which is the government department run by Owen and which is responsible for Ottawa's part of the 2010 project, has now asked the government's Treasury Board for a special warrant -- normally used only for urgent projects -- to cover the shortfall, and it has also asked Treasury to deal with an application by VANOC for additional construction funding to offset inflation within the building industry since the pledge by Ottawa in 2002 to help with the expenses.

VANOC CEO John Furlong told Lee the federal financial delays didn't have much effect on the organization this year, because the construction budget was relatively limited, but the first of the next three years of heavy construction by VANOC is due to start next spring.

This was not covered in Lee's report, but the business plan and its budgets, the timing of which appears to be central to the funding troubles, was to have been released last spring, but when questioned at that time about it, VANOC's senior vice-president of Planning, Terry Wright, said it not be released until the fall, and that it had to be approved by VANOC's Board of Directors as well as the BC and federal governments. However, in the fall, VANOC Board Chair Jack Furlong said it was so full of qualifications and rough numbers, that the plan probably wouldn't be released until after staff were able to incorporate the Torino 2006 Winter Games experience into it. This year's VANOC plan, which still hasn't been made public, was to have been the first of three budgets the Organizing Committee was to have developed leading up to 2010.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1374

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

CHILLIWACK GETS C$330,000 GRANT FOR OLYMPIC LIVE SITE LOCATION

The Central Community Park project in Chilliwack, a city east of Vancouver in the Fraser Valley, received a C$330,000 grant from the B.C. government's Olympic Live Sites program Saturday. The city intends to apply to VANOC that it make the amphitheatre, which is planned for the C$1 million project, an Olympic torch stop for the 2010 winter games in Vancouver and Whistler. The park, near the city's downtown core, is planned to become a community centre with a strong arts component. The cheque was delivered Saturday by the area's Member of the Legislature, John Les, who is currently the BC government's Solicitor General but was previously the minister in charge of overseeing BC's interests in the 2010 Games when the Live Sites program was developed. VANOC has said previously that nearly every community in BC is expected to be on the torch run route.

EUROPEAN SATELLITE TV OUTLINES TYPE OF COVERAGE OF 2006 GAMES TO EXPECT
Eurosport, the European-based satellite TV network, gave an outline today of the coverage it expects to provide of the Torino 2006 Winter Olympics from February 10 to the 26. It expects to have an audience of roughly 130 million, it will broadcast the Games on three satellite channels -- Eurosport, Eurosport 2 and Euronews -- 24 hours a day for a total of 380 hours of TV. Eurosport be broadcasting in 19 European languages to 54 countries, and it will have about 120 people in the Olympic region for production. Then there will about 300 commentators in the network's national studios. Eurosport 2 transmits to 39 countries in seven languages and is aimed at youth. The network is already showing several magazine-style TV programs about the development of the Games and interviews with officials of the Torino Organizing Committee, another program does the same sort of thing with coaches and athletes, and a third looks at the behind-the-scenes preparations of the athletes and their supporters.

VANOC SPENDING IS UP CONSIDERABLY DURING FY 2005
A couple of remaining tidbits scraped off the sides of VANOC's audited statement for the fiscal year ending July 31: It was spending an average C$59,502 per day during that year -- that's C$1.8 million per month. That compares with C$47.92 per day and C$1,437 per month during the first fiscal year (which was only 10 months long). And it borrowed a total of C$19.6 million to finance its operations during the course of the 2005 fiscal year, compared with C$7.2 million during the prior period.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC, Government| #1373
ENVIRONMENTAL GROUP AUTHORIZES VANCOUVER ATHLETE VILLAGE FORESHORE WORK TO BEGIN

A committee of various governmental environmental departments has finally given the green light to the City of Vancouver's proposed changes to False Creek that are needed to construct the 2010 Vancouver Athletes Village.

The City is working with the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) to building the Athletes Village as the first phase and core of a new city neighbourhood. The Athlete Village will house athletes, their coaches, trainers and support staff, as well as various other officials connected with the 2010 Games, and is due to open early in 2010. It will later be converted to apartment-style housing.

The approval from the Burrard Inlet Environmental Review Committee (BERC) comes with plenty of detailed conditions, and covers the entire area from the Cambie Bridge to Main Street, which is the area that will be covered by the Athlete Village and the areas that VANOC needs to support its operations. These include car and bus parking, food preparation, roads, sewage and plumbing projects, stormwater management, and even laundry pick-up and delivery.

BERC includes representatives from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), Environment Canada and the British Columbia Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection.

It will be DFO, which can issue stop-work orders any time it wishes, that will be closely monitoring all the projects that take place to ensure that fish and their habitats are not disturbed more than necessary in the southeast quadrant of False Creek and, any necessary disturbance will be compensated by replacement habitats.

And BERC has warned that only work that has special clearance under the program can take place in the salt waters of False Creek between March 1 and August 15, because baby salmon will be in the area during that time. There is a caveat to that, however. If the consultants hired by the City or VANOC can prove to DFO there are no juvenile salmon in the area during the annual environmental holiday, work can continue until they show up, or as soon as they leave.

On the other hand, all the work along the foreshore, in and out of the tidal waters, has been given clearance between now and 2009, so neither the City nor VANOC will have to apply for further permission, unless the project requirements change unexpectedly. The City of Vancouver first applied for permission to conduct the work, which begins next month, last May, but only received official clearances earlier this month.

The BERC letter authorizes the City, which is responsible for the full development and construction of the Athletes Village by the summer of 2009, to begin removing about 275 piles, along with an old crumbling pier, to occur between January 2 and February 1 under a contract awarded last week, as well as follow through on construction of a coffer dam across a small inlet in the centre of the foreshore under a tender that was issued last Thursday. The construction of the cofferdam, to start in the third week of January and be completed by March 31, will allow land-based work to go ahead over the next six months. Deconstruction of the cofferdam, about the middle of next summer, is one of the projects given exemption by the BERC letter.

During the rest of the year, there will be a lot more foreshore remediation work for the Village, including rebuilding and backfilling a small inlet that is at the centre of the Village's foreshore, compressing the land near the inlet and possibly within the inlet so it can support the weight of buildings, sheet piling along the future western and southern edges of the inlet, as well as excavating and then building Village roads and utilities near the inlet.

Most of the pages in the BERC letter are devoted to paragraph after paragraph of instructions to the City about avoiding contamination of the Creek, once one of most polluted areas in Vancouver, from drainage, run-off, silt, mud, concrete dust, construction materials and the like during the building of the Athletes Village or the work of taming the foreshore. The City will have to hire several environmental consultants to ensure that none of the terms are violated, it will have to maintain a reference area in the Creek where regular samples of the water can be checked for muddiness from the work, and BERC will require a daily report from an environmental point of view about how the project is going.

The BERC letter also gives permission to the City's for its plan to build a small island of clean materials, and to cover the gap between the island and the foreshore with clean sand, as part of the fish-habitat compensation plan for the work that will be done on the foreshore, and it authorizes a foot bridge that is to be built from the new portions of the City's Sea Wall walk to the island.

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

Friday, December 16, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1372
CEO FURLONG SAYS HIS SENIOR MANAGEMENT TEAM HAS ESTABLISHED COMMITTEE'S CULTURE AND 'BRAND ESSENCE'

The CEO of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC), John Furlong, says he and his senior management have spent quite a bit of time this year working on the culture of the fledging organization.

"One of things we wanted to try to do is keep our team together, with our partners, all the way to 2010," he says. "What happens, often, with organizing committees is that they end up spread all over, and it's hard to keep morale together and it's hard to keep the culture together. We've spent a lot of time talking about how important it is that we remain a real team, a model team, a team that deserves to be supported by the community."

The groups that VANOC considers partners include its major corporate sponsors, the Canadian, Paralympic and International Olympic Committees, the RCMP and Canadian military; the BC, federal and municipal governments the four aboriginal bands of Vancouver, the Squamish corridor and Whistler.

One of the ways that he'll try to accomplish this is have as much of VANOC's operations in the new corporate headquarters in east Vancouver near First Avenue and Boundary Road. It's now being fitted up, and VANOC expects to move into it in the "early part of the spring." And, he adds, "All of [the 2010 representatives] of our partners and the Organizing Committee will be moving into it. We'll be developing a full Olympic campus on that site. It will be an exciting icon building."

Furlong also says the management spent "an excruciating amount of time" working on what the values of VANOC "have to be." Furlong says the values, which are now enshrined at the organization's current headquarters in downtown Vancouver are:

Teamwork: "That was easy. We have to have a great team. We have to have everybody singing off the same sheet, working together. We spend a lot of time practicing this. Teamwork is, sometimes, not easy to define, but you know it when you're looking at it, and in our organization, we have an obsession with that." Furlong says he sees all of the people who are part of VANOC's partners as being members of the team. "This is not about an elite group of event organizers working in one building in Vancouver, but building a team that, hopefully, will stun the whole country.

Trust: "For us to be seen as one of the better organizing committees of all time, people have to believe in us," says Furlong. "They have to trust us. They have to think we have integrity, we have let them know that we speak the truth, and if we make a mistake, we apologize and do something about it."

Excellence: "The public requires us to be great. We are raising the bar on many things, but we have to be absolutely good at everything. There's no room in this project for mediocrity. There's no room on our project for bad mistakes, so our team has to be focused, and looking at every little detail. And going back again to ask, 'Is this as good as we can make it?' We're looking for perfection, so the project lives up to the expectation that the world has of Canada."

Creativity: "This is where we can get a real edge over something that's happened before [at an Olympics]," says Furlong. "We're trying to look at things differently, and trying to bring the spirit of creativity to it. We ask ourselves, 'Can we present this is a different way, or a more efficient way, or a more spectacular way? Can we raise the bar with some new innovation?'

Sustainability: "This touches three areas for us: the environmental, social and economic. But, in a nutshell, it's really about how we behave. What kind of legacy do we want to leave as an organizing committee. Have we lived up to the expectation of including everybody. Have we embraced all of the cultures, and all the sectors of society that might be left out with a project like this. I hope this is one of the things we'll be remembered for, long after the Games are over.

Furlong says that in order for an employee to be hired at VANOC, they have to undergo, among other things, a values test. "We need to know, from every person who comes to work on this initiative, has the soul, the heart and the ability to survive in a very friendly buy challenging environment. We have an obsession with building that culture, because we know that unless we are an inspired organization, we'll have great difficulty in keeping the communities' support as we go along."

Furlong says that VANOC has also spent a lot of time discussing the 2010 brand. "We've developed 'brand essence'. I refer to it more as an inner-core culture of Vancouver 2010... This is what we've adopted as the culture. This is the kind of team that we're trying to build."

BACKGROUND

VANOC's official brand essence, according to CEO John Furlong:

Vancouver 2010 creates a climate of possibility that helps everyone discover the greatness inside themselves. It wakens us to the idea that we are all giants inside. It challenges us by asking, 'How good do you want to be?' It encourages us to dream bigger, to reach farther, and to leave something lasting behind for others.

Vancouver 2010 is an open invitation for everyone to share the Olympic and Paralympic journey. To find, and step up to, their own podium. It's about being everyday champions, every day.

From sport and the arts, to technology, from education to volunteerism, our 2010 story will be about the Games you can touch, not just the Games that touch you.

Celebrating the possible is an inclusive commitment that pays equal respect to both personal achievement and winning.

Vancouver 2010 gives every dream a field to play on, a podium to strive for.

There is no block, but the one that you set for yourself. There is no competition, but the one that you invite. There is no victory but the one that you feel in your heart.

Vancouver 2010 shares with the world what is possible. When a country embraces the values of equality, freedom, sustainability and local responsibility, and is inspired by the challenge to live by those ideals fully and completely.

The Olympic and Paralympic Games remind us all of our potential.

Vancouver 2010 is our opportunity to show the world what we can do, and what we can be, if only we will try.

Vancouver 2010 is a celebration of the possible.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1371

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

BUSY BELL BUILDS CELL ON BOWEN, CALLAGHAN

Bell Canada's vice president of Olympic Solutions, Justin Webb, says the company this fall completed construction of its first Olympic-related, cellular base station. The station is on Bowen Island, just north of Vancouver. The company is also working on a site at the Cypress Bowl venue, in preparation for work next year at the West Vancouver location. The company has also started work on the fibre-optic network along the so-called Sea-to-Sky highway between Vancouver and Whistler. That network will handled all the Internet, voice, data and broadcast signals that will eventually be transmitted to the satellite farm at VANOC's Vancouver Media Centre. This year it's been using a machine to check the depth and type of ground into which the network will be dug and placed in 2006. Bell has also been working with VANOC on technology designs of the Whistler Nordic and Sliding Centres and at Hastings Park. "We've had a bit of a challenge [with the Nordic Centre] earlier this year. The Callaghan Valley is not in the middle of nowhere, but it's pretty inaccessible this year for power, roads and wires, so we put satellite and wireless technology there to serve the people who were working there this year." Bell says it now has all of VANOC's offices and the Vancouver 2010.com website are now using Bell communications technology. "We've been busy this year," he says.

VANOC PREPARES TO SET UP RISK-MANAGEMENT PLAN
VANOC is expected to set up its full risk-management plan and begin consolidating its corporate insurance programs in 2006, starting in the next couple of months. Planners say that they will handle the project by hiring a BC-based insurance brokerage with expertise in big-sports or big-event projects, then design a risk-management plan and sort out high-impact risks with the broker's help. Once that's done, the brokerage will shop for insurance firms to handle the various components. (This doesn't deal with venue-construction insurance. That's done separately.) VANOC will focus on risks involving finance, hazards, operations and strategy. It also wants the brokerage to provide claim-management services. That would include: helping VANOC to select the right consultants, developing claim procedures; notifying insurance firms about claims; tracking and reviewing claims; providing fairly quick coverage review to identify potential claim issues; dealing directly with insurance company claim staff, and tracking and reporting on how the administrative end -- reserves, payments, and recoveries -- are being handled. Brokers who tell, by January 16, VANOC's purchasing department that they're interested in the job will be shortlisted to three, and they will then be given a comprehensive Request for Proposals on January 23.

HIRTHLER HITHERS TO AUSTRIA
From our Where Are They Now department: George Hirthler, a professional Olympic-bid consultant who worked on the 2010 Winter Games bid for Vancouver, is currently in Austria, working on that country's bid for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Salzberg. The IOC will decide which country gets that bid when it meets next summer. Hirthler has also been hired by Denver, Colorado, to help it decide whether to bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics, but it's in the early stages of that process, and the US Olympic Committee has not yet decided whether an American city will bid for those Games. A half dozen people from Denver will be travelling to Torino in February to observe the 2006 Games in operation.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1370
FEDERAL, PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENTS OFFICIALLY ASKED FOR ADDITIONAL FUNDING TO COVER CONSTRUCTION INFLATION

Vancouver Sun reporter Jeff Lee has confirmed that the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) has applied to the federal and provincial governments for an infusion of construction capital.

The information was carried in a front-page story in this morning's edition of the daily newspaper.

The amount of the requests, made in late November, was not revealed by either government, nor by VANOC, he reports.

In BC's case, VANOC has asked for additional funds to be released from the C$139 million contingency fund Victoria set up in 2002 for all aspects of the Games, but access to that account has be approved by BC's Treasury Board on a case-by-case basis. VANOC already asked for C$8 million from that account during its negotiations last October with Whistler over the controversial Paralympic sledge-hockey venue.

The BC government, according to Lee, is voicing reluctance to agree to VANOC's BC request unless there is matching federal funding. In the federal government's case, Ottawa has a national contingency account for the bulk of its operations, and so does not have a contingency establishes specifically for the Olympics, but the request, according to Lee, is being treated for the time being as a request for additional, new funding from the Heritage Ministry.

Lee's report does not say so, but the VANOC Board of Directors, which includes high-ranking bureaucrats from both the BC and federal governments, gets regular financial reports on VANOC's status, and would have been involved in the decision to make the application.

VANOC's CEO John Furlong said last month that the additional funding would probably be necessary because of the strong surge in pricing of steel-and-concrete building projects due to a significant non-residential construction boom, and shortages of skilled labour. But, said Furlong at the time, he was primarily asking for BC and Ottawa to protect the value of their 2002 funding promises to 2007 by adjusting the amounts for construction inflation. From VANOC's point of view, the request may be for more dollars but it's for the same value as was orginally pledged.

VANOC's major construction and renovation projects, which in total account for less than 1% of the value BC's non-residential construction, are due to take place over a three-year period starting in the spring, although it has limited its exposure to budget levels through various arrangements, primarily with municipal governments, in the case of the Richmond speed-skating oval, the Vancouver and Whistler Athlete Villages, the International Media Centre, the UBC hockey arenas, two practice arenas in Vancouver and the Paralympic sledge-hockey arena in Whistler.

It is, however, exposed to construction inflation on proposed renovations to BC place and General Motors Place, the Vancouver Coliseum as well as the Whistler Nordic Centre and the Whistler Sliding Centre, and may be exposed as well at several non-competition venues, such as warehouses.

By International Olympic Committee bid rules, the original capital cost for the 2010 Games of C$620 million had to be expressed in the Bid documents in 2002 American dollars, and not allow for inflation or other types of escalation, to keep things consistent with bids from other countries that have different inflation situations.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |IOC| #1369
NEWS MEDIA TOLD HOW TO COVER TORINO OLYMPICS ON THE INTERNET

The International Olympic Committee has issued strict guidelines to news media around the world about how to cover the Torino Winter Olympics on the Internet without infringing on what the IOC considers are its intellectual property rights.

The IOC policy, which covers accredited and non-accredited media alike, allows written coverage of the Games in normal editorial use, like a news paper, but it won't allow transmission of moving images, audio, nor play-by-play style commentaries on the Web. They can use Olympic logos and slogans, but only for editorial purposes.

According to the document, written in legalese, "No sound or moving images of any Olympic events, including sporting action, interviews with athletes in the mixed [Athlete Village] zones and press conference rooms, Opening, Closing and medal ceremonies or other activities, such as chat sessions which occur within accredited zones (competition sites and practice venues, Olympic Village, Main Press Centre, etc.) may be disseminated, whether on a live or delayed basis, regardless of source."

In a paragraph that's expected to rankle many of the 5,000 reporters and crew expected to descend on Torino as the Games get underway in February, the IOC says media organizations without broadcasting rights will only be allowed to broadcast on the Internet any news conferences that takes place in the official Media Press Centre, "provided there is a delay of at least 30 minutes from the conclusion of the press conference." The effect of this decision on the highly competitive companies is to give media organizations who have paid the IOC for broadcasting rights, such as NBC in the United States or CBC in Canada, a half-hour lead on breaking news that occurs during these press conferences.

The policy also says, "Media organizations may feature still pictures on their websites, provided such pictures are used for normal journalistic/editorial use only, and are not reproduced in a sequential manner, i.e. that there is no more than one new image every 60 seconds."

And, it adds, "Media organizations may not create stand-alone Olympic-themed websites to host this or any coverage."

The policy is backed by the threat of legal action if the IOC discovers any of the policies in the two-page document are violated, with the IOC saying that the reason for the companies paying for broadcasting rights, "helps provide the funding necessary to stage the Games and to train athletes."

The policy document only covers the Torino Winter Olympics, giving the IOC an opportunity to rework the document as Internet technology and intellectual-property concepts evolve for upcoming competitions, such as the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics and the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver and Whistler. The policy was issued from the IOC's headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The IOC considers it necessary because it prefers to limit TV coverage permission on a country-by-country basis to help it maximize the value of the rights through auctions for each set of Games, and an Internet broadcast crosses international boundaries with ease. It expects to have technology in place by 2010 that would automatically block web surfers from accessing Internet broadcasts except from their own country.

RESOURCES

The IOC Internet broadcasting policy:
multimedia.olympic.org/pdf/en_report_1025.pdf

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

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1368

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

NEW CP STORY ABOUT 2010, LABOUR SHORTAGES AND CONSTRUCTION COSTS

Another Canadian Press story published yesterday about the 2010 Winter Olympics and connecting it to the claim that "labour shortages and ballooning construction costs are prompting Canada to scour other countries for skilled labour" is spreading quickly to the rest of the country as well as internationally. CP stories are routinely used by the major daily newspapers of Canada, and a companion news network, Broadcast News, adjusts the stories for Canadian TV and radio newscasts. But the network's stories are also picked up by international news agencies For instance, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper, which covers the largest American market expected to attend the 2010 Games, tomorrow morning will publish the Associated Press version of the story, which was rewritten a bit to make it even more dramatic. Another part of the story, which is common to both the CP and AP versions says "construction on Olympic venues moves into overdrive in 2006," even though the bulk of the venue projects, which only account for about 1% of BC's projected capital spending during the time, are actually spread over two to three years, depending on the project. BC, as part of its planning for the BC portion of the Games in 2002, set aside C$139 million in a contingency fund for cost overruns, but spending from that account requires Cabinet approval. The story also quotes BC's Economic Development minister, Colin Hansen, the minister in charge of BC's portion of the 2010 Games, as saying, "We've made it quite clear to VANOC that the C$600 million from the province is it. They have to manage all their cost pressures within that allocation." And, he added, it might look to the federal government if it wants more funds to offset construction inflation.

VANOC ADDS "THE INUKSHUK GAMES" TO SLOGAN STABLE
Add another slogan to the 2010 Winter Olympics portfolio: "The Inukshuk Games". The term refers to the theme of the Games logo, a stylized rock sculpture called "Ilanaaq", a northern Canadian aboriginal word that means, among other things, "friend". An inukshuk generally describes a type of route-marker built of local rocks. The slogan, designated an official, prohibited mark -- a mark used by a public authority in Canada as an official mark for wares or services -- was advertised in this month's issue of Canada's official "Trade-marks Journal." It's being shepherded through the registration process by VANOC's usual law firm for this type of work, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP. It brings the current logo and slogan count owned by VANOC to 90.

2010'S HOLIDAY CARDS FOCUS ON SUPPORTERS OF ATHLETES
VANOC has begun sending out its printed holiday-season cards, signed by CEO John Furlong and his eight senior vice-presidents. The card, an attractive white with blue printing, includes a large cut-out of VANOC's logo on the cover. The words "Friendship", "Joy" and "Peace", in French and English, show through. The six-panel card folds, in English and French, says VANOC "will be inspired by the heroes that emerge" from the Torino Winter Olympics." VANOC will be sending more than half of its staff to observe the Italian Games. The card's message focuses on supporters of the high-performance athletes who will be representing countries at the Games. As it puts it, "It is always remarkable to wonder at how many people, what extended team, contributed to each athlete's journey to the top of the world. Behind every Olympian and Paralympian at Opening Ceremonies, there are parents who drove to practices and cheered from the stands, grassroots and elite-level coaches, supportive friends, generous sponsors, dedicated doctors and physiotherapists, hard-working equipment managers, and entire communities who rallied to make one dream come true."

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #1367
BC PROGRESS BOARD SUGGESTS 2010 MARKETING COULD HELP IN DEVELOPING 'BC BRAND'

The BC Progress Board, in a December discussion paper that focuses on education, says the BC government's marketing push connected with the 2010 Winter Olympics, could help the province come up with a "BC brand."

The Report, prepared by Adrian Kershaw Consulting for the Board, refers to the province's 2010 promotional plans several times in the report as a catalyst for development. For instance, it says "The province has plans to use the promotion and marketing of the 2010 Olympic Games to further the global recognition of British Columbia; this may be of great assistance in positioning British Columbia internationally in the field of education."

It says the province's education sector "faces a challenge common to many trade-dependent sectors in the province: in order to prosper there is a need to create and maintain a 'BC Brand'." It maintains that Canada and Vancouver each have high international visibility, but not British Columbia. Obviously, it suggests, BC should be "positioned as part of Canada but distinct for the purposes of certain export activities."

The Board, established by BC premier Gordon Campbell in 2001, is an independent panel of 18 business and academic leaders. It compares British Columbia's economic and social performance against those of other jurisdictions, and tracks the province's performance over time. The Board also provides "strategic advice" to the Premier and the Government "on ways to improve the economy and provincial social policy."

The report adds later, "Currently, Geneva and Oxford have positioned themselves as preferred destinations for education tourism by focusing on French, German, and English language skill development in conjunction with cultural and/or outdoor activities. With the development of appropriate regional partnerships between local education and tourism providers, and with the active promotion of these products through BC Tourism, BC should be able to expand these kinds of language tourism products over the coming years. Within this context, the 2010 Olympic Games present an opportunity to promote the expansion of these services into the winter months."

RESOURCES

The BC Progress Board's website:
www.BCProgressBoard.com

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1366
TOURISM BC RESTARTS 'SPIRIT OF 2010 TRAIL' PROJECT BY LOOKING FOR CONSULTANT TO DO FOURTH-PHASE - MANAGEMENT AND MARKET PLANNING

The fourth phase of an on-again, off-again, Tourism BC program that has now been rolled into the BC government's Spirit of 2010 funding mechanism, is expected to get back on track in the next couple of months.

The phrase "Spirit of 2010" is part of the stable of Olympic brands owned by the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC), but is primarily used by for BC government purposes.

The so-called "Rails to Trails" project, the aim of which is to convert unused railway rights-of-way into tourist-based trails for hiking and cross-country skiing, is looking for proposals from firms interested in "building a strategic governance plan and a marketing plan, working in tandem" with four BC communities: Cowichan, Grand Forks, Penticton and Princeton.

Those towns, on Vancouver Island and in BC's south-central region, are all near potential corridors that were top-ranked during a 2002 study, a year before the 2010 Winter Olympics bid was awarded to Vancouver. They include the Cowichan, Kettle Valley, Slocan and Salmo-Nelson routes.

In 2004, BC Premier Gordon Campbell and the federal cabinet minister in charge of Canada's part of the 2010 Winter Games, Stephen Owen, announced that the Rails-To-Trails project would be re-branded as "The Spirit of 2010 Trail."

Peter Harrison, director of Tourism BC's Industry Development department, says that "As part of Phase Four, Tourism BC wishes to manage and further develop a world-class recreational Rails-To-Trails product that will stimulate the development of incremental tourism infrastructure and incremental tourism visits."

They want the firm that will eventually be hired to prepare the strategic plan so that a portion of it deals with liability and risk-management, which involves assessing existing and potential liabilities and risks associated with the ownership of the lands, and the management of the offsets. Another portion is to work out the development and implementation of the marketing component. The idea is to promote economic development in the communities, while launching the promotion of this "new tourism product for BC."

Companies interested in trying out for the role need to have their proposals into Tourism BC by January 13.

RESOURCES

The Trail project's web site:
www.spiritof2010trail.ca

TourismBC's corporate website:
www.tourismbc.com/

Peter Harrison
Director, Industry Development
Tourism British Columbia
12th Floor,
510 Burrard Street
Vancouver, BC V6C 3A8

Fax Number: 604-660-3383
peter.harrison@tourismbc.com

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

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1365
THE TARGET AUDIENCE MAY BE SMALLER THAN ESTIMATED, BUT CULTURAL HEADLINERS SUPERVISE 2010'S TORINO'S CLOSING CEREMONY SEGMENT

The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) is still keeping parts of its Closing Ceremonies segment secret, but it has provided more information about the eight minutes it will have February 26 to promote the 2010 games to a major target audience.

At the same time, it's considerably reduced its estimate of the size of that target audience.

VANOC says its ceremonies staff will be led by Burke Taylor, vice-president of Culture and Ceremonies, who is the executive producer of the show, and producer Marti Kulich, who was behind the 90-minute show, an hour of which was broadcast across Canada on the network of CTV held last spring to launch VANOC's logo. CTV won the broadcast rights of the 2010 Games.

VANOC will be using big-stage talent from across Canada in the broadcast from Stadio Olimpico in Torino, Italy, and judging from the aggressively creative talent management for the show, it should be quite intriguing -- and possibly controversial.

VANOC CEO John Furlong, says, "Though we are a small part of the Torino 2006 Organizing Committee's much bigger show, they've given us an unprecedented window to showcase talent from across our country before an international stage."

VANOC's participation in the Closing Ceremony includes the traditional Olympic Flag handover from the mayor of Torino to Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan, followed by the eight-minute entertainment segment. VANOC, according to planners, will use that opportunity to start to tell its story by using the talent to illustrate "uniquely Canadian themes that reflect the country from coast to coast to coast."

According to TOROC, the Stadio can normally seat about 27,500. However, temporary stands are being installed for the ceremonies to raise the capacity to 35,000. And, it says, there "will be two thousand million spectators watching live around the world;" that's worded as two billion in North America. However, VANOC says the Torino Closing Ceremony is expected to have "a live audience of only 33,000 and an estimated television viewing audience of only about 500 million worldwide." VANOC could not immediately account for the wide discrepancy in TV audience estimates.

Meanwhile VANOC's Taylor says the creative team that will take part in the broadcast -- who he says comes from places in Canada ranging from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island -- includes:

Canadian choreographer and director Mark Godden will direct VANOC's segment. Godden recently created two works for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. "Dracula" is a dramatic study in black and white with special effects and, as one reviewer put it, "wild staging", and "The Magic Flute", described as "opulent" and "whimsical." Godden was born in Dallas, Texas, but has been with the Ballet since 1984, staging a long string of dances and ballets.
Robert Lepage, a playwright and director in Quebec, with a reputation for avant-garde and experimentation. He is nearly as famous as Celine Dion in the French-speaking parts of the country, but is not much known in English-speaking Canada.
Jacques Lemay of Victoria, BC, who uses jazz as a focus but who has supervised operas, ballets, symphony concerts, musicals, multi-cultural productions, royal galas, variety shows and special events. He was awarded the 2004 Community Arts Leader of the Year, and was artistic director of Calgary's 1988 Olympic Winter Games Opening Ceremony.
Lyn Heward, the former president and COO of Cirque du Soleil's Creative Content Division in Montreal. The troupe performed during the 2010 logo broadcast.
Jillian Keiley, director, from St. John's, Newfoundland, whose tour of Canada with a self-developed, inventive show called "Artistic Fraud" was partly underwritten by VANOC sponsor Petro-Canada. Last year, she won the C$100,000 Siminovitch Prize in Theatre for Direction.
Sal Ferreras is a Vancouver-based percussionist, composer and music teacher. He is the director of the World Music program at Vancouver Community College, teaches at Vancouver's two major universities, and has a PhD in ethnic music.
Alan Clark, the former head of Olympic properties for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, who has also been head of the CBC Sports department. CBC has the rights to televise Olympic Games in Canada until after the Beijing Summer Olympics in 2008, when CTV's rights begin.

"Each of these talented individuals contributed key creative content that we've shaped into a very Canadian invitation to the world," said Kulich.

"I am thrilled to be directing and choreographing this piece for the 2006 Olympic Games Closing Ceremony and I am honoured to have the opportunity to create a vision of Canada for the 2010 Games Organizing Committee that we can share with the world," said Godden.

VANOC says it will release "further details on its segment of the Closing Ceremony" as Torino Games get closer, but, planners add, "Certain elements of the performance will be kept in confidence until the Closing Ceremony."

RESOURCES

Torino's own outline of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies information:
www.torino2006.org/ENG/OlympicGames/vieni_a_torino2006/torino_stadio_olimpico.html

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1364

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

SKAARDAL OFFERS 2010 SOME ADVICE ON NORDIC CENTRE DESIGN

Atle Skaardal, the International Skiing Federation's race director for the women's alpine World Cup says he passed along some suggestions for the design of the 2010 Nordic Centre, to start construction in the Callaghan Valley next summer. It's the job of the 39-year-old Norwegian to oversee 37 races in 13 countries during the regular season. In an interview with Ski Racing Magazine's senior editor Nathaniel Vinton, Skaardal, a World Cup athlete in the 90s, said that he inspected all of design components and the site, "[I went] through everything, the course, to see what's possible, where we can have the different disciplines, the jumps, discussing safety, everything around the organization, slip crews, start times, transportation, accommodation for the teams. We [discussed] the men's track and the ladies track. The finish venue. I would say it's about 100 meters higher up than the Are World Cup finish area. It's a good place, but they need to separate finish venues for ladies and men. The main goal with that is the weather problems we can run into on the West Coast. Maybe it's necessary to do two training runs at the same time on the same day."

CROSS-COUNTRY WOMEN'S SKI TEAM CREDITS SPONSORS, OLYMPIC PROGRAM FOR COMFORT
The Canadian women's cross-country ski team is feeling much less financial pressure now than it did when its members were training for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt lake City. The team is currently training in Canmore, Alberta, where a Nordic World Cup event will be held this month, for the Torino Olympics and, from there, for the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver. But they say that with contributions from the Own The Podium program, co-funded by VANOC and the federal government, and from a sponsorship arrangement with stock broker Haywood Securities, the team has the resources now to properly support all of its athletes, including those still early in their training cycle and heading for 2010, not just the best ones. By the way Cross Country Canada says it will hire a director of high-performance skiing and revamp its related systems starting next spring, after the 2006 Torino Olympics are out of the way. The system will concentrate on developing the high-end development training necessary for the sport's involvement in the 2010 Winter Olympics.

MAYBE HE'D DRIVE THE SHANA-SLEIGH
From our Say What? Department: One of the best National Hockey League players on the Detroit Red Wings team, Brendan Shanahan, 36, says it would be a surprise to him if he were invited to be on Team Canada for the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy in February, but he agrees "any Canadian would go if you were asked. He also says his wife would be as surprised as he is because, he says, she thinks they're going "someplace warm" in February. Shanahan also says, with a large smile, he was looking forward to competing in the 2010 Winter Olympics. "I was thinking bobsled." There's that smile again.

RESOURCES

Heywood Securities:
www.haywood.com

Cross Country Canada:
www.cccski.com
http://www.skiracing.com/profiles/news_displayProfile.php/2698/

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

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1363
VANCOUVER AWARDS DELTA FIRM WITH FIRST CONSTRUCTION TENDER CONNECTED TO 2010 ATHLETES VILLAGE

Even though there is no overall budget yet in place for Vancouver's development of the 2010 Olympic Athletes Village, the City has begun awarding contracts for work connected to it, because its under pressure of time.

JJM Construction of the Vancouver suburb of Delta submitted the low bid for removing and disposing about 275 pilings and associated wharf decking in False Creek on the foreshore of what will become the Village at a cost of C$265,000, plus taxes. It's the first of the tenders that are to implement the work of planners and their consultants. Other bids in the top three for the project were Online Constructors, for $274,603 and Fraser River Pile and Dredge at $276,040.

Design of the public infrastructure required for the Olympic Village by Stantec Engineering is now expected to be completed by March, about two months later that what planners expected earlier this summer. Construction of the waterfront, roads, and other public infrastructure will begin as soon as possible afterward, meanwhile the City will be choosing a developer to deal with the buildings required for the site. They're at the RFP stage now.

The City's project manager for Southeast False Creek and the Olympic Village, Robin Petri, says council has approved funding of C$712,000 for the operation of the SEFC Project Office in 2005, and C$615,000 annually starting next year, plus C$1.6 million for the area's Integrated Site Servicing Plan, adding, "These approvals, along with the anticipated site-servicing costs, will be reflected in the more comprehensive project budget that will be reported to council in the new year."

Vancouver City council policy requires it to approve contract awards that exceed C$300,000, but council had to approve this particularly contract because it's being funded by the city's controversial Property Endowment Fund for southeast False Creek development.

RESOURCES

John Miller, President
JJM Construction
8828 River Road
Delta BC V4G 1B5

Phone: (+1) 604.946.0978
Fax: (+1) 604-946-9327

www.JJMConstruction.com

==

Our earlier story on the project:

'Vancouver expected to start first major work
at cleaning up 2010 Olympic Village site in December'

[Morgan:News:2010:Number:1312; Published on Tuesday, November 22, 2005]

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1362
NUMBER OF ITALIAN OLYMPIC OBSERVERS FROM 2010-RELATED GOVERNMENTS SWELLS

The City of Vancouver -- just like Richmond, Whistler and Vancouver, as well as the BC and federal governments and VANOC -- will be sending a delegation of senior managers and a city councillor to observe the operations of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy.

The Vancouver delegation will take part in the International Olympic Committee's formal Knowledge Transfer Program, which also involves the Torino Organizing Committee (TOROC). In part, they'll also be seeing the impact of the Games on the host cities. They'll meet up, as well, with representatives from two future host Olympic cities, Beijing, which will be holding the 2008 Summer Games, and London, which will host the 2012 Summer Olympics, as well as the half-dozen cities vying for the 2014 Winter Games, as they are now all in the bid-preparation phase. And they'll be taking part in various meetings with IOC, Torino and other organizations connected with the Games.

For the BC cities and the two senior governments, this will be the last opportunity to learn from an operating Winter Games prior before they help the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) host the 2010 Games.

The City of Vancouver representatives going to Torino include mayor Sam Sullivan, who will take part in the traditional Olympic flag hand-over from the mayor of Torino during the closing ceremonies, an additional city councillor who has yet to be named, plus 10 City staff who will take part in the observer program, and half of the managers will also attend the Paralympics, which, like Vancouver's, will follow a few days after the end of the Olympics portion, which wraps up February 28.

They group was chosen because of the impact the 2010 Games will have on their departments, and include City Manager Judy Rogers, the Olympic Village Project Manager for Cultural Services. Transportation Venue Operations, Public Works, Building Codes and Public Safety, an Olympic Village Logistics Planner, as well as the City's General Manager of Olympic Operations. The group also includes mayor Sullivan's partner and his executive assistant.

Rogers trip is being financed by the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) because she is also on its Board of Directors, but the rest will be financed by the city accounts.

Dave Rudberg, Olympic Operations manager, says the staff are expected to be rotated two and from for stays of five to six days so the impact of their trip on both the city and Italian accommodations is evened out. Part of what they hope to see is how the design and operation of the Italian Athlete Villages can be incorporated into the City's False Creek Athletes Village, which is still on the drawing boards.

Up to three councillors each from Whistler and Richmond are expected to be part of their community's delegation to Torino.

Planners are budgeting about $50,000 for the cost of the Vancouver group, with the actual cost dependant on specific travel, per diems and accommodation. They can purchase event tickets, but they have to do that out of their own pocket.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1361

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

PRINCE GEORGE OLYMPIC MARKETING DELEGATION TO TORINO PICKED

Prince George mayor Colin Kinsley, who will be part of the group of officials promoting the city during the upcoming Torino Winter Olympics as a place to train for the 2010 Games, will head for Beijing shortly before. Kinsley will be talking to team officials there as well. While in Torino and staying at Canada/BC House in downtown Torino, the group expects to meet with the German consulate. The group will take promotional packages outlining the city's facilities for hockey, cross-country skiing, biathlon, curling and speed-skating, as well potential education offered through the city's University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC). The rest of the group going to Italy includes Initiatives Prince George president Gerry Offet, city Leisure Services director Tom Madden, UNBC communications director Rob van Adrichem and former Olympic athlete Tuppy Hoehn, who competed in biathlon at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games, but who will represent the Pacific Sport Regional Centre.

DEVONIAN PROPERTIES PLEASED WITH 2010-ORIENTED SKI-RACING CAMP
Alpine Canada and Devonian Properties seem pleased with how the rough-and-ready Rising Star K2 Development ski racing camp went earlier this month. The camp hosted Canada's country's top 13- and 14-year-old ski racers to offer intense and specific training early in the season as part of the youth development for the 2010 Winter Games. Devonian Properties is a land developer and operates properties in Canmore and Fort McMurray, both in Alberta. It has agreed to sponsor the camp for three years. The young athletes, who were all given matching uniforms, trained in slalom, giant slalom, super-G and related skills. The camp was on at Panorama Mountain Village, 18 kilometres west of Invermere in the BC Rockies.

"OWN THE PODIUM" EARLY GOAL ON TRACK
One of the goals of the "Own the Podium" program, a project of VANOC and the Canadian Olympic Committee, was that the country would be one of the top three nations in medal collections at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino. The overall goal of the relatively new program is to be first in medals at the 2010 Olympics and in the top three at the 2010 Paralympics. COC officials said today that the initial results from a number of high-performance competitions this winter season indicates the plan is on track. From the start of the season, through last weekend's competitions, Canada ranks second overall in the number of total World Cup medals won with 74, picked up during 29 events over nine sports. The US currently leads with 84 medals in 33 events and 10 sports, followed by Canada, and then Germany is currently third with 72 medals in 29 events and 10 sports. Canada, at the moment is eight medals ahead of where it was this time last year.

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

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1360

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

A WEEK OF EVENTS IN MARCH FORECAST TO FOLLOW OLYMPIC FLAG HAND-OVER

Some events are starting to become known about what will happen in the Greater Vancouver and Whistler area in the week following the Closing Ceremonies at the Torino Winter Olympics, which occurs on February 28. During the ceremonies, an estimated two billion people will be watching as Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan, a quadriplegic, is offered the Olympic flag by Torino's mayor at the beginning of an eight-minute presentation by VANOC highlighting the Pacific west coast as the site of the 2010 Winter Games. It's expected that Sullivan's condition will also be the focus of a number of media stories -- about 1,000 media are expected to be on hand -- as the closing ceremony is covered, particularly when he returns to take part in a similar ceremony on March 19 for the closing of the Italian Paralympic Games. There will be a number of public events in the Vancouver and Whistler areas for during the first week of March to mark the events. For instance, a countdown clock will be unveiled (on Feb 28, there will be 1,445 days left until the start of the 2010 Games), the inukshuk sculpture on Vancouver's English Bay will be presented in lights, and when the Olympic flag is brought to Vancouver, there will be an official flag-raising ceremony. There will also be banners hung in the areas of the 2010 venues, present and future, such as General Motors Place, BC Place, the Coliseum and other city locations, including the site of the new curling rink at Riley Park.

TORINO TECHIE TALKS TURKEY
An interview with Enrico Frascari, the managing director of technology for the Torino Organizing Committee published today in Red Herring, a technology business publication, offers a few more tidbits about the technical aspects that are facing Winter Games. In 2002, there were only 20 computers in the Salt Lake City athlete's village that connected with the Internet, which meant somewhat frustrating lines and delays for those at the village. In Athens, 2004, there were more computers, but only simple web browsing. Torino's Games are fully wired, but, he says, the distribution of athlete villages -- Vancouver has one in the city for the urban sports, and one in Whistler for the sliding and snow sports -- means duplication of effort. Connections between villages are necessary so meetings can be organized, but they're using video-conferencing in Italy. Atos Origin is the systems integrator and will play a similar role in 2010. Telecom Italia will provide phone communications and Eutelsat is providing TV satellite communications. Samsung will supply mobile phones. Bell Canada will be providing telecommunications and satellite through a subsidiary in the 2010 Games. In Salt Lake City, the organizers had set up two control rooms to deal with telecommunications and information technology, but there were co-ordination problems, particularly when there was a crisis. In Torino, there will be only one controller looking after the optical-fiber infrastructure to the network, application and customer service support sections. The ability to deal with video and photographs has prompted Torino to use a lot more optical fibre, which 2010 will also use. A number of TOROC's technical rooms are housed in tents at heights that are about 2,000 meters, so the equipment has to be protected and robust. There are three separate networks. One is closed -- so that only those who need to do so can use it -- and it is dedicated to Game results. A second network, physically separated, is used to manage the applications "and all the traditional activities that people can do with an IT infrastructure": mailing, document management, communication and the like. Denial of service is expected to be a major security issue -- a lot of redundancy is now built into the systems, but there are other problems. As he puts it, "Since we are a kind of public, well-known organization, everybody is looking to attack our organization, not necessarily to get information but just to be proud that they brought it down... [our] Internet site, which is under attack a thousand times a day in many different ways; again, not to collect information, but just to go inside and destroy what has been created."

PENTICTON OFFICIALS URGED TO DECIDE ON 2010 TRAINING PROJECT
If Penticton, a town in BC's south central Okanagan area, wants to use BC government funding for a sports centre that could be used to attract teams practicing for the 2010 Games, it had best decide whether it wants to go ahead with the project. Last April, the province pledged a C$9.7 million grant for the South Okanagan Event Centre, currently budgeted at C$30 million to build. Liberal member of the legislature for the area, Bill Barisoff, says the pledge was incorporated in the current budget year, which ends March 31. The federal government hasn't decided if it will also help fund the project, which would have to be built by 2008 if it hoped to attract international teams.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1359
RBC FINANCIAL LAUNCHES MULTI-OLYMPIC MARKETING CONTEST WITH 2010 CO-SPONSORS

The RBC Financial Group, which was awarded six years of marketing rights in Canada for Olympic-related concepts as part of its C$100-million sponsorship of the 2010 Winter Games, is the first to begin promoting the Beijing Summer Olympics with a contest.

The contest is a method of implementing its sponsorship agreement, it includes co-marketing with several other 2010 sponsors, it promotes two sets of Olympic Games, and its details were approved by the 2010 Winter Games marketing department.

RBC, which includes Canada's wealthiest financial institution, the Royal Bank, is offering its new and existing customers a chance to go to the Chinese Games in its "Achieve the Dream" contest. The contest is limited to individuals, as opposed to corporate clients, but they are automatically entered in the contest when they buy any of a wide range of the company's financial products or services between now and the end of the Torino Winter Olympics, February 28. For instance, they are entered whenever they open one of several specific RBC personal or business accounts; make purchases on their RBC Royal Bank Visa card; contribute to an RBC investment account; or draw on a Royal credit line.

The main prize winner, known as the 'Gold' winner, and a companion are to be flown to the Beijing Games. The cost of airfare, hotel and tickets to events will be included. Three second-prize prize winners and their family are to vacation in one of five cities that once hosted Olympic Games: Rome, Barcelona, Athens, St. Moritz or Lillehammer.

Five third-place prizewinners will each receive a 42", high-definition, Panasonic plasma TV. Early bird prizes include C$3,500 in gas at Petro-Canada, family trips to a choice of the previous host cities, and Olympic Games merchandise packs from HBC. Winners are to be announced each day during the Torino 2006 Winter Games.

Petro-Canada, Panasonic and HBC are also major sponsors of the 2010 Winter Games.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1358

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

BRITISH AD AGENCIES PROTEST 'DRACONIAN' OLYMPICS LAW

Advertising agencies in England are among the most vociferous industry groups to react to a comprehensive bill introduced by the government which will give it, in part, virtually complete control over marketing in the area around an Olympic venue. The fully formed London Olympics Bill was introduced only a week after London won the right to host the 2012 Summer Olympics. It is now wending its way through Parliament and is due to come into effect in the spring. Among a number of other sections, the advertising portion would allow the government's Secretary of State to decide whether any type of advertising violates the marketing rights of the Olympics and its sponsors, the places where such control can take place and "what is, or is not, to be treated" as advertising. Under the law, police would be able to come onto any property, business or otherwise, where they think such an offense is occurring -- although they must first give the alleged violator a chance to stop and they must also get a warrant. It would also make it illegal to combine words like "games", "medals", "gold", "2012", "sponsor" or "summer" in any form of advertising. Violators of the law would be liable for fines up to £20,000 (about C$27,500, at the moment). The Advertising Association of England, and the country's Institute of Practitioners in Advertising have called the law "draconian" and "vague." The government defends the law as necessary to help the London Olympics Organizing Committee sign up senior sponsors, but in letters sent separately today to Richard Caborn, the minister for Culture, Media & Sport, the industry groups argue that the International Olympic Committee has already signed up six of a possible 10 international sponsors for the 2012 Games, that the 2010 Winter Olympics exceeded its sponsorship marketing targets, and the Torino Winter Olympics met its marketing targets, all without such legislation. The AA and IPA also argue that the law presumes advertisers are guilty until they can demonstrate they are not associating themselves with the Games. The law also contains sections dealing with protection of Olympic symbols, planning, street lighting, transportation, traffic control and street closures.

BANK ECONOMIST SAYS 2010 HAS 'HUGE MARKETING POTENTIAL' FOR TOURISM
Adrienne Warren, senior economist for the Bank of Nova Scotia, says in Scotia Economics's "NAFTA Quarterly", that, "The 2010 Winter Olympics games in Vancouver holds huge marketing potential", even though Canada's overall market share of tourism continues to slowly decline. The decline is due, in part, to surging Asian tourism which, for the first time, she says, has a market share that is larger than that of North America. "Western Canadian tourism operators are arguably in the best position to benefit from a potential explosion in Chinese tourist arrivals in coming years," she adds, "with the expected granting of 'approved destination status' for Canada and the recent signing of a broadened bilateral air pact between the two countries. China is Canada's twelfth-largest tourism market, attracting roughly 100,000 visitors to the nation last year. Some estimates suggest these arrivals could climb as high as 700,000 annually."

CORPORATE TICKET AND HOTEL BROKERS PUSH TORINO AVAILABILITY
There's been a burst of marketing in the last few days by organizations selling tickets and hotel packages connected with the Torino Winter Olympics, as they try to counteract media articles about the availability of rooms and seats at some of the Olympic Games in February. The Games begin in about two months. Ludus Tours, for instance, a Texas-based company, says it has about rooms available in 16 centrally-located hotels, ranging from one to four-star, in the city and in various locations outside it. A spokesman for the company says, "the press has created the unfounded myth that there are no accommodations available." However, it's not the press that is coming up with the concept. "Tickets are still readily available, but hotels are hard to come by," said Matt Bijur, president of CoSport, the official vendor of tickets and packages in Canada and the United States. CoSport says it has four nights in a three-star property 20 minutes from Torino for C$2,300 per room, and C$600 a night, per room, 45 minutes away. Olympic organizers say they have almost 40% of tickets unsold, but conceded many key games in major sports -- hockey, speed skating, figure skating, alpine and cross-country skiing -- are sold out. They say they've sold about half a million tickets so far, with an average of 1,000 per day being sold in a November surge.

RESOURCES

The advertising section of London Olympics Bill is here:
www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmbills/045/06045.12-18.html#j025

The index for the Bill is here:
www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmbills/045/06045.i-iv.html

A PDF version of the Bill is here:
www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmbills/045/2006045.pdf

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

Monday, December 12, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1357

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

RICHMOND OVAL DELIVERY DATE SLIPS AS MUNICIPAL STAFF TOUR TORINO

Senior Richmond municipal staff in charge of developing the 2010 Olympic speedskating oval are in Torino at the moment getting a good look at what they hope will not be them. But Richmond's lead time has already been cut in half. The Torino speedskating oval, about a year behind schedule, is still full of workers dealing with wiring, dry walling, painting and the like, trying to get the project commissioned. The Torino Games start February 10, but the oval still has to host a speedskating World Cup, which is a major test event for the oval itself as well as for skaters from around the world who will use it to qualify for the Torino Olympics. The delegation getting the tour includes Richmond's chief administrative officer George Duncan, director of Major Projects Greg Scott, Olympic Business Office director Lani Schultz, Parks general manager Cathy Volkering Carlile, Economic Development manager Lee Malleau, senior manager of Corporate Programs Signi Solmundson and Facilities manager Phil Hogg. The Richmond sports complex containing the oval is now budgeted at C$178 million. VANOC is contributing C$60 million for the oval portion and its related facilities. Originally, the oval was due to be completed by the fall of 2007, so teams could practice for several seasons before the 2010 Games. As more ideas were added to it and it became the complex that it is to be, the delivery date became the spring of 2008. Scott told Richmond Review staff reporter Matthew Hoekstra by phone from Torino on Friday, "We've started to commit very early on to have the oval completed for Canadian athletes to practice in the facility prior to the Games, and that's not just a month prior. We're delivering in the fall of '08."

ITALY, IOC REACH DEAL OVER DOPING LAWS
Italian officials are saying that a dispute with the International Olympic Committee over the nation's anti-doping laws has reached a resolution, and from the few hints available it sounds like a protocol has been worked out. In Italy doping violations are criminal offences, which implies Italian police raids in the Olympic village might occur and there was quite a bit of political opposition to adjusting Italian law for the duration of the Games. Mario Pescante, the government's Olympic supervisor, who is also an IOC member, says he can't yet disclose details, but he told a reporter, "there is total respect for Italian law."

CURLING 2009 WORLDS DISCUSSED FOR VANCOUVER, BUT NO DECISION
Warren Hansen, the spokesman for the Canadian Curling Association, says he has had some discussions with VANOC about availability of its venue for the 2009 World Curling Championships, but says they haven't yet concluded. On the other hand, he says, Edmonton, which had record crowds of nearly 210,000 in 2005 and will be hosting the 2007 World Championships, has, Hansen confirms, sent him a formal letter asking to host the 2009 games. The City of Vancouver, which doesn't expect to complete the curling venue until 2009 and is only just issued its first tender, for design of the complex. VANOC is contributing to the City's construction costs.

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

Friday, December 09, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1356

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

LULULEMON GETS EQUITY INFUSION AND LOOKS 2010'S WAY AGAIN

One of the companies that was bitter about the way VANOC handled its clothing contract that eventually went to HBC, a major, multi-year sponsor of the 2010 Games, was Vancouver-based Lululemon. It, along with Roots and other firms, lost out when VANOC chose HBC to do all the Team Canada uniforms between now and 2012, after they responded to a much more limited RFP issued by VANOC a year ago that just covered the Torino team. Lululemon founder Chip Wilson says two American-based private-equity firms have bought a minority interest in Lululemon Athletica for $108 million, so the retailer will have the backing to do what it wants: become a global brand as familiar as Nike or Reebok. Wilson says the financing will help the chain's 33 stores expand its apparel to as many as 200 locations in Canada, the United States, Europe and Asia. Advent International and Highland Capital, both based in Boston, will own 48& of Lululemon, with the retailer's staff acquiring about 10% of the company in shares and cash, and Wilson retaining the balance. Lululemon generates more than $60 million in annual sales. It also has six stores in the United States, one in Japan and one in Australia. Any other plans, Mr. Wilson, besides world domination. Ah yes, he adds: With the new backing and his new experience in dealing with VANOC, Lululemon will try to go after yet another outfitting contract for the 2010 Olympics.

NON-RESIDENTIAL CONSTRUCTON STATISTICS CONTINUE TO SLIDE
There's a little bit of good news on the horizon for the senior vice-president of Venues at VANOC, Steve Matheson. The latest BC Central Credit Union economic report indicates that non-residential construction in BC, which has been trending upward strongly since mid-2004, continues to ease back from record high levels. In the first 10 months of 2005, permits totalled almost C$2.8 billion, up C$1.1 billion from the same period in 2004. But it has a long way to go yet to get back down to the soft construction market of 2002, when VANOC was required to provide the IOC with its venue budgets."Total non-residential building permits in B.C. are on track to post a gain of at least 50% this year. That will set an all-time record in both current and inflation-adjusted dollars. It will also be the largest gain since 1988," says the report.

CANADIAN CURLING ASSOCIATION TO REVAMP SELECTION PROCESS FOR 2010
The Canadian Curling Associations' Warren Hansen confir ms there will be a change in the selection process for the sport's major events in the coming year so it will be re-aligned for the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver. There are 10 men's teams and 10 women's teams competing at the 2005 Tim Hortons trials in Halifax. Nine of the positions went to curlers who came second or, in two cases, finished third to teams that already qualified through other means, and there has been debate -- pro and con -- about that. Hansen didn't go into details of possible changes to the qualification process, other than to say the organization is considering -- but hasn't yet decided about -- the possibility that only winners of events are provided with positions in the Olympic qualifying finals.

RESOURCES

Our previous story about why Lululemon was unhappy:
www.morgan-news.com/2010/archives/2005_08_01_Bronze.htm
(when the page opens, use your browser's Find function to locate the word Lululemon)

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

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1355
DR. JACK TAUNTON CHOSEN AS CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER FOR 2010 GAMES

Dr. Jack Taunton, a keen amateur cross-country skier and veteran marathoner, has been chosen as the Chief Medical Officer for the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC).

Dr. Taunton, 57, will be responsible for overseeing VANOC's entire medical-services program, which includes the development of a basic and emergency health care delivery program and supervising the doping-control program, expected to be extensive, for the 2010 Games and all pre-Games events. He reports to senior vice-president of Sport, Paralympics and Venue Management, Cathy Priestner-Allinger.

Dr. Taunton's appointment is effective today and his first job is to work with the IOC Medical Commission, which arrives for a three-day first visit to Vancouver on Sunday. But it's not the deep end for him: he already eats, sleeps and breathes athleticism.

Priestner Allinger says there were a number of applicants for the job, which was posted this fall. "It was the combination of his broad experience and the compatibility between his personal values and those of our organization that resulted in his appointment," she says.

The CMO becomes a member of the IOC's Medical Commission leading up to and during an Olympic Games. That means he will also take part in supervising the medical aspects of the Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games and the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games as part of the Commission.

The doctor is well aware of the effect medicine can have: he spent much of Grade 1 is hospital undergoing rehabilitation after being struck by polio as a child. When he was a teenager, he broke his leg badly and spent months in a cast, where he came to see his physiotherapist as a role model. He is now a veteran of more than 65 marathons, and has been known to run more than 100 kilometres a week.

Dr. Taunton has worked for more than 25 years at the University of British Columbia, in providing medical support for Canadian national sports teams. He was the co-founder and, later, the director of the University's Allan McGavin Sports Medicine Centre, where he also participated in regular scientific studies of sports medicine.

Taunton was also a Medical Officer for the Canadian Olympic team at four previous Summer Games: Los Angeles in 1984, Seoul four years later and Barcelona in 1992. He was the chief medical officer for the Canadian Olympic team at the Sydney 2000 Summer Olympic Games.

Dr Taunton also has experience in community relations dealing with health promotion on both TV and radio, as well as providing medical support for national and professional sports teams.Taunton is the co-founder of the Vancouver Sun newspaper's annual Sun Run, which has grown to thousands of people taking part, and has been a team doctor for various multi-sport games besides they Olympics, such as the Pan American Games and Commonwealth Games.

Five years ago, he was elected the Canadian Sports Physician of the Year. He was also a member of the first graduating class of Kinesiology at Simon Fraser University in 1969.

BACKGROUND
There's a photo of Dr. Taunton here:
http://www.fieldhockey.ca/e/nationalteams/women/staff/bios/j_taunton.htm

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

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1354
AUDITORS REPORT VANOC IN THE RED OPERATIONALLY, AND IN THE BLACK ON VENUE-DEVELOPMENT AS FIRST MAJOR REVENUES RECORDED

The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) began earning its keep for the first time this year.

It reports it has been given its first trickle of revenues -- an advance of US$5 million -- from the lucrative sale of the broadcast rights of the Games, and a net C$1.1 million as the first, relatively small, flow of payments were collected from its own sales of multi-year sponsorship agreements with companies like Bell Canada, HBC, Rona, the Royal Bank and others.
VANOC appears to be running ahead somewhat of the money it has been given so far by governments to build its venues, and it had to take out a C$5 million capital line of credit to cover until additional, previously scheduled, funding arrives. That doesn't mean it's over budget; it means it's slightly further along on its construction and funding timetable on some projects than it expected to be.
CEO John Furlong may consider these to be "Canada's Games," but it's the BC government that's been keeping VANOC afloat on the venue-construction side. BC has contributed C$30 million to that fund during the fiscal year, while the federal government, which is supposed to be cost-sharing venue construction, has sent in cheques totalling only C$3.7 million.
Payroll and expenditures related to obtaining and keeping its own staff accounted for nearly half -- 43% -- of VANOC's operational expenses, and that factor alone accounted for more than all the operational revenue VANOC recorded.

That's just some of the news from the organization's audited financial statements for its fiscal year that ended last July 31. The statements were released today, about a month later than they were last year. They include, as expected, an unusual balance sheet and statement of operations, reflecting VANOC's unique legal and operational structure, and defined lifespan that ends December 31, 2012.

Financially, VANOC is split into two major components: the part that deals with the the operational side of the organization, and a self-contained area that deals with the financial flows of constructing or renovating the venues for the Games. The statements reflect this.

OPERATIONS

Accounting of the operational side is set up in a way that's similar to project financing, with revenues and expenses recorded each year as they occur, but they're listed as being deferred until after the 2010 Games, when a reconciliation will occur with the International Olympic Committee and its other corporate and governmental relationships. VANOC is not subject to taxation, nor will it retain ownership of any assets after the Games are concluded.

That type of accounting makes sense, on the one hand, because VANOC sits in the centre of a complicated web of financial agreements, pledges, commitments and obligations, and the International Olympic Committee also retains holdbacks and refundable deposits for VANOC, to ensure the Games go ahead; they won't be added to the pile of cheques and bills until after the Games are over.

On the other hand, it makes it difficult for outsiders to see, on a year-to-year basis, what kind of a surplus or loss can be expected as the Games near. A surplus, if any, goes to fund legacy operations and athlete funds; a loss, if any, is to be covered by BC taxpayers.

The auditors have been somewhat sensitive to this issue. Besides the standard year-over-year comparison, they've also provided a column that shows the accumulated revenues and losses since VANOC's inception. At the moment, VANOC, still largely in start-up mode, is in the red operationally, and in the black in its venue-development fund.

During VANOC's 2005 fiscal year, it had deferred revenues of C$7.6 million and deferred expenses of C$23.6 million, for a deficit of C$16 million, bringing its accumulated deficit to C$22.7 million since it officially began operations in September, 2003. Its accumulated revenues are C$7.7 million.

The deferred revenues included C$6.3 million -- that's the US$5 million from the IOC -- that was the first advance on VANOC's ultimate share of the sales by the IOC of broadcasting rights for the Games. (The financial statements don't say so, but VANOC's final share is yet to be negotiated between it and the IOC, and there are more broadcasting rights sales to be completed. Observers suggest the Games are expected to roughly generate about C$500 million from this source alone; that's significant for a Winter Games.)

Also on the revenue side was the C$1.1 million in sponsorship payments. They included C$1.4 million in value-in-kind sponsorships, but C$67,328 was paid to the IOC in commissions -- it gets a 7.5% royalty on cash and 5% royalty on VIK contributions received per year on anything to do with the sponsors using Olympic marketing rights. And VANOC also paid the Canadian Olympic Committee a royalty of C$161,589. The COC charges a 16% royalty on cash and 12% royalty on VIK for marketing rights.

The statement reveals that VANOC and the COC this year worked out a deal in which VANOC has guaranteed it will pay the COC between C$73 million and C$110 million, during its lifetime of for COC marketing rights. According to the payment schedule in the financial statements, the first major payment, C$3.5 million, was sent on September 30 with another C$9 million due to be paid next April 30. After that, according to the schedule, VANOC is to turn over more money every April 30: C$11 million in 2007, C$14 million in 2008, C$12 million in 2009, C$7.5 million in 2010, C$7 million in 2011 and the final payment is to be C$6 million on April 30, 2012.

It's interesting to note that last September's C$3.5 million payment was officially recorded in the fiscal year that ended last July, indicating the obligation was incurred then, with VANOC recording the C$161,589 it paid as a marketing commission to the COC as a part of that. Thus, C$3.3 million of that September payment was recorded as a deferred "marketing & communication" expense.

VANOC has eight major divisions. We'll look at each of them according to the amount spent.

The Human Resources department, supervised by senior vice-president Donna Wilson, was the largest source of operational expenditure. It spent C$9.8 million. The statements don't explain, but a large part of this is expected to have gone for payroll and benefits for the 130 people on staff by that point, most of them senior management who will slowly flush out their departments as staffing is required. That's an average annual payout of C$75,000 per person, but the senior management is commanding roughly C$250,000 per year each. There are about 150 on staff now, with VANOC expecting to have about 300 by this time next year.

Marketing & Communications, supervised by senior vice-president Dave Cobb, spent C$6.3 million, but the majority of that were payments for commissions, royalties and marketing rights to the COC.

Finance and Administration -- supervised during the last fiscal year by vice-president John McLaughlin; chief financial officer Rex McLennan only started work last month -- spent C$3.1 million. Portions of that would have gone to several consulting contracts -- the audit is one -- but VANOC has also been developing strategies to do with the complex network of tax handling that will deal with the flows of materials and services in and out of the country connected with the Games. About 15% of that -- was on office rent alone for the two floors of space in a downtown Vancouver tower. Just before the fiscal year-end, VANOC made a deal with the City of Vancouver to rent two office buildings in East Vancouver -- 230,000 square feet -- for its new headquarters.

It's not clear in the statements whether any charges from that arrangement were recorded against the 2005 fiscal year, but VANOC won't be moving out of its downtown location until next spring. Its lease on the office floors officially expires December 31, but it has arranged an extension to carry it over, plus a short-term arrangement of a third floor, until the new building can be made ready for VANOC's move. The costs for that will be reflected in next year's financial statements, but the current statements show it expects C$437,000 will likely be recorded in 2006 from the existing office space arrangements.

The controversial legal department, supervised by General Counsel Keith Bradshaw, racked up C$1.3 million in expenses. Again, no explanation, but portions of it would have gone to legal work connected with securing marketing rights, registering logos and word marks nationally and internationally -- VANOC now owns dozens of them -- as well as warding off attempts at ambush and related marketing.

The statements show that Sport -- the division that looks after everything the athletes will touch -- spent C$1.2 million during the fiscal year. The division is supervised by senior vice-president Cathy Priestner-Allinger. Again, the statements don't explain, but large portions of this would have dealt with hosting various organizations from outside of Vancouver and Whistler that were reviewing the facilities and the planning for the Games. Priestner-Allinger is now also responsible for venue management (as opposed to construction), and that section recorded its first outlay: C$31,167; nothing in the statements, but it would have been primarily for consulting.

Although senior vice-president Ward Chapin was only started work in March, the Technology division of VANOC spent C$1.1 million during the fiscal year.

The slow strengthening of the Canadian dollar is working against VANOC. The IOC holds a US$1 million refundable deposit for VANOC -- it's the amount VANOC was required to pay upon signing the host-city contract two years ago, when the Canadian dollar was much weaker than it was come this fiscal year's end. VANOC will eventually get the money back, plus interest, but VANOC recorded a foreign-exchange loss of C$103,300 during the fiscal year when the deposit was revalued at July 31. By the way, the Canadian Olympic Committee paid that US$1 million on VANOC's behalf; VANOC has since paid the COC back.

The operations are kept afloat by a large operating line of credit with the Royal Bank (one of VANOC's largest sponsors), and VANOC had to go to the bank twice in fiscal 2005 to expand it.

Almost exactly a year ago, the auditors report, VANOC boosted the line of credit from its original C$15 million to C$25 million. But by June 27, it was back to ask the line be expanded to C$45 million. Not only that, but it also set up a C$5 million line of credit for its separate venue-development activities. As of July 31, it was into the operating line by C$24 million -- about 53% of the line was in use, and VANOC was paying 10 points below the bank's prime on C$3.6 million of that, while the rest was covered by a one-month banker's acceptance of C$21 million. And it was 56% of the way into its venue credit line on a straight loan 10 points below bank prime. The effective yield on the banker's acceptance was 4.11%.

THE VENUE FUND

The income and expenses related to VANOC's venue construction and renovation program flows in and out of a separate Venue Development Fund, which restricts the money coming in to venue expenses. Virtually all of the C$34 million in revenue during the 2005 fiscal year was from the BC government's C$30 million, and Canada's C$3.7 million.

However, as we've noted, it wasn't enough to cover the C$42.9 million in costs VANOC recorded in venue development during the fiscal year, despite the C$55 million in funds advanced to the fund in the previous year.

Virtually all of the money went to look after half of VANOC's C$60 million obligation to the municipality of Richmond, which is building VANOC's long-track speedskating oval as part of a large sports complex on the shore of the Fraser River. Design of the project is well underway and construction tenders for work beginning in the spring are expected to be issued in the next few weeks.

Last year, VANOC did something similar -- advanced C$30 million to a trust fund to cover its upfront share of the City of Vancouver's Athletes Village. That fund, as of July 31, was up to C$30.9 million, thanks to interest rates, and will be paid out as the City reaches various construction milestones. Interestingly, as of July 31, the milestone had not yet been included in any agreement, so the money was still sitting there. Vancouver has already done the general engineering of the lands on which the Village is to be build, and is in the process of selecting a developer to build the Village buildings and dorms and, after the Games, convert them to residential apartments.

The Whistler Sliding Centre and the Whistler Nordic Centre were running nearly neck-and-neck in financial costs during the fiscal year. By July 31, VANOC had spent about $5.9 million on the Nordic Centre in the Callaghan Valley southwest of Whistler, and about C$5.3 million on the Sliding Centre in the mountains above Whistler. Since July 31 essentially splits the construction season for those two projects in half, only about half of the construction expenditure for those two sites for this calendar year is registered in the financial statements.

The renovation of the Coliseum, an arena in Vancouver's east end that is to be used for Olympic figure skating, took up about C$1.2 million in venue expenditures to July 31, much of it for replacing most of the 16,000 seats in time for this month's Junior World Cup hockey championships. The Coliseum's entire renovation project has a budget of about C$23 million.

There were some odds and ends spent primarily on consulting studies during the fiscal year of the Cypress Bowl's freestyle skiing and snowboarding venue -- C$47,712, bringing the total spent so far on it to $103,729 since VANOC's inception and C$5,069 on planning studies for VANOC's secondary ice-hockey arena that the City of Vancouver and the University of Vancouver are constructing, bringing total expenditures on those venues so far to C$65,234. Administration expenses totaling C$281,687 were charged to the Fund.

By the end of the year, the fund, which started off the year with C$20.1 million in it, had shrunk to C$11.4 million.

The complex statements were issued about a month later than last year's, but there was no explanation offered for the delay. They were signed by the chairman of the Audit Committee for VANOC's board, Michael Phelps, a Vancouver businessman who was appointed to represent the Canadian Olympic Committee, and another member of the Audit Committee, Ken Dobell, who was appointed to represent the Province of British Columbia on the Board. Dobell is Deputy Minister to BC's Premier and Cabinet Secretary for the provincial government. The role is seen as the most senior and powerful of the non-elected positions in Victoria.

The statements were formally audited by the Canadian office of the British-based international accounting firm of Ernst & Young, which gave them a clean opinion that they properly showed the financial situation of the Organizing Committee on July 31.

RESOURCES

The 16-page financial statements for FY 2005 can be downloaded in scanned PDF format (about 500K) from here:
tinyurl.com/b8vo3

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

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1353
DR. JACKSON CONFIRMED AS CEO OF OWN THE PODIUM 2010 PROGRAM

Dr. Roger Jackson has been confirmed as the first chief executive officer of Own The Podium - 2010.

Jackson had been named last May as the person in charge of setting up a summer-Olympics version of the program, and has just completed a report to the Canadian Olympic Committee on how it might work, and what its goals and focus should be.

Own The Podium - 2010 is a C$110-million program designed to focus public and private funds in ways to help Canada become the country to win more medals than any other at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, and to place in the top three nations at the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games. The basic ideas is to provide additional resources and high-performance programming to support Canadian athletes, coaches and other personnel in the years leading up to the Games.

Dr. Jackson recognized VANOC's senior vice-president of Sport, with whom he worked on the steering committee for the summer-Olympic, program in preparing the groundwork for winter version of the program, saying, "This initiative and funding is a milestone event in Canadian sport history. Olympian Cathy Priestner Allinger, who co-wrote the Own the Podium report, and several others have done a tremendous amount of good work to get this program launched."

The "partners" for the Own the Podium project are the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC), Canada's 13 national winter sport federations, the Canadian Olympic Committee, the federal government's department of Canadian Heritage, the Calgary Olympic Development Association and the Canadian Paralympic Committee.

VANOC committed to raise half of the total funds through corporate support from Bell Canada, HBC, Rona, General Motors, RBC and Petro Canada. The BC government pledged C$5 million for the program.

VANOC chief executive officer John Furlong adds, "With the proven leadership of Roger, we are ensuring that Canada's Olympic hopefuls will be put in an optimum position to achieve podium success in 2010."

Dr. Jackson is to be responsible for developing and implementing the program's business, strategic and operating plans, as well as issuing recommendations on the most effective methods to allocate its resources, but he'll report to a board made up of representatives from the sponsoring organizations.

RESOURCES
Canadian Olympic Committee executives and contact info:
www.olympic.ca/EN/organization/directory/directory.shtml

BACKGROUND

Dr. Jackson is a former Director of Sport Canada and was elected three times as the President of the Canadian Olympic Committee. He is a three-time Olympian summer athlete: Tokyo, 1964; Mexico, 1968; and Munich, 1972. He won a gold medal in rowing in the coxless pairs event with George Hungerford at the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo as a member of the UBC/Vancouver Rowing Club.

Dr. Jackson was the Dean of the Faculty of Kinesiology at the University of Calgary from 1978 to 1988, and was the founder and Director of the University of Calgary Sport Medicine Centre. He retired from the University last year to start Roger Jackson & Associates Ltd., a private consulting practice. He has also worked on six Olympic bids and consulted for two Olympic host cities.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1351

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

FORT ST. JOHN OVAL MIRED IN FEDERAL BUREACRACY

It looks like Fort St. John's proposed C$28-million speedskating oval Enerplex complex is mired in federal bureaucracy that's been worsened by the federal election call. Planning officials in the northeastern BC town hoped the oval, which would surround two hockey rinks, would be ready by 2007, so it could be used to entice Olympic national teams who want to train in BC for the 2010 Games. That timetable would mean a construction start this spring. The BC government pledged C$12.5 million last April, the town has pledged C$8 million and local officials need to know what, if anything, the federal government will contribute before they can ask business for any remainder. Prince George-Peace River Conservative Member of Parliament Jay Hill, who is running for re-election, said the project is being delayed in Ottawa because it's being bounced from funding program to funding program, each of which has its own ministry and rules and forms. The C$1 billion federal Municipal Rural Infrastructure Fund, announced more than a year ago, is one of those, but BC and federal government are still negotiating for B.C.'s share, and its bureaucracy would take between four and six months after talks complete before any projects could be approved.

NANAIMO FEBRUARY FUND-RAISER FOR 2010-BOUND PARALYMPIC ATHLETE
From our Doin' What They Can Department: Community people in Nanaimo, the city on Vancouver Island that's just west of Vancouver, have set up a C$50-a-plate dinner for its Sport Achievement Awards in February. The awards are for local athletes, coaches or volunteers who others perceives as role models. The proceeds from the event will help support two Olympic athletes, Rafal Korkowski, a weightlifter aiming for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics and skier Andrea Dwiezior, who is hoping to compete in the 2010 Winter Paralympics in Whistler. A local hotel, the Bastion, says it will match any proceeds up to $5,000 for each athlete, and the money can be used by the athlete to pay for training, equipment and travel costs.

HOW TO WIN 2010 GOLD IN SCOTLAND
From our Say What!? Department: The British Olympic Committee selected its first athletes for its Torino Olympic contenders, and they are a brother-and-sister pair of figure skaters from Scotland. But Sinead and John Kerr told The Scotsman newspaper, that, quite frankly, they're not likely to win, so they are simply using Torino to help them get a shot at a medal in the 2010 Games in Vancouver. The Kerrs are ranked eighth in Europe, but, as Sinead explained: "It generally doesn't happen that you go to your first Olympics and win. We see Turin as a stepping stone. And then we want to go on to 2010 with our results improving year on year, so that we're in a position to medal by then. In Turin, a fantastic result for us would be to finish in the top ten; though top 12 would also stand us in good stead for the future." She also figures they'll rise in the ranks through attrition, "At least five of the top ten couples are due to retire after these Olympics," she told the newspaper reporter, "so logically that means we should move up five places without doing anything." Let's see, they're in eighth spot now, minus five... So, by their reckoning, they've got the 2010 figure-skating bronze medal all sewn up. With any luck, a couple more teams will pack it in by 2009, and VANOC can simply put the Kerrs down for a gold.

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

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1350
FRANCOPHONE GROUPS PARLAY WITH VANOC IN QUIET WEEKEND MEETING; ANOTHER SESSION SCHEDULED

Representatives of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC), the federal government and several Francophone groups quietly met over the weekend, and have scheduled another meeting for January.

The meeting, which included the 2010 Winter Games Federal Secretariat, the BC Francophone Federation, La Federation des communautes francophones et acadienne du Canada and La Fondation canadienne pour le dialogue des cultures, which is also known as Fondation Dialogue, took part in meetings which VANOC says were "aimed at sharing VANOC's vision, clarifying its objectives in terms of official languages and identifying how Francophone communities could collaborate with VANOC to support these objectives."

VANOC CEO John Furlong says, "We feel confident that the Francophone communities of Canada, and especially of BC, will actively and proudly support VANOC's mission and vision for the 2010 Games, helping us to effectively deliver on our official languages commitments. We are counting on their collaboration and expertise to welcome the world in Canada's and the Olympic Movement's two official languages."

VANOC spokesman Mary Fraser said that meeting "acknowledged that Francophone communities from each Canadian province and territory could have the opportunity to contribute in a unique way to the Games, particularly BC's Francophone community."

She said the discussions also allowed the participating organizations "to elaborate on the guiding principles of a collaborative framework between VANOC, Fondation Dialogue and the BC Francophone Federation."

VANOC discussed its plans leading up to the Games that included culture, ceremonies, education programs, communications and job opportunities for volunteers and paid employees.

The next meeting is expected to take place at the end of January. Representatives of Fondation Dialogue and others in the Francophone community of BC will present what Fraser called "a progress report on a collaborative work approach with VANOC and the 2010 Winter Games Federal Secretariat."

The meeting was a follow-up to initial discussions that took place last March in Ottawa about the possibility of Francophone and Acadian communities across Canada working together to ensure visibility and a maximum number of opportunities for Canada's Francophone community at the 2010 Games.

That meeting identified Fondation Dialogue as the organization to act as the catalyst to support VANOC in promoting, "Canada's linguistic duality and to ensure that the Games reflect the cultural diversity of the country."

RESOURCES

Foundation Dialog's website (in French):
www.fondationdialogue.ca/objets.htm

This link is BabelFish's rough computer translation of the web page into English:
tinyurl.com/7cb8f

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1349
WASHINGTON STATE 2010 TASK FORCE CONSIDERS WHETHER US SECURITY LAW WOULD CHILL BORDER TOURISM

The executive committee of the Washington State 2010 task force has been told by Canadians that America's passport plans will have a chilling effect on tourism between Canada and the U.S., and it's unclear whether it will have thawed much by the time the Games begin.

The Governor's Task Force on the 2010 Olympics and Paralympics Winter Games was formed last year to deal with co-ordinating the effects on the state of the 2010 Games, and the expected boost in tourism and business leading up to and during the Games. Washington State Democratic representative Rick Larsen, whose riding takes in the border city of Blaine, and former congressman Sid Morrison, an executive of the company that runs ferries between Washington State and BC, are co-chairmen of the panel, which is operating on a two-year funding of US$150,000.

At the moment, neither Canadian nor American citizens require a passport to cross the Canada/US border; only a valid driver's license and a birth certificate are needed for identification. However, the US Department of Homeland Security and the US State Department, under a law passed in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, passports for those traveling on ferries and airplanes will be required as of January 1, 2007, and those crossing by land will need to have one a year later. Passports for a family would cost several hundred dollars. All of the Canadian provinces, the Canadian federal government and most of the US border state government have complained about the economic ripple effects the law would have if implemented.

Canadian Consul General Jeffrey Parker and his officer for political, economic and natural resources, Patrick Higgins, attended the executive meeting in Seattle yesterday. Higgins encouraged, "all of our American friends and allies [to] speak up loud and often on how [the passport law] ought to be modified."

Larsen said he is of the opinion that the law needs to be changed, and that there are discussions about that possibility now taking place in the US capital.

The Task Force's executive committee was also told yesterday that studies on tourism and trade that can be expected in Washington State as the result of the 2010 Games are about to begin.

Meanwhile, and unrelated to the task force, another bill, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2006 (H.R. 2360), has passed the US House of Representatives, with Larsen voting in favour, although it is still working its way toward becoming law. It expands the amount of security along the Canada/US border, among other locations. It includes language by Larsen which related to the 2010 Olympics and the effect on Washington state. The language would direct the Homeland Security Department to "work with the appropriate Washington State and Canadian stakeholders to review and report back to Congress their analysis of expected border flow, border security, border wait times, and the possible need for increased border personnel."

The Senate must agree to the Homeland Security Appropriations conference report before President Bush can sign it into law.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1348
CONSULTANTS TO BE OFFERED PROJECTS IN A WIDE RANGE OF WORK UNDER THE HEADING OF "SUSTAINABILITY"

The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) says it is looking for what will probably be several consultants to work with it giving substance to the broad area of sustainability.

VANOC has a relatively wide definition of the word that ranges from environmental ways that its venues and operations can reduce environmental impacts, to its long-term implications on the way its venues and operations will affect the legacy it leaves.

It's specifically looking for consultants to work with it over the next few years in some specific areas, and they have to be able to "demonstrate specific and significant professional experience in one or more" of these areas as defined by VANOC, in the order provided by VANOC:

Strategic planning and organizational matters
Corporate/aboriginal relations
Alliances and partnership opportunities
Reporting, credibility and transparency
Sustainability management systems (SMS)
Sustainable purchasing policies
Fundraising
Sustainable financing and financial reporting
Stakeholder engagement
Technical aspects of prospective performance milestones and targets in such technical areas as renewable energy, green building
Communications on sustainability topics and progress
Conflict resolution and mediation

The consultants, who can set up a joint venture with other consultants to make themselves more attractive to VANOC, have until January 11 to fill out the forms that will tell VANOC they're interested in being considered. VANOC will then sort through the applicants and either choose those it will work with on an ad-hoc basis, or, depending on the list of applicants, it might shortlist them in some areas an offer a specific request for proposals.

Any consultants chosen to work with VANOC will have to undergo a security check of its principals and staff that will be working with VANOC.

BACKGROUND

VANOC has what it calls "a sustainability framework" that it adopted when it was bidding for the 2010 Games and it hasn't, as yet, updated it. The framework, however, is quite broad and provides, according to VANOC, "policy guidance and a set of best practices based on principles of ecological limits, interdependence, long-term view, stakeholder engagement, equity, accessibility and healthy communities."

The framework applies to planners, organizers and suppliers of the Vancouver 2010 Games. Its guidelines are, and we quote:

Ensure we consider citizens needs of today and tomorrow;
Integrate and optimize sport, environmental, social and economic considerations;
Help build community, domestic and international support;
Ensure we create sustainable legacies;
Enable the games to become a showcase of sustainability to the citizens of Canada and the world;
Increase understanding of sustainability through the Olympic medium.

VANOC has also said, for some time, that it intends to develop a "sustainability management system that addresses the immediate and long-term potential impacts that the products, services and operations of the Winter Games would have on the environment, economy and society."

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1347
VANCOUVER STARTS CONSTRUCTION PROCESS ON NEW COMMUNITY ARENA FOR 2010 PRACTICE

The Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation has begun the process of selecting a construction design firm for one of the new City ice rinks that will be used as a practice arena for the 2010 Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

The Board's staff, which will oversee the project, is looking for design firms to provide architectural and engineering services for the new arena, which will have an Olympic-size rink. The deadline for companies to let the Parks Board know of their intentions is December 14. From the initial list, the Board will select a shortlist to receive a detailed Request for Proposals.

Once the Games are finished, the facility will be converted to a community ice arena with an NHL-sized ice area, replacing the aging Killarney rink in the south-central part of the city.

Planners say the design of the facility will require a team with expertise in knowing what's needed for an Olympic-calibre ice rink facility as well as a multi-purpose, community-recreational facility.

The new rink will be approximately 3,200 square meters and will include the ice plant and an ice-conditioner room, and their associated mechanical/electrical rooms, as well as changing rooms, a lounge, seating, a skate shop and public washrooms. A new lobby will be included in the project; it's expected to replace the existing community centre's lobby.

The cost of the facility -- one part of a project in which two City community-centre arenas, including one at Trout Lake on the city's east side, are to be replaced -- is being funded on a 75% - 25% split. The City is paying the larger share though borrowings approved during a capital referendum approved during last month's civic election.

The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) is contributing C$2.5 million originally budgeted for a temporary rink in east Vancouver it would have torn down after the Games.

By providing C$15 million, Vancouver estimates it can replace the two facilities with a quarter of the funding coming from VANOC.

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

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1346
DESIGN-BUILD CONTRACTORS SOUGHT FOR 2010 CURLING VENUE

The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) has begun the process of building its first major venue in Vancouver by looking for a company to design and build both the Hillcrest Park Curling Venue as well as the adjoining new Percy Norman Aquatic Centre.

VANOC will be asking companies to let it know if they're interested by January 10, and, working with the Vancouver Park Board, will shortlist three firms shortly afterward to receive a detailed Request for Proposals.

There is a bit of complexity to the management of the work, in part because of the pool, which doesn't have anything directly to do with VANOC's plans to present the 2010 Winter Games, and partly because the curling rink, which will be its venue, will both be part of the Olympic's legacy for the City of Vancouver, and partly because the two projects will use a joint heat-exchange system. VANOC and the City of Vancouver both hope the projects will be able to share a number of development and design features, even though they'll be separate contracts, with the curling rink construction firm contracting with VANOC, and the pool-construction firm contracting with the Park Board. They both hope to save money by doing the joint construction project.

The current schedule calls for the rink to be completed just in time for handover to VANOC so it can be fit up for the Olympics, in the middle of 2009. The rink is the only competition venue VANOC is constructing in Vancouver; other venues in the city involve renovations. The rink portion of the dual project is budgeted at C$28 million.

VANOC, the City of Vancouver, and the City's Vancouver Park Board have formed a capital-works committee to oversee the process for developing of the curling venue in particular, and its design-and-construction integration, with the proposed aquatic centre.

VANOC has the responsibility for doing the project management work on the rink and overall coordination of the pool and site development; the Park Board will look after the pool details. The committee has hired a joint project manager for the day-to-day work and be the design consulting team's primary contact.

The Hillcrest Park venue will initially be used for the curling competition during the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. Afterwards, it will be converted to replace the aging Riley Park Community Centre and its arena, and provide a home the Vancouver Curling Club. It will also include a local library. When it's finished, the new Aquatic Centre is expected to be the largest enclosed pool in the City of Vancouver. It will be about 60,000 square feet, two or three main swimming areas for long course and leisure swimming and leisure swimming. Another pool, this one outside, is also expected to be in the final design.

The idea is that both will be designed and built at the same time. VANOC and the Park Board expect the approach will offer design and construction efficiencies, lower costs and less bureaucracy that two independent projects as it goes through the City's development process.

VANOC, as usual, will require the company that wins the awards to have its management, staff and construction crew undergo a security check.

RESOURCES
Background to the Riley Park development and maps of how the area should eventually look:
vancouver.ca/parks/info/planning/rileymasterplan/

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1345
VOLUNTEER NOW REGISTERS SEVERAL HUNDRED BUT PILOT PROJECT HOPES TO SHIFT TO MAIN STREAM NEXT YEAR AS BUGS ARE WORKED OUT

The president and CEO of 2010 LegaciesNow, Marion Lay, says the organization's new sign-up system for volunteers has received several hundred people interested in bolstering their resumes.

The underlying concept is that it's a way of helping people to ease their way into the rigorous application system for being part of the unpaid crew for the 2010 Olympics, however it's still basically at the pilot-project stage, it has a long way to go to its target of registering one million volunteers, and being registered with VolWeb should help with the 2010 application process, but it's not a prerequisite for being a 2010 volunteer.

The number of people who have signed up so far is 415 registered volunteers and 60 event organizers have also registered so they can be matched with volunteers. That's after 10 weeks of operation of a volunteer website set up by 2010 LegaciesNow through its smallest division, Volunteer Now.

These include those who registered on the organization's VolWeb Internet website and during a 2010 Legacies Now tour of major cities in the province with a kiosk that invited applications during the late fall. It went to West Vancouver, Prince George, Nelson, Cranbrook, Kelowna, Vernon, Victoria, and Burnaby. The kiosk's data was merged with the online version when the tour completed its last stop in November.

VolWeb.ca was launched September 26. About 30,000 people were also alerted about the website by a blast e-mail to a list held VANOC, which went to people who had expressed an interest in the Games during the last three or four years. However, the e-mail was sent out the day before VolWeb was live, and e-mail is impulsive.

Lay says that posters were also posted at libraries across the province, directing people to the website.

Mary MacKillop, the Director of Volunteers Now, says that the organization has not yet done much in the way of marketing so far. "The capacity for handling a mass onslaught of registrants and applicants wasn't [there yet]. We didn't want to set up the structure for failure. We wanted to have some measure of success before we began to invest more broadly. We've been delighted with the numbers." She says that in addition to the numbers that have registered, 3,000 people have downloaded the resource information -- the links and connections to the volunteer and event sector -- on the site, "and that's a big part of what VolWeb is about."

VolWeb.ca makes it clear that those registering are aware they're signing up to be a volunteer for a wide range of potential sports and festival events throughout British Columbia, and that they will still have to go through a rigorous application process to be chosen as a 2010 volunteer.

The site focuses on recommending registrants build up their volunteer resume and skills in advance of VANOC starting its selection process in 2007. The process of simply becoming registered on VolWeb.ca requires about 10 or 15 minutes -- longer if you read the lengthy legalese of the application agreement. MacKillop says four weeks were spent doing usability testing with a variety of groups, but just before the site went live, lawyers said there had to be "a built-in component with exhaustive details around privacy." It was included as an optional section, but she notes that the language was written at a level above high-school requirements, and many people with English as a second language would have had even more difficulty with it. "But it's there and it covers us... But there's still some growth that needs to happen... And we're perfecting it as we go along."

"BC will be hosting about 15 world-class events between now and 2010," Lay says, and people registering at the site will be considered for work at those events as well as many others.

MacKillop says that,"Once we begin to work with larger events, when we start doing mass targets in each of the communities across BC, with kiosks for VolWeb, and working out of libraries, universities and computer labs, and so on, that's when we'll start managing a significant intake [of volunteers and organizers. The amount we have signed up now] is just about right for us."

MacKillop says that in three of four months, "We'll be able to identify some pretty significant successes, once it can be seen that events are actually benefiting from the volunteers." She also needs to ensure that people are convinced the service is free; some perceive there must be some sort of cost to registering, though there isn't. "In the volunteer sector, we need to have all the resources we can get."

Lay notes there was so much interest in Europe to volunteer for the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy, that the Torino Olympic Organizing Committee had to cut short its recruitment process.

MacKillop says Volunteer Now is in the process of building volunteer capacity in several different ways, "and we'll pass this on. It will eventually become a national tool. It will be in British Columbia and continue to serve British Columbia, probably through one of our volunteer organizations, but it will also roll out to other provinces and territories as a gift, as part of the Canadian legacy" generated by the advent of the 2010 Games.

Lay says the volunteer-recruitment process must be handled sensitively because being turned away has as much effect on potential volunteers as it does losing a prized job interview, and it's something they remember, she says, for the rest of their lives. She added that people who were culled from the volunteer list of the 1988 Winter Olympic Games still remember the decision. "People who are volunteering want to give so much, and if there's nobody who wants to take what their offering, it's hard on them."

RESOURCES
Volweb:
www.volweb.ca

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

Monday, December 05, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1344
NEW VANCOUVER MAYOR SAYS THE ADVENT OF THE 2010 OLYMPIC GAMES WILL BE A THEME OF HIS ADMINISTRATION

The new Vancouver mayor, Sam Sullivan, used his inaugural address at Vancouver City Hall today to outline his agenda for what was termed "his first term in office" and said that he would "leverage the Olympics" up to and beyond 2010.

"Over the next three years," Sullivan said, "I will ask our council to focus on 2010 with a 2020 vision. To look at the Games as an opportunity to help make our city a better place to live."

The 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games was given a special focus by the mayor in the speech and the often used it as a theme. He said he would use the Games "as a catalyst leading up to and far beyond 2010", calling this period of the city's history "one of the best chances Vancouver will ever have to lobby government and business to move the City's agenda forward."

Sullivan, in talking about the Olympics aspect, said, "We have to ask ourselves what kind of city we want when the world arrives
here in 2010, and then ensure we deliver exactly that kind of city. As this is the last full term of council prior to Vancouver hosting the Olympics, the decisions made in this chamber will have an impact on generations to come."

Among other things, Sullivan said, "I intend to ask Council to formally clarify the roles, relationships and responsibilities of Council, staff and citizens so we are all clear about how we can best serve our city. We will undertake this Triple R Review -- roles, relationships and responsibilities -- to ensure the resources of our city are properly focused on helping us to achieve the goals I am outlining today, and it will enable us to set the direction for the important decisions leading up to 2010 and beyond."

Sullivan says that the Olympics is an event that "happens in every city's history; there are moments that shape its destiny. In 2010, Vancouver will be hosting the world. I want this Council to see the Games not just as a few weeks of sport for the world's greatest athletes but as a powerful catalyst that can help us attract resources and focus our efforts on making our city better in every way.

The new mayor said that he wants Olympic visitors "to find a city committed to the principle of sustainability. Besides the significant infrastructure legacies the Games will leave behind for the citizens of Vancouver, we should strive to ensure that we remain a leader in the development of sustainable social and environmental legacies leading up to and beyond 2010. But we must also ensure that Vancouver remains a model of economic sustainability, by balancing the many demands for service and infrastructure, with the ability of our taxpayers to pay."

He also said that he wants to ensure that the new council demonstrates that Vancouver would encourage business, "and [we] are seeking new investment leading up to and beyond 2010. By reviewing what other Olympic cities did to attract new enterprise, Vancouver has a wonderful opportunity to emulate their success. By seeking to further enhance our relationships with future Olympic host cities such as Beijing and London, we also stand poised to benefit both socially and economically."

Sullivan also said he intended to use the cultural aspects of the 2010 Games to improve the city. He put it this way, "As we begin the countdown to the Cultural Olympiad, a renewed emphasis on supporting the arts and our artists is essential if we are to showcase Vancouver as a dynamic and creative city. In partnership with funding agencies such as 2010 Legacies Now, we will seek out new opportunities to put our artists on the international stage... I will also be seeking to establish a new Vancouver Arts Partnership Agreement with the federal and provincial governments, which will allow for significantly larger investments in arts infrastructure throughout the City of Vancouver. When the world arrives in 2010 I want them to find renewed arts facilities to showcase our talent."

The mayor said he wanted his council to focus on other aspects connect with the Games as well, including the location where the Vancouver Athletes Village would be built: "This Council should also make every effort to facilitate the extremely tight schedule to develop Southeast False Creek, one of our best examples of a truly sustainable neighbourhood. It is important that we capitalize on the $30 million dollars already committed by senior levels of government for social housing, and that we deliver on our 2010 commitment." And, he added, "I would also like to see a revitalized Chinatown with more residents and prosperous businesses when the world visits in 2010."

He also said the advent of the Games would be a deadline for council to "increase the number of bicycle paths, greenways and seawalls by 2010 in order to maintain our reputation as one of the most pedestrian and bicycle friendly cities in North America. Last year Vancouver became the first municipality in British Columbia to accept the challenge of increasing our physical activity by 20% by 2010. We must take this policy and turn it into action by ensuring more people are active every day."

On the other hand, he said, he wanted to use 2010 as a deadline for other parts of his agenda. "When the world comes in 2010, I want to make sure they will not find a city that relies on gambling to pay for services to its citizens. It is therefore my intention to seek Council's support to restore a policy to limit the expansion of gambling within the city of Vancouver."

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on December 5, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #1343
NBC TO HELP ITS LOCAL STATIONS PRODUCE A HALF-HOUR OLYMPICS LEAD-IN SHOW FOR TORINO GAMES

NBC, the TV network that has the rights to broadcast the Olympics to the United States through to 2012, says that it will help its stations produce a new localized show about the Italian Winter Olympics for the half-hour prior to its prime-time coverage.

The program, called "The Olympic Zone", is modeled after a similar type of program done by KCRA, the NBC affiliate in Sacramento, California, which produced a 30-minute Olympic-access show before the Athens Summer Games in 2004. That program, according to NBC, doubled its viewers for its timeslot and generated a 160% advertising rate increase, however NBC has more modest goals; it's hoping to increase Olympic-generated revenue 5% over that generated by previous Games.

Gary Zenkel, the president of NBC Olympics says the "Olympic Zone" will merge locally produced content with network-produced segments, and is designed to "localize and extend" the Olympic experience for viewers across the United States in NBC's 270 markets. It will start Wednesday, February 8, two days prior to the Opening Ceremony, and air every night during the Games, except for Sundays.

"Olympic Zone" is to preview the network's primetime Olympic coverage, provide "richer, deeper content about the athletes and the goings on in Torino" and also allow NBC stations to provide "more extensive coverage of hometown athletes and storylines." The show will be hosted by local reporters, however NBC says that stations that can't produce their own content will be able to produce shows using network segments, as well as content provided by other, NBC-owned stations.

The Sacramento affiliate also successfully linked its show to its local online extension of NBCOlympics.com during the Athens Games, which is one of the primary goals of the Italian Olympics "Olympic Zone" strategy as well.

As part of its Athens Olympic online coverage, NBCOlympics.com, working with 217 of NBC's affiliated stations, offered extensive Olympic coverage of hometown sports figures in localized "O-Zone" affiliate sites. The "O-Zone" was a project of the NBC Futures Committee, designed to increase traffic and revenue for both NBC and the website. It extended the broadcast television network-affiliate model to the Internet and provided the opportunity for local stations to expand their local coverage of the Games online. NBC executives said today that KCRA, throughout its television/Internet Olympic cross-promotion, led the nation in traffic to NBCOlympics.com almost every day during the Athens Games.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on December 5, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |IOC
Government| #1342
OLYMPIC LEGACY COACHING FUND OFFERS C$295,000 IN GRANTS FOR WINTER SPORTS

The Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) announced today the recipients of the 2005-06 Olympic Legacy Coaching Fund. Twelve winter national sport federations will receive grants totalling C$294,520 to support 19 coaches for the next 12 months.

Teresa Schlachter of Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton, one of the recipients of the Fund, now in its 17th year, says that, "These funds will go a long way towards helping us prepare our athletes for podium success at the... 2010 Olympic Winter Games."

The Fund is a joint program of the COC and the Government of Canada. It was established with funds from the Government of Canada's C$200-million contribution to the organizing committee for the 1988 Olympic Winter Games in Calgary. The Fund only supports high-performance coaches in sports that are on the Olympic Winter Games program.

All amounts are in Canadian dollars and are listed in descending order of amounts awarded:

Speed Skating Canada, $28,900, shared between, National Long Track Team coaches Xiuli Wang (Calgary), Neal Marshall (Coquitlam, BC) and Sean Ireland (Winnipeg, Manitoba).
Bobsleigh and Skeleton Canada, $27,600, shared between Teresa Schlachter (Pincher Creek, Alta.), general manager of Skeleton and Matt Hindle (Calgary, Alta.), development coordinator;
Biathlon Canada, $27,600, Richard Boruta (Canmore, Alta.), head coach of the national team;
Cross Country Canada, $27,600, Alain Parent (Hull, Quebec), Team 2014 coach;
Canadian Luge Association, $27,600, Walter Corey (Calgary, Alta.), head coach of the National Senior Team;
Canadian Freestyle Association, $25,900, shared between, Michael Hamelin (Montreal, Quebec), head coach of the Moguls Development Team and Jason Smith (Lions Bay, B.C.), his assistant coach;
Nordic Combined Ski Canada, $22,500, Jon Servold (Devon, Alta.), head coach of the National Team;
Ski Jumping Canada, $22,500, Tadeusz Bafia (Calgary, Alta.), head coach of the National Team;
Hockey Canada, $21,800, shared between the National Women's Team head coach, Melody Davidson (Oyen, Alberta), and assistant coaches Tim Bothwell (Calgary) and Margot Page (Stoney Creek, Ontario);
Canadian Curling Association, $21,300, Bill Tschirhart (Calgary, Alberta);
Canadian Snowboard Federation, $21,300, Martin Jensen (Calgary, Alta.), director and head coach of the High-Performance Program; and
Alpine Canada, $19,920, shared between Mark Sharp (Invermere, BC), National Technical director, and Julie Lemieux (Levis, Quebec), National Programs and Operations director.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on December 5, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1341

Here are three more moguls we ran into today:

OWN THE PODIUM PAYS FOR WAX RESEARCH ON WEEKEND

An unspecified amount of money from the Top Secret portion of the Own The Podium program was spent testing ski waxes over the weekend in Lake Louise, Alberta. OWP is supported through a portion of VANOC sponsorships and federal funding totaling C$110 million over five years. The testing, using a group separated from the World Cup racing that was taking place there, was aimed at finding the best combination of waxes and skis on various types of snow. The idea wasn't to pass along that information to the skiiers competing during the weekend, because of the analysis time required, but the information will be added to a database over the next few years as Canadian teams prepare for the 2010 Games. This weekend's research was supervised by Paul Lavoie, a ski technician who has worked with various slalom and skiing champions, for Alpine Canada. The testing includes solid and liquid waxes. The tests also included various types of weather, from humid and relatively warm, to dry and cold. When the facilities are ready, similar testing is expected during the 2007/2008 and 2008/2009 winter seasons on VANOC's alpine and Nordic venues. Most of the high-performance skis are made by European-based companies, who focus on their research efforts on markets larger than Canada.

HALF OF TORINO OLYMPICS TICKETS STILL AVAILABLE, BUT SOME SPORTS SOLD OUT
Two months before opening day, the Torino Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games says it has sold only about half -- 540,000 -- of the one million tickets it has available for events at the Games, yet it is still hoping to sell at least 82% before opening day because, it says, Italians traditionally wait until the final days to buy sports tickets and that's despite heavy marketing campaigns throughout Italy and the rest of Europe. But that average doesn't paint an accurate picture of how things are doing. Certain sports have done much better than average, and the finals in nearly all sports are sold out; the unsold tickets are mainly in the preliminary rounds. Speed-skating is the only sport to be sold out for the Italian Winter Games, which start February 10 and end on February 26. Curling, somewhat surprisingly for Europe, is 95% sold; it has 16 days of competitions in a 3,000-seat arena. Figure skating has only 3.3% of tickets still available. Short-track speed skating has 17% of its tickets left. Nordic combined had 63% of tickets left, alpine skiing had 31% remaining and hockey had 45% available. Meanwhile, luge and skeleton are the two least-popular sports, both with only 21% of tickets sold. Ceremonies still have lots of seats left, with 43% of tickets to the Opening Ceremony and 55% of tickets to the Closing Ceremony still available. As of September, 75% of all tickets have been sold outside of Italy. .

LACK OF RESEARCH FUELS HEATED ANTI-OLYMPIC RHETORIC OVER CONSTRUCTION COSTS
In the past few days, there has been a vicious round of opinion pieces that have appeared in newspapers across Canada reacting to comments made by VANOC CEO John Furlong who said he hoped to have a conversation with governments about holding the value of their capital pledges to the Games in 2002 steady with construction inflation out to 2007. The opinions by columnists -- including the Vancouver Sun and the Vancouver Province, but also the National Post and Globe & Mail, and by syndicated columnists whose work is repeated in newspapers across BC -- have been astounding both in terms of vituperation but also lack of research. A Vancouver Province columnist over the weekend called Furlong's comments "scary", a National Post column was headlined "Olympic beggars should be ignored", another claimed 2010 construction costs were "spiraling out of control", and all of the columnists fumed as they alleged lack of planning, and of VANOC's predecessor, the Bid Corporation, deliberately using 2002 dollars when they apparently knew at the time the venues would be built in 2006 or 2007. Only a couple said they were aware it was Olympic bidding rules that required the 2002 dollar amounts, but all failed to mention that VANOC management was well aware of the potential inflation issue. None reported that the cost of BC's non-residential construction supplies began soaring two years after the bid was presented, that the Bid Corporation expected construction to be going one or two years earlier than now projected and that today's BC building boom had not been forecast in 2002. None mentioned that the only thing Furlong had suggested he might request this year is the same value, expressed in 2007 dollars, that government's originally pledged in 2002. Only one noted that the BC government has set aside a contingency fund. But not one noted that VANOC has a board of directors that includes working representatives of both the BC and federal governments and which gets regular financial reports from VANOC management.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on December 5, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1340

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

BC AUDITOR GENERAL STATUS REPORT ON 2010 GAMES DUE "FEBRUARY OR MARCH"

BC's Auditor-General, Wayne Strelioff, has told the provincial government's Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services that he intends to issue a report in February or March on the status of the 2010 Winter Olympics before the government's current fiscal year ends, March 31. The comment was made in passing as Strelioff was discussing his budgetary funding requests for the next fiscal year, and he noted it would be one of seven risk-audit reports he would file on various government issues during the fiscal year. It's a type of audit that deals with how the government manages its key programs and services. Strelioff's office, in September 2003, after Vancouver won its bid for the Games, but before VANOC began operations, was rebuffed in his attempt to have his office become the auditor for the Games. VANOC later appointed Ernst and Young LLP to audit the organization. It prepared an audit for the first fiscal year that ended July 31, which was released a year ago last month. VANOC has said the audit for the second fiscal year would be released in late November, but it has still not done so. Strelioff, who has authority to deal with the estimated C$600 million in provincial government funds pledged to the Games, hopes to report annually until 2011 on how the Games are doing, "compared to the plan, where are we at in terms of cost, scope and timetable," but will only do so on an over-all basis, not on a venue-by-venue approach under current office staffing and funding expectations.

MOUNT WASHINGTON NORDIC PLANS AWAIT FEDERAL/PROVINCIAL FUNDING
Mount Washington Alpine Resort is still awaiting C$430,000 of federal an provincial funding before starting on its Nordic resort expansion project at the Vancouver Island mountain. The word on the funding was due late last month, but it is expected now sometime this month. Don Sharpe, director of business services for the company, is also treasurer of the Vancouver Island Mountain Sports Society, a community-based group that has applied for C$330,000 of 2010 Olympic Live Sites funding from BC, and C$100,000 of federal Western Economic Diversification funding from the federal government to begin the first phase of development. The 5,000-square-foot Nordic lodge would allow coaches and athletes to do high-performance training at Mount Washington, using multimedia rooms, weight training and physical-therapy facilities, particularly leading up to the 2010 Winter Olympics. They would stay in an adjacent 40-person hostel. The resort -- which already has facilities for alpine skiing, snowboarding and cross-country skiing -- is located about halfway between Comox and Courtenay on the east coast of Vancouver Island.

NEW YORK TIMES GIVES BRIEF PLUG TO 2010 GAMES
The 2010 Games got a brief plug in The New York Times newspaper on Friday, as travel writer Bob Mackin recounted a weekend of things to do and see in Whistler. The full mention in the 1,300-word article were these 102 words on page three of the paper's sixth section: "The Vancouver 2010 Whistler Information Centre (604-932-2010) is a renovated construction trailer near the BrewHouse that's worthy of Olympic billing. Admission is free. It's open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, and tells the story of what's to come in 2010 when the Winter Games and Paralympics arrive. Since opening in January 2002, more than 150,000 people have come to pose on the podium, sit in a bobsled or shoot a puck. This is where you can sometimes meet local Olympic athletes. Maybe even Ross Rebagliati, a local snowboarder who won a gold medal at the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan." We've seen about half a dozen travel articles in newspapers in England and the United States over the last year or so that have had similar brief mentions of the impending Games.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on December 5, 2005

Friday, December 02, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1338
CHAPIN'S CHALLENGES: HOW THE 'CONDUCTOR' WILL KEEP SCORE ON VANOC'S TECHNOLOGY DIVISION

Ward Chapin, the senior vice-president of Technology & Systems for the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC), says, "Somebody described me the other day as like an orchestra conductor."

It's a better descriptive term than most for what he is doing -- and will be doing over the next 1,500 days -- as VANOC prepares the technology side of the 2010 Games. Chapin is responsible for every aspect of technology that will be employed in presenting the Games, from internal computer systems to the external connections that will provide the Games via various broadcast systems to the world.

In the first in-depth and wide-ranging look at the responsibilities of his office since he started work last March 15, he told Morgan:News:2010 that his major focus has been on building his component of the VANOC team that will supervise the myriad of systems to come.

"We've been hiring some of the key management positions in the last few months. The second piece to the puzzle has been office systems. We'd like to get our office systems in place, basically by the time the Torino Winter Games start, so that afterward we can focus on delivering the 2010 Olympic Games' technology -- as opposed to the day-to-day office systems. A third piece is that we're heavily into our planning right now, and a fourth side is working with our marketing department where technology impacts them."

There are four major responsibilities of his office:

The Games management systems that are used to help co-ordinate the Games. They do such things as -- and this isn't a complete list -- accreditation for the news media, athletes officials or VIPs, transportation and scheduling systems and accommodation;
Timing and scoring systems for each of dozens of events;
Transmitting the event information to the world via TV, radio and the Internet;
Internal computer systems. "VANOC is a day-to-day business," notes Chapin, and its staff, which currently number about 150, will double by this time next year, and by late 2008 or early 2009 will number more than 1,200. "We have to provide them with the day-to-day systems, everything from PCs, to Microsoft Office, to the financial and accounting systems." And for that matter, he's working now on basic cabling to the desks for the new office building that will be VANOC's headquarters starting this spring. The organization has already outgrown its three downtown office-tower floors of space.

The VANOC technology budget is far from being set in stone, simply because it's still too early to firm up the figures. We've come across figures that range from C$300 million to C$400 million, and Chapin can't pin it down much more than that yet. "It's way too early, on the budget, because we're just now still in the process of determining what all of our requirements are: How many PCs, servers; on the data-network side, what has to be in place. And we'll be going to the Torino Winter Games in February, to see what they've got in place, what kind of money they've spent, and what volumes of things they've used, so we can start pricing all that side of it."

The timing within his department, however, is offset that of the rest of VANOC by about a year. VANOC, for instance, spent most of last year in what it termed its planning phase and switched to the first part of its implementation phase early this year. Chapin, the second-to-last of the senior vice-presidents to be hired, is still largely in planning mode and will be for a while yet, although he has been involved in a number of operational initiatives since he was hired on March 15.

These involve working with architects, engineers and designers, and with various utilities, to deal with the large-scale conduit and wiring requirements that need to be built into various venue buildings that have been in the design stage this year, such as the Whistler Nordic and Sliding Centres, the Trade & Convention Centre expansion where the International Media Centre will be located, and the Vancouver Athlete Village. "And," he says, "it's not an easy thing when you're this far out to say 'conduits should go here and they should be this wide.' We have a lot of partners that we have to work with on the technology, such as dealing with timing and telecommunications. The high-level planning has just commenced on that."

He's also been involved with design and specifications of various internal software projects for VANOC as it prepares to move into its new headquarters in East Vancouver. These range from operational office software to intranet and Internet applications.

The timing of the technology department, however, in part reflects the fact that a number of major components were decided before he arrived. They are scheduled to show up and constructed on their own terms in a kind of turn-key format organized by the International Olympic Committee through international Games-to-Games sponsorships. These include a sophisticated computer-networking complex developed by the European-headquartered multi-national Atos Origin; a complete Olympics-focused system of timekeeping prepared by Swatch, to be run under its Omega brand; and a company, yet to be determined ,but probably Lenovo, that will supply the myriad of desktop computers VANOC staff will require.

Some of them are already on the job -- "The plans that we've put together for the venues on cabling and conduits we'll be putting to Omega and Bell," says Chapin, "They've been involved since day one." And some, such as Atos Origin's Winter Olympics crews, won't show up until after the Torino Games wrap up, probably next summer.

"We have some key providers signed up now, but there are still a few more to be signed up within the next six months or so," says Chapin. They include Samsung, which is providing thousands of cell phones and related devices to the Torino Winter Olympics staff, and Panasonic, which deals with a lot of the video displays that are used by the Games. "We're very optimistic that they'll re-sign with the IOC for 2010," says Chapin.

Lenovo has a deal to provide computers for the Torino Winter Games and, because the firm is controlled by the Chinese government, for the Beijing Summer Olympics. "We're optimistic they'll be announced as having signed for 2010 in the next few months."

The Lenovo possibility has been in the wind for some time, however. The company, which bought IBM's personal-computer division in New York more than a year ago, has also been in sporadic talks with the International Olympic Committee about whether it will continue to be a supplier/sponsor after the 2008 Games. In turns out that Lenovo wants to see whether its sponsorship of the Torino Winter Games is worth the effort, before it continues talks. Chapin says he's optimistic that Lenovo will re-sign because, "They're going to want to leave a footprint in the North American market, and obviously the Vancouver Games would be an excellent vehicle for that. But, I don't have any inside information on how they'll value this."

Delays in such decisions, however, means that VANOC, which has operational demands for computers from the staff it's already hired, has had to make its own decisions -- using its own cash -- to make do until the master arrangement completes. "We've basically gone on RFPs on any PCs we've bought to date, but if we feel that Lenovo is close to a deal, I'm sure we'll strike something with them." By that, he means that he may start buying PCs from Lenovo before a deal is signed, and if the company signs, then the advance purchases will be included in the deal. If it doesn't sign, then Lenovo will get paid for the machines bought "at the best possible price."

As well, a complete telecommunications package, designed and paid for by Bell Canada as part of VANOC's first and largest sponsorship program, valued at C$200 million, has already been settled.

Telecommunications is also a critical part of connecting the Games to the TV broadcasting systems, which will arrive in Vancouver and Whistler in large part in 2009 complete with crews, after having planned their operations in Vancouver and Whistler from about 2006 onwards.

Bell Canada is already in the process of building its infrastructure to connect the Games in Whistler and Vancouver digitally to the International Media Centre (IMC) in downtown Vancouver, where a satellite farm will beam the signals around the world, and Chapin has just hired a Director of Telecommunications, who will start in January, to supervise the telecommunications role more closely.

The hub of the IMC -- which will take the feeds from the hundreds of cameras, whose sightlines are already being determined -- is Olympic Broadcasting Services, a subsidiary, headquartered in Madrid, Spain, of the International Olympic Committee. "They will be a key component of the broadcast," notes Chapin. "And they will work with the various networks."

OBS's crew and equipment, like that of the rest of the media, will be flown in and set up from 2008 onward to distribute TV and radio feeds to roughly 10,000 media. Many of those media will be working for broadcasters like NBC, which paid to broadcast the 2010 Games to the United States, the European Broadcast Union, with rights to carry the broadcast to virtually every country in Europe, including England; and CTV for the Canadian market. There are still negotiations to settle broadcasters for Japan, Australia, southeast Asia and the Indian sub continent, but they, too will be tied in electronically by 2010.

"There are some exceptions," says Chapin, "but, in principle, OBS sets up all the camera positions in the venues, they capture the signals, recording and distributing them. In the case of Whistler, that signal is brought down to Vancouver on a fibre-optics cable to the Broadcast Centre and then the various networks put a value-added to that, whatever additional content they want to put on that signal. They'll contract with Bell to fire the signal through the satellite farm to the rest of the world. NBC could go its own way on the satellite side, but generally, that's how it will work."

Broadcasting is the main money generator for the 2010 Winter Games and for the IOC's operations between Games, and so the success of that technology is the technical and financial backbone of the Games' success. Network negotiations so far have generated roughly C$500 million for the 2010 Games based on historic shares between the IOC and a winter organizing committee, and there are still lots of broadcasting-rights negotiations to conclude. IOC president Jacque Rogge, for instance, says by implication that it's reasonable VANOC could end up with more than C$660 million from TV rights. History can only take us so far, however; VANOC and the IOC still need to negotiate the split from these revenues, and that's not likely to take place until 2006.

"It's not rocket science," Chapin says of the technology itself. "It's a lot of systems the Olympics have used before. Basically, they sign up sponsorship companies that provide parts of the technology that we work with, and we work with them as true partners."

Well, if so much of the technology seems to be spoken for, is there anything left for businesses that aren't major sponsors?

"Absolutely," he confirms. "For instance, we're looking at our document-processing side. There are millions of pages that have to be printed throughout the Olympic Games; we'll be looking for a Canadian provider for that. There will be various niches for equipment and systems that we'll be looking to fill and source, either locally or nationally. Another big one: Bell has part of the Internet side, but we need somebody to work on the content-management side, and we'll be looking to companies to assist us with the content of our Internet site."

Chapin says VANOC will likely arrange lower-tier sponsorships for something like the document-handling system. The organization has to balance the need for value-in-kind to reduce the cash demands on its balance sheet with the idea of whether medium to small firms can handle its stringent requirements and tight deadlines. "The sort of niche products we're looking at," says Chapin, "means we have to ask ourselves what sort of street costs are associated with that, and is there a sponsorship opportunity, or is it so small [a niche] that we would just negotiate a basic supplier deal, or go to an Request For Proposal process on it."

VANOC's intranet system has only just been chosen; it's part of a relatively new breed of software, most of it open-source, called content-management systems. It can be readily scaled to deal with various sizes of organizations. A system that's ideal for collaboration, it allows lots of workers in an organization like VANOC to look after their own storage of documents on-line, in ways they can be used by other departments, and they are easy to work with the system using a common web browser.

"A lot of the reason behind this is that the IOC requires that we pass on a lot of our documentation to future Olympics, as part of their formal Knowledge Transfer process. We had some local people work on putting our information-management system together, and it involved everything from how we store documents to our local intranet for our staff to retrieve information. And that will be a totally separate system from what we'll be doing for our Internet site."

The content-management system has only just been recently implemented. Chapin says VANOC encountered some start-up bugs, but, "in general, the users seem quite happy with it."

VANOC's Internet site, programmed about a year ago, is nearing the end of its lifespan. Contractors are now in the process of revamping it to handle a wide-range of on-line activities, from being a storefront for the sales of souvenirs to keeping up a steady flow about the state of the Games to the world.

Chapin says the technology will be available for people around the world to see specific events during the 2010 Games using non-traditional broadcast services, beyond TV and using, for instance, the Internet or held-held devices that will be the 2010-equivalent of today's Blackberries or iPods. Bell Canada, for instance, says its entire service will be based on Internet protocols, and will be almost all digital and high-resolution.

It's the legal side that has to be sorted out before Chapin could confirm the role the Internet will play, and he uses Norway as an example. It showed the Athens Summer Games on the Internet, but a lot of countries didn't due to copyright issues.

"There will be streaming video to your PDA or your cell phone, or onto the Internet. Certainly the capability is there. There are interesting issues on the Internet, for instance, because of the way the TV deals have been negotiated with the IOC. The TV broadcasters own all the rights, right down to the streaming-video side, to show the Games within their [country's] borders. So it becomes an interesting legal question: Can somebody in Norway pick up a feed outside of Norway and watch it on their PC? That's illegal at this point. So we have to come up with the technology that only allows the people in, say, Norway to get their feed from a local ISP (Internet service provider) to watch the Games. There are a lot of logistics like that we have to work out."

Chapin says the technology is now available to restrict Internet broadcasts of the video to within a country's borders. "When somebody signs on to the Internet, the information about what ISP they're using is checked. For example, Norway would see that a person is coming from an ISP in France, so Norway doesn't show the person the signal."

That problem was solved for Canada during the Athens Olympics, when CBC was required to shut down the Games feed over its own Internet site because, under the contracts it had signed years earlier, it didn't have the broadcast rights to allow people from outside of Canada to see the feed, since it trampled on the rights of, say, NBC in the United States. However, when the first phase of the now-delayed negotiations for the Australian TV rights for 2010 were started earlier this year, the IOC said it would be offering the Internet broadcast rights separately as it would be using technology by 2010 to block Internet signals emanating from specific countries to all those except ISPs registered in, say, Australia.

Chapin knows quite a bit about the concept of security. He was hired by VANOC from his job as vice president of Technical and Corporate Services at the HSBC Bank of Canada, where he was responsible for Information Technology Operations at the Bank's investment section in London, England. He also spent more than three years in Paris as director of IT Operations, and speaks fluent French. Earlier in his career, Chapin worked in operational and information-systems roles at Canada's Montreal Trust and the Toronto Dominion Bank, and at Citibank.

The banking experience, says Chapin, has been extremely useful. "I'm used to putting in networks and infrastructure, and rolling out systems for hundreds of branches. It's a huge logistical effort when you work in a bank. That's what VANOC was looking for when they hired me, somebody who had been-there, done-that, and was used to working with the logistics of a huge roll-out. But I can tell you that it's been a hell of a lot more fun talking about venues than about derivatives and savings accounts."

He says there are two types of security dealings that his department will supervise. One deals with ensuring the information systems are secure from hackers, and other attacks, such as computer viruses. "We would have to make sure that any of our systems could not be compromised or hacked into," he says. That has to be robust, "and we will have various partners -- it's primarily Atos Origin's responsibility -- that will be running monitoring systems that will be in place. Anything to do with the Games, we'll shut down a lot of outside access to that. We'll have a monitoring room and a whole team sitting and watching monitors, and instant-response teams, so if anything happens we can shut down as section and isolate that part of the network. There's a whole security process that we'll have in place."

There's also the type of security that involves the military and police. "They're working on that now. I just recently hired a Director of Information and Security, Barry Caswell, and he's had an initial meeting with them, but we're still determining what our involvement will be. I've asked him to make sure that there are no gaps between what the security unit is doing, what our physical-area security office is doing, and what we're doing. I'm comfortable there will be an overall, co-ordinated plan, and we'll make sure it'll be there." Caswell was manager of Information Security at the HSBC Bank Canada before taking the job.

In 2006, Chapin and his team will be watching from behind the scenes as the Torino Winter Games begins on February 10. "The IOC has a technology director, and he's putting a program together for us. He'll take us into the broadcast centre, for instance, and they have a huge security monitoring and nerve centre, that looks like a NASA control room. We'll be spending a lot of time in there. He's got quite a list of things he wants us to do while we're there." In July, a few months after the Torino Games conclude, VANOC will be hosting a Knowledge Transfer program in Vancouver as a debriefing for what happened, with seminars on technology. "And we'll have to do that for others," such as the team preparing for the London Summer Games in 2012, and for the half-dozen cities currently preparing their bids for the 2014 Winter Games.

Chapin and his staff in the coming year will also conclude their detailed planning and move into the requirements and gap-analysis phase of the work, following the Torino Games. "Basically, we'll take all the systems that we'll be running -- Games management, timing and scoring systems -- and we'll sit down with our Sport department and areas such as that, and determining what each department's requirements will be. We'll be asking questions like, 'What changes to we have to put in place into these systems for 2010."

And, of course, the Atos Origin and Olympic Broadcast crews will start arriving in 2006, and we go through our planning process with them during the year.

This may come as a surprise, considering the discussion so far, but VANOC will not be the place where you'll find revolutionary technology. There are a little more than 1,500 days before the Opening Ceremonies and, when the Games are running with up to three billion people watching, it's no place to start experimenting. Still 1,500 days is, in the world of technology, a long ways away.

"I'd say that 2007 would probably be the cut-off for the evolution of technology. We will absolutely not be using any bleeding-edge or leading-edge technology. We need things that are robust, and we know will work 100%. Potentially, we'll have sponsors who will want to showcase a technology here or there, but we'll find low-risk situations to do that. The guts of any of the systems we'll have, the requirements we put together in 2006, [contractors] will be well on the way of implementing them [as venues are completed] in 2007. Very little will change from there. "

Chapin says his department is "just starting to scratch the surface" on implementing VANOC's extensive and pervasive sustainability policy. "Number one, how do we dispose of all of the equipment that we put in place for 2010. The other is -- and one I'm interested in -- how can we improved accessibility to the Games through technology. I'm just starting to make contact with a few organizations on that, to determine how we can work together, and how I can help them, for the technology we can put in place for our venues, but also how we can be a conduit for some of our sponsors to move that technology along, and come up with products that will improve accessibility. One of the ideas presented to us is a PDA a person can have on their wheelchair, but there's always issues of opening doors and ordering at McDonald's [a 2010 sponsor] and using ATMs [automated teller machines]. Potentially the PDA mounted on their chair could be used for a lot of access. It's pie in the sky right now, but it's just an example of some of the things that they're looking at."

And Chapin will be conducting that, and more.

BACKGROUND
==========

Our feature, written in August, 2004, of what Atos Origin will likely establish in Vancouver for the 2010 Games:
www.morgan-news.com/2010/archives/2004_10_01_Bronze.htm
(Search for "Atos Origin" once the page opens)

--

Last March, we wrote about another technology that will be used in the 2010 Games, when we said:

Telesat, Bell Canada's satellite operator, and Barrett Xplore Inc., a Canadian company that provides wireless broadband service, have signed a distribution contract to deliver that type of communications to Canadians in rural and remote communities, and the technology will be used during the 2010 Winter Games. Barrett will provide the service via Telesat's new Anik F2 satellite. Bell spokesman Karen Passmore says, "Telesat is a partner in assisting Bell to deliver telecommunications and broadcasting services to make the Vancouver games exceptional. Satellite will play a role in two-way broadband delivery, off-net access, diversity, and ultimately through the International Broadcast Centre delivery [of the 2010 Games] to the world. Telesat will use its facilities at the Vancouver Teleport, as well as the resources of Infosat of Burnaby to support the efforts of Bell in this endeavour." Barrett recently completed a C$30-million financing to help pay for the technology. It will begin its regional Ka-band rollout in April, with the service available throughout Canada in July. Bell is the telecommunications sponsor for the 2010 Games.

RESOURCES
Bell Canada
www.bce.ca/en/

Atos Origin:
www.atosorigin.com/en-us/

Telesat:
www.telesat.ca/

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

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1337

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

ROGGE ESTIMATES C$3.7 BILLION "REASONABLE" FOR 2010, 2012 TV RIGHTS

Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee, was interviewed in Dublin, Ireland, earlier today, where he said a "reasonable estimate" for the total revenue from the worldwide TV rights for the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver and the 2012 London Olympics in London was C$3.7 billion. The IOC splits that, about evenly, with the two sets of Games, with VANOC expected to receive roughly a third of the Games portion, or roughly C$660 million, although the split has yet to be negotiated. Rogge said the IOC had already sold C$3.36 billion worth of television rights for 2010 and 2012 as a package, and it still has to negotiate with Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Oceania and Latin America. The amount raised by broadcast rights auctions for the Torino and Beijing Olympics packages was just over C$3 billion, he said. Rogge is in Dublin for the general assembly of the European Olympic Committees (EOC). He met privately today with Italian government supervisor Mario Pescante, who is also the president of the EOC, to discuss a way find what he called an "intelligent solution" to the issue of Italy's laws that make it a criminal offense for a person to be caught doping during the Olympic Games, which start in February.

VANOC TO PUBLISH TORINO OBSERVOR COSTS
The CEO of VANOC, John Furlong, says the full cost of the VANOC's Torino Observer Program "and everything we're going to try to do over there" will be made public within a week or so. About 70 members of the Organizing Committee staff will be going to watch the back end of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Italy starting in early February. "To us, it's like sending our team to a university course on putting on Winter Games. It'll be the last significant learning experience we're going to have before we're on our own." Furlong says it's been a challenge, however, to manage the logistics of getting his people there, finding them a place to stay, setting them up with their equivalents in the Torino Games, and getting them back.

GOVERNMENT CULTURAL OLYMPIAD PROGRAMS STARTING TO GERMINATE
For the past 18 months or so, the BC government, through several programs it has tied in some way to the advent of the 2010 Winter Games, has been identifying and targeting places in the province where local people are interested in building a 2010 connection. That cultivation work, which also included the establishment and operations of a separate society, 2010 Legacies Now, is now germinating. The suburban population in the northeast area of Greater Vancouver, is an example in microcosm. Coquitlam's economic development department's research shows that the big-box warehouse retail area known as United Way Boulevard can expect a renovation boom in the year or so before an Olympics, and so its promotion will include that area. Planning for making the Boulevard more attractive for reno shoppers is also underway, as well as focus on casino entertainment for tourism. 2010 Legacies Now recently awarded the Place des Arts Society C$20,000 to plot cultural activities in the area. As well, the 2010 Commerce Centre, another BC government creation, will also take its travelling procurement workshop to Coquitlam shortly. In nearby Port Coquitlam, the 2010-related Legacy Task Force of the municipal government has been shortlisting 25 cultural-style projects using focus groups. The proposed projects include an area at a central plaza for a big screen to watch the 2010 events, jazz festivals as part of the 2010 Cultural Olympiad, which starts in March, 2006. In Port Moody, the PoMo Arts Centre Society recently received C$3,500 from LegaciesNow for a wearable art exhibition featuring about 80 international artists. The idea is to represent countries expected to participate in the 2010 Olympics. Similar ideas, though not quite as concentrated, have been explored in communities across B.C. this year.

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

Thursday, December 01, 2005

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1336

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

FURLONG OFFERS TIP TO WOULD-BE 2010 SUPPLIERS

VANOC CEO John Furlong says it's not good enough for a company working on an Olympic project, or being an Olympic supplier, to simply come up with a good proposal or low bid. "We're asking contractors, if they become involved with us, to rise to the occasion, to be at the top of their game, the same as we are. It's not reasonable to think they can just work on an Olympic contract. We want them to give their best. We want their best people on the job, we want to know they are going to show up for work every day, we want to know if they care about what we're doing." So, Mr. Furlong, is that's what's actually happening? So far, so good: "They are as interested as we are in making sure that the world hears a good story from Vancouver."

LATEST VANOC LOGO IDENTIFIED
We finally figured out what that new logo VANOC is registering with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office will be used for: it's the "Own the Podium" logo. "Own the Podium" is the Canadian Olympics program designed to funnel money and other resources into specific sports where Canada has a good chance of winning medals in 2010. The logo has a maple leaf with two smaller half leaves flanking it, giving the appearance they are behind the main leaf. The CIPO database only shows the logo in black and white, however in colour the main leaf is in gold, the left leaf is in silver and the right one is bronze. VANOC isn't bothering to wait until the logo is finalized by CIPO, in fact it ordered a batch of golf-style hats with the logo on it even before the legal department had filed the registration paperwork, in late October. The hats, by the way, were made in China.

AALBERG TO OFFER TIPS TO JACK RABBITS
Just in case you thought running the 2010 Olympics was all bad-dog/ no-biscuit, we should let you know that John Aalberg, Director of Nordic Sport for VANOC, will be giving a presentation on what it means for a community to prepare for the events of the 2010 Winter Games, and how the people he's talking to can get involved. The presentation is scheduled for the community centre in Pemberton, the village just north of Whistler and about a half-hour's drive from where VANOC is spending a ton of money to built the Whistler Nordic Centre competition venue and resort. Aalberg'll be speaking at the annual general meeting on December 8 of a Pemberton organization which supports the Jack Rabbits program for skiers aged five to 12. The organization is called, of course, the Spud Valley Nordics. The AGM starts at 7, Alberg starts at 8. We're not sure if the younger Jack Rabbits will be allowed to stay up late enough to hear him finish.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1335
2005 VENUE CONSTRUCTION PROGRAM 'ON THE BUTTON', BUT TENDERS THIS WINTER WILL DETERMINE IF 2006 IS DIFFERENT

The senior vice-president of Venues for the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) says that the venue construction projects begun this year were on time and budget.

Steve Matheson says, "We're on the button, so far, and we're on schedule."

Those projects include the ground-preparation aspects of the Whistler Nordic Centre, budgeted in 2002 at a total cost of about C$100 million, and the Whistler Sliding Centre, budgeted at about C$60 million, both in the Whistler area. Virtually all of the work done this past construction season -- the time that's bracketed by the area's heavy snowfalls -- has involved earthmoving, road-building and parking-lot preparation, along with construction of some compounds.

However, he repeatedly side-stepped questions about VANOC's own projections-versus-budgets for cost estimates on VANOC's heavy construction program scheduled for 2006, and it is the concrete-and-rebar, coupled with shortages of skilled labour due to boom in non-residential construction in southwest BC, that has projects coming in at higher-than-expected costs. Designers of the major buildings at the WNC and WSC, and other projects, are being required by VANOC to provide on-going cost estimates of their project as they move through various design deadlines, so that VANOC can predict cash flows.

"We're fine-tuning the budgets as we go," says Matheson in answer to one of the questions, "and we're going out for tender in the next month or so on the next two major contracts for the Nordic Centre and the Sliding Centre. I think, for the Sliding Centre, we've probably got about C$30 million to C$35 million worth of work that we're tendering, and for the Nordic Centre for the next three months, we'll be tendering approximately C$50 million worth of work. Once we get the results of those tenders, we'll know for sure where we are on those two projects. The others are all at various stages... and once we get their tenders, we'll be able to firm up our costs, in a step-wise manner. We're constantly updating [our budgets] with the best information that we have from the marketplace."

Matheson has said earlier that about C$6.5 million was spent by VANOC on this year's program at the WNC, and about C$13 million on the steeply sloped WSC.

The Venues senior vice-president made his comments as his CEO John Furlong was considering discussions with the BC government to apply an inflation escalator to VANOC's capital cost pledges so the 2002 dollars would hold their value to the end of 2007, when the WSC and WNC are due to be completed.

Matheson, asked if he feels from the projected figures he's seen by project designers at Stantec and Sandwell, the supervising engineers, whether the projects can be kept on budget, would only say, "Time will tell. It's hard to say because, as John said, we've had a huge increase to the cost escalation since 2002, 40% to 50%. We're anticipating we're going to have some hits here and there, we're going to have some savings on some projects and we're going to be over on others, and we're trying to manage that process within the scope of work as best we can."

Matheson noted that VANOC would be using value-in-kind contributions from various sponsors, including Rona, to help offset cost increases for materials. "We're working with our partners to share the load of the venue program. There's a bunch of strategies that we're using to mitigate cost escalation, which we can't avoid."

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1334

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

ATHLETE VILLAGE CONSTRUCTION TIMELINES "TIGHT", SAYS VANOC

VANOC Venues senior vice-president, Steve Matheson, says he expects it will be difficult for any developer selected by the City of Vancouver or the municipality of Whistler to build VANOC's two Athlete Villages. "I think it's going to be tight. It's a big undertaking, over 600,000 square feet of space to build out over three years, but, so far, we're on track to do that. It's a lot of work to do." Both Vancouver and Whistler are using the villages as the core of a larger residential project that, in total, won't be completed until 2018, in Vancouver's case, or 2020, in Whistler's. Vancouver is in the process of selecting a developer, however, Whistler is not expected to approve development directions until the end of January. Meanwhile, he says, work will begin in April on replacing and building the hockey arenas at the University of British Columbia on the west side of Vancouver. The arenas will initially be used by VANOC as playoff and practice ice for the Olympic hockey series, then returned to UBC for its athletic programs.

INITIAL COLISEUM VENUE RENO WON'T BE FINISHED BY DEADLINE
Matheson, says VANOC's initial renovations program for the Coliseum arena is not going to be completed as planned by the time the World Junior Hockey Championships are held in the last week of this month. The 16,000-seat Vancouver Coliseum in east Vancouver's Pacific National Exhibition grounds is to hold the 2010 Olympic figure skating and short-track speed-skating competitions. VANOC's plan was to replace all the seating by mid-December with essentially the same configuration that was installed 38 years ago. Chicago's Track Corporation won the contract to replace and recycle the seating, including 1,940 seats that were mounted on telescopic units. "All the fixed seating will be in place [in time for the tournament], most of the retractables will be complete, but there's a group of the retractable seats in the corners. We had to manufacture specially sized seating to make the radius work, and it's those seats that won't be ready. They're going to be using the existing seats for those sections, so there will be no loss of seats for the Juniors, and about 90% of the seating will be brand-new." Matheson says the remaining work will be completed by the end of January. Other work still has to be done on the arena, which is budgeted to cost about C$23 million, however, tenders on those aspects have not yet been offered.

VANOC COST-WORRY STORY ROCKETS AROUND NORTH AMERICA
Few stories about the state of the 2010 Winter Olympics in the popular press make it outside of Vancouver or Whistler -- unless the story is written in such a way that makes it appear the Games are running into trouble in some way. Thus it was that the comments of John Furlong, VANOC's CEO -- musing about wanting to talk to the BC government about protecting the value of the C$620 million in capital expenses, pledged in 2002 dollars, until 2007, and that construction indexes in Vancouver were up 40% to 50% -- rocketed around North America within a day or two this week. The story came from some off-the-cuff remarks by Furlong during a news-media scrum following a 40-minute prepared address to the Vancouver Board of Trade which talked about how much progress VANOC has made in the past year, an aspect of the story that was fully ignored. Instead, the negative headlines began with a Canadian Press wire-service story that was distributed to every daily newspaper in Canada -- and picked up by Canada's two national newspapers, the Globe & Mail and the National Post as well as the national public broadcaster, the CBC. International wire services further distributed the story via Associated Press and it quickly showed up on various American news networks as well as the American national newspaper, USA today, and even distributed by Sports Illustrated's daily news feed.

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

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