Morgan:News:2010:Bronze Edition: September 2006

Friday, September 29, 2006

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Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1889

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

VANOC EXPECTED TO INK SPONSORSHIP DEAL WITH WORKOPOLIS TUESDAY

VANOC CEO John Furlong is expected to officially launch VANOC's "national online workforce recruitment program" when the 2010 organization announces a new sponsorship with Workopolis in Toronto Tuesday morning. Workopolis bills itself as Canada's largest on-line job site. It carries, on average, about 45,000 job openings at any given time. Workopolis, launched in 2000, is owned by a partnership of three Canadian media companies, The Globe and Mail division of Bell Globemedia, Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd. and Gesca Ltd., the newspaper publishing subsidiary of Power Corporation of Canada. Bell Globemedia is a subsidiary of Bell Communincatons, VANOC's largest sponsor. Workopolis has offices across Canada. Gesca, based in Quebec, provides Workopolis with its French language version and includes career listings from Gesca newspapers, including La Presse and Le Soleil. Workopolis also has a deal with Bell Globemedia's Report on Business TV program, whose studios are adjacent, and earlier this month resigned with Sympatico/MSN.ca, a popular Canadian portal, to refer people at its site to Workopolis.

BC GOVERNMENT USES 2010 GAMES CONCEPT TO ADVERTISE FOR HEALTH WORKERS

Speaking of Workopolis, a section of the BC government's Health Ministry has begun using the fact that the province is hosting the 2010 Olympics as one of the selling points for personnel ads on Workopolis to entice forensic nurses to submit resumes for work in Coquitlam, which, the ad says, is "located close to Vancouver, the host city of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games...". For a separate ad, the BC Provincial Health Services Authority also asks neonatal and perinatal nurses from beyond the provincial borders to apply for jobs in the province, adding, "If you crave adventure, British Columbia, host of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, has four seasons that provide a playground right at your fingertips."

TOURISM VANCOUVER ISLAND PONDER 2010 TOURIST STRATEGIES

Members of a task force set up by Tourism Vancouver Island spent about four hours in a meeting recently, thinking up ways before, during and after the 2010 Olympics to get tourists to see the Island, mostly after they have come to BC to see the 2010 Games. One area they thought they might focus on: the families of athletes and various others connected with the national Olympic and Paralympic teams. And there's also other members of the so-called Olympic and Paralympic families: VIPs, media, sponsors and the like. Thousands of these type of people will becoming to take part in various aspects of the 2010 Games, and many of them will bring their families with them. Tourism officials suggest many of those will want to tour various areas either before or after the Games, if they can get information to them about various sightseeing opportunities. The head of the Vancouver Island tourism task force is Karen Bonell, the director of Marketing & Sales for Mount Washington Alpine Resort.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 29, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1888
COMPTROLLER SAYS VANOC BEGAN HEDGING AS SOON AS IT COULD MANAGE THE RISKS

A senior financial executive of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) says that the organization essentially began hedging its US dollar revenues as soon as it could do so.

VANOC's vice-president of Finance and Comptroller John McLauglin was commenting on a portion of the BC Auditor General's report, released September 14, in which auditor Arn van Iersel said, "We were told by management of the Bid Corporation [before 2003] that hedging (for instance, locking in exchange rates through a forward currency contract that would settle in 2010) was being considered as a way to mitigate... risk. When the Games were awarded to Vancouver, the exchange rate could have been locked in at US $1 = $1.457, but steps to do that were not taken. As of the date of this report, the rate has fallen to US $1 = $1.125... This represents a loss for VANOC of approximately C$150 million for the broadcasting and international sponsorship revenues." The report based its calculations on IOC estimates of C$500 million as the estimated revenue figure, although the IOC cautioned that the actual amounts might be different.

Hedging, in this case, is a money-management strategy that gives assurances about what the exchange rates between the Canadian and US dollar will be into the future, and that, in turn affects how much VANOC can reasonably expect to receive from broadcast revenues and international sponsorship funding.

VANOC's vice-president of Finance and Comptroller John McLauglin suggests, however, the loss calculated by the Auditor General is notional, not actual. "VANOC needed to know a few things before it could enter into hedge transactions," he says. "We needed to know, for instance, when our cash flow is going to be there. We always had a pretty good idea from the International Olympic Committee, but if you enter into a hedge and you don't know your cash flow, you're mitigating one risk but you're taking on another risk that the cash flow was different. We wanted to be reasonably certain what the cash flows are, how much they are, what the currency would be, and when the money's coming. The other part of the equation when hedging is that we needed to have sufficient credit. You can't just go out and buy a hedge if you don't have, say, tens of millions of dollars in credit. Once we had all that in place, we went to our Board and it took some time to discuss it and get our policy approved."

Olympic organizations in general are risk-adverse and VANOC is no exception. McLaughlin says it wasn't until last March that all the necessary pieces of the arrangement came together, and VANOC began its hedging strategy. "If we took hedging on earlier, we would be taking on more risk without knowing what the cash flows were going to be."

As for how successful the hedging strategy might be, McLaughlin puts it this way: "At some points, the exchange rate will go up, and we'll look like geniuses, and sometimes it'll go down and it'll look like we're not. But what we have is certainty at the end, which is where we want it. Our goal is to create a budget surplus."

In a topic related to risk management, McLaughlin says he expects VANOC will likely take out cancellation insurance on the Games about 18 months to a year before the Opening Ceremonies. "Generally the insurance markets won't carry you before that time." He says the policy will only protect against VANOC's interests, not those of the International Olympic Committee. He expects the IOC will also take out a cancellation-insurance policy on the 2010 Games to protect its interests. In the meantime, VANOC has a wide range of liability-type insurance policies for a variety of Games aspects.

On another matter, McLaughlin says the week of senior managers going though initial drafts of the business plan VANOC expects to publish in November or early December was well worth it, and the plan seemed to be in fairly good shape. "That review was actually the culmination of about three months of work leading up to it, and it was the first time we'd brought it all together. It wasn't in bad shape, but it still needs more work. But given where we were when we began, it's in pretty good shape overall."

Other reports have indicated that the business plan, which incorporates the 2006 Winter Games operational experience in Torino, will be showing that VANOC expects to have operational revenues of about C$1.7 billion, and expenses of about C$1.6 billion. The business plan will be updated at least two more times before the end of 2009.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 29, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1887

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

NEWS OF 2010 MASCOT RFP WIDELY DISSEMINATED

VANOC has gone the extra mile to ensure that graphic designers and related type companies know that it wants them to respond to the RFP for creating the Olympic and Paralympic mascots. It's posted features about the concept on its web site, distributed news releases to all and sundry, and even hired Cossette Communications, a Canadian PR firm, to get the word out, as well as distributed the RFP through the normal BC Bid channels. The story finally hit the Canadian Press and its companion Broadcast News wires about six hours later. The wire service's copy is sent to most major news outlets in Canada, and its stories are often picked up by other wire services in other countries. It was also picked up by major sports channels, such as TSN Canada. And, of course, stories about the concept were also picked up by CTV, the national Canadian broadcaster that is sponsoring the 2010 Games. It also appeared the following day in the current issue of the International Olympic Newsletter, which has a huge international audience.

BEIJING ISSUES MORE SETS OF OLYMPIC COINS

The Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee, in preparation for the August 2008 Summer Olympics, has issued two types of commemorative coins for circulation. One type will be legal tender in China, and include a set of two base metal coins. There is also a set of six precious metal coins. The base metal coins have a face value of 1 yuan each (C$0.14), while the precious metal coins will have a face value of either 10 yuan (C$1.41) or 150 yuan (C$21.21). Ten million of the base coins will be minted, featuring the emblem of the Beijing Games and an image of the National Stadium, which will be the venue for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies. Only 60,000 of the precious-metal coins are being made, in either gold or silver. They feature the logo along with a pair of traditional Chinese dragons, with some of the pictograms from the Beijing Games featuring on the reverse. Two more sets of coins are expected to be issued in 2007 and 2008 in the lead-up to the Games. The Canadian Mint is a sponsor of the 2010 Winter Games and will be issuing at least a commemorative Loonie, the nickname for the Canadian $1 coin, but the schedule is not yet known.

ABORIGINAL CHIEF DECLARES "MORATORIUM" ON 2010 GAMES

Chief Eric Joseph of Kingcome Inlet has reportedly told BC Premier Gordon Campbell that Joseph's aboriginal tribal council has declared a boycott of the 2010 Winter Olympics until a moratorium is in place on new fish farms in the Broughton Archipelago. The area is a jumble of rocky islands which almost join Vancouver Island to the British Columbian mainland. The issue of fish farms and related pollution has been around for about a decade. The comment was made during the annual general assembly of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, where Campbell had made an appearance.

RESOURCES

Here's a zoomable map of the Broughton Archipelago. The arrow marks the village of Sayward, which is about the centre of the archipelago. Kingcome Inlet is on the mainland across from the village of Port Hardy, to the northwest of Sayward:
tinyurl.com/nklpm

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 29, 2006

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1886
CITY OF VANCOUVER COMPLETES APPROVAL OF C$28 MILLION REFINANCING PACKAGE FOR SEVERAL 2010 FACILITIES

The City of Vancouver has completed, by a unanimous vote this afternoon, the second part of the two-step process to ensure several 2010 Olympic facilities being built by the City and its Park Board can be constructed at their higher costs totalling C$105.6 million.

The Park Board on Monday approved its portion of the C$28-million refinancing package at a meeting this afternoon following debate at the Standing Committee of Council on Planning and Environment. The complex and creative refinancing deal siphons funds from several future City and Park Board projects and cash flows to cover the additional money needed, as well as accepts C$10 million now from the 2010 Organizing Committee in exchange for looking after C$12.3 million in conversion costs later, all to keep the projects on time and on track. VANOC, all told, is to contribute C$43 million to the total. The C$10 million amount is the present value of the estimated cost of converting the facilities from their Olympic configuration to their long-term layout.

Several council members, such as Vision Vancouver's Tim Stephenson, likened the concept to Vancouver being put in the same position as Whistler, when it was asked whether it wanted to go ahead with the sledge hockey rink. Whistler last month decided to kill the sledge-hockey rink and VANOC rescheduled Paralympic curling to the new curling rink, and sledge hockey to UBC facilities.

They also wanted to know, given inflation, whether staff would be coming back. Deputy City manager Doug Rudberg said they've done their best to properly escalate the construction costs to 2010, but, as he put it, "there are no guarantees."

The ice rinks and pool attached to the curling rink are City of Vancouver projects, not VANOC's. NPA Vancouver councillor Peter Ladner, who moved that the refinancing package be approved, said, "We are jammed to some extent on this, but these are projects that we took on; VANOC did not take these on. To those who say that we are lavishing money on the Olympics and catering to the corporate elite, these are facilities that are, by our own choice, the most needed in the City. The are all east of Cambie Street. If we want to talk about making the city more socially sustainable, these are facilities that are going to be used by children, people who are working their way into the community from other countries, they will promote physical activity, health, community building, literacy and all those wonderful things that will ultimately prevent homelessness in the future.

The projects covered by the proposed arrangements are the new Hillcrest Arena, which is expected to be used for Olympic and Paralympic curling as well as Paralympic sledge hockey, and two community ice rinks -- Killarney and Trout Lake -- that are to be used as secondary arenas during the Olympics. The Hillcrest Arena is being designed to be built at the same time as a non-Olympic facility, the adjacent Percy Norman Aquatic Centre. These two are considered to be one project, as they'll be built simultaneously by the City and Parks Board, with some major funding and expertise from the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC), and they use common heating and cooling systems. The Arena is due to converted after the 2010 Games to a variety of uses -- curling, a community centre and a new library branch, primarily.

The City says the curling rink and pool have also cleared the City's design panel process at a meeting last night.

A last-ditch amendment to the motion by councillor Stephenson to match an C$8.8 million portion of the refinancing package with a similar amount "for homelessness," was defeated, after Ladner called it a "cheap political trick."

RESOURCES

Our first and detailed story on this topic:

'Vancouver City and Parks Board staff get creative to fund C$28 million shortfall in several 2010 venues'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:1874; Published on Thursday, September 21, 2006]

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 28, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1885

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

VANOC AT US MARKETER'S CONFERENCE FOR BEIJING SUMMER GAMES

VANOC is expected to give an overview presentation during the three-day conference now underway of marketers connected with supporting the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. The meeting of an estimated 120 organizations -- which include representatives of all the corporate sponsors, licensees and suppliers to the Chinese Games, as well as governments, IOC, IPC and other organizations connected with the Games -- is being held in Colorado Springs, Colorado until the 28th. VANOC's role is not expected to be large; the main focus of the conference is on activation of agreements with the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee. Among the companies in attendance are international sponsors Coca-Cola, Eastman Kodak, General Electric, Visa USA, Johnson & Johnson, as well as US Olympic Committee connections, such as Tyson Foods, Budweiser, Bank of America, The Home Depot, Kimberly-Clark, Nike, 24 Hour Fitness, Oroweat, Roots, Adecco and Amino Vital. Other topics on the agenda include the Beijing Olympic Committee games preparations and NBC’s 2008 Olympic Games presentation.

VANCOUVER MULLS POSSIBLITY OF ABORIGINAL NAME FOR ATHLETE VILLAGE-AREA ISLET

Vancouver City Councillor Elizabeth Ball has suggested that the small island that's to be built along the shoreline of the 2010 Olympic Athletes Village as part of the long-term redevelopment of the False Creek coastline be named "named in such a way as to honour the culture and history of the Coast Salish people." The Coast Salish (pronounced SAY-lish) is the general name for the group of aboriginal tribes that live on the southwest coast of BC. The small island, which will only be separated from the mainland at high tide, is part of the public space, and is being constructed to compensate for other changes to the shoreline in the area that affect fish habitat.

VANOC, COC CO-HOST QUEBEC GOLF FUNDRAISER

VANOC and the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) will host the seventh annual Canadian Olympic Golf Tournament at the Club de golf Le Mirage in Terrebonne, Quebec on Monday. Proceeds from the golf tournament are to benefit the Canadian Olympic Foundation which provides direct support to athletes, coaches and national sport federations, as well as two COC intitiatives: Own The Podium 2010, for which VANOC is helping to raise C$55 million, and the Summer Olympics's Road To Excellence. The event will feature participation and appearances by some of Canada's most decorated Olympians including Eric Bedard (short track speed skating), Gaétan Boucher (long track speed skating, Marc Gagnon (short track speed skating), Pierre Harvey (cross-country skiing and cycling), Jennifer Heil and Philippe Laroche (freestyle skiing), Dominique Maltais (snowboard) and Mathieu Turcotte (short track speed skating). The tournament is expected to feature on-site Olympic-themed competitions and demonstrations, dinner at the Club de golf Le Mirage Clubhouse and two auctions, one silent and one live. There was something else about this golf tournament... what was it?... Oh yes, included are 18 holes of golf.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 28, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1884
2010 COMMITTEE BEGINS PROCESS OF DESIGNING THE MASCOTS FOR THE OLYMPIC AND THE PARALYMPIC GAMES

The the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) has launched the process that will end up with a mascot for each set of Games next year. And even though there have been serious political efforts by some communities to get their concept chosen, only professionals will be involved in the process.

VANOC has issued a formal Request for Proposals proposals from "qualified professionals or companies specializing in illustration, animation, graphic design, fine arts or other related fields" for developing the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games mascots, from initial concept to final design. The closing date for proponents is November 1 at VANOC headquarters in Vancouver. VANOC adds that it wants proposals from those who are "passionate, talented and experienced."

A mascot design helps the Games sell literally millions of dollars worth of souvenir products and appears on a myriad of Games-related marketing collateral and event pageantry, such as the opening and closing ceremonies for both the Olympics and the Paralympics in turn.

Because of its importance to the Games and the pressures on getting a mascot selected, VANOC is upfront about saying that "Proponents are NOT to submit proposed Vancouver 2010 mascot designs, names, themes or concepts in connection with this RFP." That kind of detail will only be given to the company that wins the RFP. VANOC adds that "Any proposal that includes mascot designs, names, themes or concepts will not be considered." In fact, they say it "will be sealed in perpetuity, without review, and maintained in files that will not be accessible to any person involved in the mascots’ development."

VANOC has broken the development work into two phases. VANOC says the artist or VANOC can sub-contract some work if it is beyond the capacity or the skill set of the artist to do the whole project. VANOC may also choose more than one proponent to develop mascot concepts before it selects the final concepts and people to do the work. If a short list of artists are selected to develop and refine the initial concepts in Phase 1, each will be hired and paid by contract with VANOC for the work. Even though more than one proponent might be selected for the Phase 1 development and refinement of initial concepts, VANOC expects there will be only one finalist selected to continue with Phase 2 work. Regardless, all proponents are required to submit complete proposals for both Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the project and specific deliverables during those phases [See BACKGROUND, below]

RESOURCES

The phases of the work:

Phase 1 may include a short list of artists, while Phase 2 will only involve the artist whose concept is selected for the final mascots, and there may be more than one artist and concept selected in the second phase.

PHASE 1: MASCOT CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT AND REFINEMENT

1. The short-listed artists will work with a team from VANOC led by Brand & Creative Services (B&CS), a function within VANOc.

2. B&CS will provide a detailed creative brief, providing all necessary background and information about the Vancouver 2010 brand (essence, positioning, personality, graphic identity, graphic standards, mascot objectives, creative and production considerations. The brief will also provide updated details on process and timelines.

3. During the creative development phase, VANOC will provide market ideas and insights received through the Internet and other research and communications channels. There could also be opportunities for the short-listed artists to gain additional brand and market information through VANOC, if it would add value to the creative development process.

4. The short-listed artists will present concepts and refinements to B&CS at various stages of the creative-development process for feedback and direction.

5. VANOC will select a short list of concepts for refinement and some exploration of the versions in different applications and formats. Shortlisted concepts will likely be consumer-tested.

6. Following the consumer testing, if it happens, VANOC will make its final selection and present the recommended concepts for all required approvals.

7. If a short list of artists was contracted to develop initial concepts, VANOC will end contracts with all of the artists whose concepts have not been short listed for further refinement under Phase 1 or selected as a mascot for finalization under Phase 2.

PHASE 2: FINALIZATION OF SELECTED MASCOTS

1. Upon final approval of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic mascots, VANOC will organize the mascots’ launch and the participation of the mascots’ artist or artists at the launch. All mascot final designs, artwork files and graphic standards will also be developed at this time.

2. Depending on the capacity and the skill set of the mascots’ artist, and other considerations, VANOC may provide or procure additional resources to develop the graphic standards, film animation, and other specialized mascot materials/formats. The artist can also recommend other artists or companies to do any work that might be subcontracted.

---

The deliverables of the work:

Phase 1: Mascot Concept Development

Development of at least three unique creative concepts for each of the Olympic and Paralympic Games mascots (six
concepts in total). The concepts can include more than one mascot for either of the Olympic or Paralympic Games.
(i.e. One mascot concept may include multiple “characters” such as the five Beijing 2008 Olympic Games mascots, or
the two Torino 2006 Olympic Games mascots

Concepts must reflect Vancouver 2010 brand and values, as well as the Olympic and Paralympic values (as provided by a VANOC creative brief that will be provided once selection of the artist-selection is done

Concepts must include the proposed mascot's name and the creative rationale, such as the mascots’ origin, history and personality

Concepts must be presented in both colour and black & white.

In addition to a core conceptual design, proposed mascots must be illustrated participating in the following winter sport
disciplines to demonstrate flexibility of concept:

-- Olympic Games mascot(s) must be presented participating in Alpine Skiing, Bobsleigh and Ice Hockey
-- Paralympic Games mascot(s) must be presented participating in Alpine Skiing, Wheelchair Curling and Ice Sledge Hockey

TIMING: Presentation of initial concepts is to be delivered six weeks after the delivery of the VANOC creative brief to the Artist

Phase 1. b) Refinement of Short-listed Mascot Concepts

Revised designs and upgrading the mascot names and stories based on VANOC’s short-listed selection and feedback

Explorations presenting short-listed mascots in the context of various applications and formats, for example:
-- Used within context of existing Vancouver 2010 branded collateral and communications
-- 2D animations, illustrating potential movement and expressions
-- 3D renderings, illustrating different angles of mascot

TIMING: Revisions will take place over the course of four weeks following the initial concepts presentation to VANOC

Phase 2 Deliverables

Phase 2 is in three parts:

a) Final Development and Design of Selected Mascots

Refinements to selected mascot designs, names and stories, as selected by VANOC

Production of final artwork files in .ai, .eps and .jpg format

Illustration of selected mascot designs in five to seven signature poses and 20 sport poses for each Winter Games discipline

Selection and development of mascot typography, if requested

TIMING: Finalization of selected mascot designs, characterization and artwork files will occur over an eight to 10 week period after VANOC has selected its final mascots from the short-listed concepts

2. b) Graphic Standards Manuals

Development of graphic standards manuals (GSM) for Olympic and Paralympic mascots

TIMING: Delivery of GSMs will occur 8 – 12 weeks after VANOC has approved final designs of selected mascots

2. c) Other work

This is a catch-all section as VANOC hasn't yet decided if there will be "other work". Such work, if required, is expected to be a written addendum or change order to the Contract, with work performed on a time and materials basis. In addition, it is expected that if approved by VANOC on a case by case basis, official Vancouver 2010 partners and licensees will have unique mascot design projects for which they will require the design services of the artist. Standard rates for each additional mascot illustration and other common applications will be established with the artist and incorporated into the contract.

===

Key dates in the process (which may be adjusted as things go):

November 1: RFP submission deadline
-- In November: VANOC interviews top proponents and checks references
-- In November: VANOC shortlistsartists(s) and finalizes contracts

December: VANOC briefs short-listed artists(s)
-- In December: Summer 2007 artists develop concepts in collaboration with VANOC.

2007 Final mascots are unveiled to public.

==

The first official mascot made an appearance at the 1972 Winter Games in Munich. Since then, mascots have become serious money-raiser for the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Because the mascots are designed to bring humour and light-hearted fun to the Games experience, they are popular as souvenirs and for marketing purposes. The mascots help tell the unique story of each Games. They are often a reflection of the history, land and culture of the host region and country. And they also embody the ideals of Olympism and the Paralympic Movement, embodying the brand attributes of spirit of friendship, fair play and participation. The introduction of the mascot is one of the highlights in the lead-up to the Games. Past mascots have shown great ingenuity, imagination and artistry. From Munich’s dachshund Waldi to Montreal’s beaver Amik, early mascots were based on animals that were unique to the host countries. Barcelona’s Cobi, created by a designer named Mariscal for the 1992 Games, was followed by a variety of mascots, based on humans, animals and creatures, mythical and invented.

RESOURCES

RFP # 052 (available on BC Bid)
Closing Time: November 1, 2006, 2 pm Vancouver Time

Contact Person
Estella Campbell, Contract Administrator
Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and
Paralympic Winter Games
3585 Graveley St, Vancouver, BC V5K 5J5 Canada

Tel: 778 328 2010
Fax: 778 328 2011
E-mail: procurement@vancouver2010.com

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 28, 2006

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1883
2010 ORGANIZING COMMITTEE GOES ON OFFENSIVE AGAINST "NAYSAYERS" AND "ANTI-GAMES ACTIVISTS"

The Organizing Committee for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) today spoke out against a steady battering from critics about issues involving its ability to manage the delivery of the its major commitments.

In an unusual tactic for VANOC, it issued a prepared statement in which it responded "to the claims of anti-Games activists" by saying it was committed to "fiscal responsibility and environmental, social and economic sustainability in planning, building and staging the 2010 Games in Vancouver and Whistler."

VANOC CEO John Furlong said in the statement, "We accept that there will always be critics of our project; we would only hope that criticism will be constructive and truthful rather than political and destructive in nature. We owe it to the people of British Columbia and Canada to stay focused on organizing the best Games possible. We will not allow ourselves or this project to be undermined by naysayers who never have and likely never will support the Games. That said, we are proud of the programs we have in place to ensure accountability to the taxpayers of B.C. and Canada, and to achieve one of the most environmentally and socially responsible Games in Olympic and Paralympic history. We have also promised to deliver our venue program for less than the C$580 million capital budget, and to finish the venues well ahead of the Games. This will provide Canadian athletes with the maximum training advantage, and will help ensure a first place finish for Canada in 2010. We are on schedule to deliver on both of these commitments."

The VANOC statement says the organization continues to "deliver upon commitments in key areas where Canadians want and deserve a high degree of accountability."

These, it suggests, are sustainability:
VANOC Vice President of Sustainability, Linda Coady, is developing" a comprehensive program to achieve environmental, social and economic sustainability for the 2010 Games." VANOC expects to be issuing its first annual sustainability report before the end of next March. "The report will provide a detailed review of VANOC's performance on the full range of its sustainability commitments."

These, the statement says, include:

The Whistler Sliding Centre site "that has been designed to minimize the footprint on the landscape. Venue buildings at this and other sites have been designed to optimize energy performance and reduce energy demand. All waste wood from site clearing at Whistler was chipped and composted for re-use."

C$2 million dollars from Bell's Olympic sponsorship "has been committed to create economic opportunities for inner-city communities."

VANOC has awarded contracts to inner-city businesses in Vancouver "which include Mills Basics, Cook Studio and United We Can."

The statement says VANOC is also committed to "accountability and transparency" and gives these examples:

"VANOC has committed to the same level of financial accountability as a publicly traded company, and issues quarterly financial reports and audited annual financial reports." It notes that the first quarterly report was issued on June 14th, and "in accordance with general accounting reporting practices" it expects to issue the next quarterly report on October 25th.

VANOC says the organization's "primary areas of responsibility and accountability" are:

Building the Games venues on time and on budget within its C$580 million capital budget provided by government partners;

Raising the Games operating funds in the private sector through sponsorships, ticket sales and television broadcast revenues; and

"Staging a successful Games that leave a legacy for sport and the community for generations to come."

The statement also talked obliquely about the cost of security, which has become a favourite whip of Games critics who suggest the budget is too small, by saying, "The Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit, led by the RCMP, holds the responsibility for planning and executing Games security. The goal is to stage Games in 2010 that offer the absolute safety and security of all participants. The cost to provide Games time security was estimated at C$175 million in the 2002 Games bid. The final security budget will ultimately reflect the level of security required at Games time, and the measures necessary to ensure a safe and secure environment."

The statement also discussed what it calls "the success of other Games" by saying:

"The most relevant comparison to the 2010 Games are past Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, and particularly those held in North America, including Lake Placid (1980), Calgary (1988) and Salt Lake (2002).

"The only other Canadian Winter Olympic Games (Calgary 1988), contributed more than C$1.4 billion to the Canadian economy in the lead up to the Games during the 1980s. Positive economic impacts were associated with capital facilities, enhanced business, tourism and sports opportunities, and extra employment/household income.

"In the end, the 1988 Olympic Winter Games recorded a profit that fuelled an endowment fund of more than C$60 million that is now worth C$170 million." It says the source of that information is the "Final Report of the Calgary 1988 Olympic Winter Games; VANOC Impact of North American Winter Games on Host Communities Study." Among other legacies, the statement says, "the 1988 Olympic Winter Games left a wealth of recreational and high performance sport infrastructure that was a major contributing factor to Canada's 24 medals at the Torino 2006 Games."

VANOC says it is currently undertaking "a comprehensive study into the long-term economic, social, educational, tourism, employment, recreational and high performance sport benefits of hosting Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in previous North American host communities", and that it expects to release the study in a few weeks.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 27, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1882
2010 COMMITTEE STILL INTERESTED IN CRUISE-SHIP IDEA AT SQUAMISH FOR GAMES ACCOMODATION

The executive vice president of Service Operations & Ceremonies for the 2010 Organizing Committee says the organization will continue to explore the idea of using a cruise ship berthed at Squamish to house 1,600 press, broadcast media "and/or other Vancouver 2010 clients during the 2010 Winter Games."

Terry Wright of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) confirmed the concept after word that the International Olympic Committee initially rebuffed the idea. "Cruise ship accommodation in Squamish is a creative and sustainable accommodation option," said Wright in a prepared statement. He added, "Squamish is the midpoint of the Olympic and Paralympic theatre and this unique accommodation option would create a hub of activity in Squamish linking the city venues in Vancouver with the mountain venues in Whistler."

VANOC introduced the concept at the IOC's Press Commission annual meeting in Beijing this week. The Commission is an advisory group for the IOC. VANOC says it will "review the concerns in the coming weeks while continuing to collaborate with the IOC to meet the needs of the press and all guests in 2010."

The ship would supplement the available accommodation in the Sea to Sky corridor for the Olympic and Paralympic "family", and VANOC is responsible for providing rooms. The "family" includes media, officials of the International Olympic Committee and International Paralympic Committee, representatives of various national Olympic Committees of nations that will be at the Games, officilas of the various international sport federations, various team coaches and support personnel, as well as representatives of sponsors.

VANOC says a cruise ship would provide "premier service and accommodation and guests would also be provided with transportation to and from the venues. The concept gives VANOC flexibility while reducing the complexity of building permanent or temporary accommodations. It is also an environmentally friendly option and supports VANOC's sustainability objectives."

Discussions with cruise ship lines have already begun.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 27, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1881

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

OLYMPIC VILLAGE STREET NAMES CONTESTED BY VANCOUVER COUNCILLORS

Vancouver City Council, faced with the requirement of approving the name of three new key streets in the 2010 Winter Olympics Athlete Village as Shipyard Avenue, Salt Avenue and Slipway Avenue, has deferred the decision to its October 17 meeting to give the Street Naming Committee a chance to consider the addition of some of councillors' favourite names. These include "Marine Workers Avenue" and several personal names of people that have had an effect on the City's recent development, such as "Walter Hardwick Avenue", "Jane Jacobs Avenue" and "Lillian Toews Avenue." The names have to be into the Street Naming Committee by October 3 so it can discuss them at its October 5th meeting. Part of the committee's process is to circulate potential names to various emergency services, such as fire, police and ambulance management, in case they have concerns about confusion by potential names with other commonly used names. For instance, there is already a Marine Drive in Vancouver; the idea of "Marine Workers Avenue" as being potentially confused with it during an emergency would be considered. City Councillor Raymond Louie, who proposed "Marine Workers Avenue" to replace the staff-recommended "Shipyard Avenue", pointed out that City Council doesn't often get the chance to name a street in the City, and "the names will last for centuries." Staff and the Street Naming Committee had made their recommendations because of the historical types of work done on the lands that are being rebuilt, and follows a similar pattern elsewhere on the south side of False Creek. Council unanimously approved a portion of the request by the staff: three existing streets will be extended northwards into the Village development and keep the same names: Columbia, Manitoba and Ontario Streets. These three were necessary to approve now because of timing issues to do with the development of the Village.

VANOC REPORTEDLY DISCUSSING WHISTLER BYLAW CHANGES TO FREE UP MORE ROOMS

The Vancouver Sun newspaper this morning reported that VANOC is still short about 1,300 short-term rooms in the Whistler area during the immediate lead-up and during the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The apartment and hotel rooms, a number of which have already been accumulated by VANOC, would be used for media, VIPs and the like: those who are considered to be part of the "Olympic family" by VANOC, the IOC and the International Paralympic Committee. The 2010 Committee still has a number of options to provide sufficient rooms in the village of 10,000 and it has been talking to the municipal government staff about the possibility of temporarily relaxing the Village's bylaws that restrict short-term rentals to free up rooms in the Village's housing stock. Reporter Jeff Lee said VANOC had also proposed that in berth a cruise ship at the port community of Squamish, about an hour's drive from Whistler, to house the several thousand news media expected to cover the Games, but that the International Olympic Committee had rejected the concept as it would put the reporters and their support crews -- a highly important group to the IOC -- too far away from the Whistler venues, and would create other logistical difficulties.

RFP EXPECTED FOR SALT BUILDING USE AFTER 2010 GAMES

The City of Vancouver is expected to issue a formal Request for Proposals shortly to four groups that responded to an expression of interest in the legacy uses of the Salt Building, a heritage structure that will be a centrepiece of the 2010 Athlete's Village in southeast False Creek. The draft by-law that covers the area of the building allows for a variety of uses to occupy the signature building after the Games are finished, including commercial, institutional, recreational and cultural uses. The City is keeping its ownership of the building and intends to control its use after the Games through agreements with operators and tenants. Once it's chosen a company through the RFP process, it will work out the uses for it.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 27, 2006

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1880
VANCOUVER COUNCIL SQUEAKS OLYMPIC VILLAGE ALONG TIMELINE TO REZONING HEARING

The one vote majority that the Non Partisan Association party commands kept Vancouver City Council on a tight Olympic timeline tonight after an hour of debate over whether to send several key properties involved in the 2010 Olympic Athletes Village to a public hearing in preparation for rezoning.

The left wing Vision Vancouver opposition on the council, led by councillor Raymond Louie, time after time, question after question, attempted to persuade city staff and in particular the City's project manager for Southeast False Creek and Olympic Village, Jody Andrews, to reveal information about the Village's financial situation in advance of a detailed report now in the draft stage that is due to be made public by next Tuesday.

Council was working on a report by staff recommending that it stick to an extremely tight timeline for getting the Village built by sending to public hearing an application by Merrick Architecture on behalf of the Village's developer, Millennium Southeast False Creek Properties, for rezoning 51, 85 and 199 West 1st Avenue, 1599 -1651 Ontario Street, 1598-1650 Columbia Street and a portion of 215 West 1st Avenue. Those properties cover the main Olympic Village. The public hearing is scheduled for October 17. Millennium Southeast False Creek Properties is a subsidiary of Millennium Development, which won a formal Request for Proposals process earlier this year for the right to buy the property from the city and develop the buildings on it. The City is acting as its own public amenities developer and is in the process of preparing the site for construction. The buildings, primarily high-rise apartment-like structures, must be delivered to the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) by November 1, 2009.

However, Vision councillors Louie, George Chow, Heather Deal and Tim Stephenson, plus the philosophically aligned David Cadman, repeatedly said they wanted to have a look at the financials because the rezoning application included a request for what Louie estimated was an additional C$40 million of additional density in the Village to help pay for non-market housing requirements mandated earlier this year by Council in the legacy portion of the Village.

City manager Judy Rogers, who is also a director of VANOC representing the City, told council, "The rezoning submission from Millennium Southeast False Creek Properties meets the intent of the Official Development Plan (ODP) and, in fact, exceeds the ODP objectives in the areas of sustainability and modest market housing. It is worth noting that Millennium is committing to deliver LEED Gold for all its market buildings, instead of Silver as required by the ODP. Also, as Council instructed, Millennium and staff have prepared a creative solution for the delivery of modest market housing that would result in approximately 100 units of modest market housing in addition to the 250 units of affordable housing."

One small privately owned parcel just west of the key Salt Building feature, known as the Maywood Property, is also part of key area, but that parcel is on its own timeline and will be up for rezoning separately. The other properties involve six city blocks on 7.2 ha (18 acres) to be developed with a range of residential forms from three-storey townhouses to 13-storey apartment towers as well as a neighbourhood commercial centre, school -- which may or may not be built in time -- and a community centre.

It also includes a proposed neighbourhood commercial centre includes the three anchors -- a full-size grocery store (Parcel 9), a drug store (Parcel 10) and a liquor store (Parcel 6), as well as smaller areas that will house restaurants, cafes, various shops and services, such as banks and medical-dental offices. The commercial centre is located around the plaza just north of the Salt Building, and the Salt Building itself.

The Official Development Plan approved by the City last year expected that the rezoning site would have about 7,153 square metres (77,000 square feet) of commercial floor space allocated to the developer, not including commercial space on the public parcels. Millennium is proposing 5,912 m2 (63,640 sq. ft.) of neighbourhood commercial mixed with the housing, and that the remaining 1,245 m2 (13,400 sq. ft.) of commercial space allocated to the developer be available for residential.

The tug-of-war over where the proposed grocery store will be located has been resolved by moving it to Parcel 9, which borders on West 1st just east of the Salt Building. It had been in a parcel to the immediate north with the idea of increasing walking traffic in the central plaza, but it made truck and car traffic more difficult there.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 26, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1879

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

FIRST PART OF VANCOUVER 2010 VENUES REFINANCING APPROVED

There was debate, but in the end, the Vancouver Park Board last night voted to approve the first step in a two-step refinancing package that will enable Vancouver to cover inflation-fueld cost increases in the construction of the 2010 curling venue, and two secondary ice rinks that will also be used during the 2010 Winter Games. Vancouver City Council is expected to approve the second step of the package, at a meeting this afternoon.

DRURY TO CHAIR ALPINE CANADA

Toronto businessman and lifelong alpine ski enthusiast Reid Drury, who is also a founding partner of Polar Capital Corporation, has been elected the chairman of the Board of Directors of Alpine Canada, the national skiing sports governing organization. Druy, a former ski racer who has three children competing in the sport, was elected at the sport's annual general meeting over the weekend. Bob Ellard, a well-known athlete, and multi-sport builder was elected vice-chairman. Drury, with more than 20 years experience in private-equity investing, was also a senior executive of Telco Research Corporation and Speedware Corporation. He succeeds John Read of Calgary who served as Alpine Canada's chairman for the past two years. Ken Read, president of Alpine Canada, says, "The leadership of our board is vitally important to reaching our goal of making Canada a world leading alpine racing country by 2010." Drury says, "This is a critical four years leading up to the 2010 Winter Olympics, and our Board intends to build on the momentum achieved... We are developing strong teams at all levels, stronger coaching and programs in Canada, a solid organization and the resources it takes to win."

VOLWEB CELEBRATES FIRST BIRTHDAY

VolWeb.ca, the website face of one aspect of 2010 Legacies Now's volunteer recruitment strategy, is a year old today. The concept is, in part, to improve the volunteer resumes of BC residents so that VANOC has a more experienced volunteer workforce from which to choose when it's main volunteer recruitment program begins next year, but it also has a longer-term strategy of being a volunteer clearinghouse for the province as a legacy of the Games. It reports it has registered about 1,300 volunteers and 460 organizations. It's goal is to register one million volunteers by 2012.

RESOURCES

Our story from last week that details the complex refinacing package:

'Vancouver City and Parks Board staff get creative to fund C$28 million shortfall in several 2010 venues'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:1874; Published on Thursday, September 21, 2006]

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 26, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1840

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

LATEST ECONOMIC FORECAST SHOW VANOC'S CONSTRUCTION CLIMATE REMAINS STORMY

It won't come as any surprise to VANOC's construction management team that the latest issue of "Economic Analysis of B.C.", a periodic newsletter published by Credit Union Central of British Columbia, is forecasting continued strong pressures for the next two years on from labour and materials inflation in southwestern BC. "Construction, transportation, professional, technical and business support services will also make substantial contributions to the region’s economic growth," says the report, written by Central’s economist, Dave Hobden. The report also shows that the 2010 capital budget of C$580 million, or even accepting the BC Auditor General's controversial figure of C$2.5 billion in total Olympic taxpayer spending is not much of a driver for the construction boom. The report notes that, "As of June this year, there was more than C$43 billion in development projects in the Mainland-Southwest listed in the Major Projects Inventory of B.C.’s Ministry of Economic Development. That is up 14.5% from one year earlier, continuing a steady rise since 2003. Of these major projects, 55% are currently under construction and 42% are at some stage of proposal. Projects under construction have increased 26% in the past year, while proposed projects are up 3.7%. This suggests construction spending on major projects will continue to rise through 2008."

VANOC COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT GROWTH REDUCES REQUEST BACKLOG

VANOC's vice-president of Communications, Rene Smith-Valade, says her staff has now grown enough that it is starting to be able to deal with the significant range of demands for the department's services. In a sense, what she has to say about her own department is a microcosm of VANOC's exponential growth. "The challenge we've been facing [over the last two years] is being a very small team trying to do was deal with what was immediately a big network of communications, with all of our partners, our sponsors, our governments, our athlete organizations -- probably 20 of these partners. It's a tiny, little team, trying to communicate with all of them. As we add people now, we're getting better and better at doing [our job] with the network on a regular basis. But you know what's fun? Every new person brings new energy, so each person who arrives just raises it up higher because they are ready to be there. The competition for the jobs is tight, usually, so once a person arrives, they feel like they've won a lottery, and their arrival re-energizes everyone."

RBC NAMES WINTER OLYMPIANS FOR MARKETING PROGRAM

RBC, which is the financial sponsor of the 2010 Winter Olympics, today listed the 20 Olympians and Paralympians the financial giant will support for the next 12 months through its annual "RBC Olympians" program. RBC gives the athletes it selects a job for a year, with enough flexibility in the schedule for them to train, if they're still active in getting ready for the next set of Olympic or Paralympic Games, or get new job skills if they've recently retired. In addition, the people selected will make appearances representing RBC at its community relations events, as well as meet with RBC staff and selected clients "to help raise awareness and support for amateur sport." This year's crop include Canadian winter athletes Anne-Marie Lefrançois, alpine skiing, 2002 retired Olympian; Alexa Loo, snowboard, 2006 Olympian; Kristi Richards, freestyle ski, 2006 Olympian; Colleen Sostorics, ice hockey, gold medallist and 2006 Olympian; Jennifer Botterill, ice hockey, gold medallist and 2006 Olympian; Sami Jo Small, a member of the 2006 gold medal Canadian Women's hockey team; Martine Albert, biathlon, 2006 Olympian; Dominique Maltais, snowboarding, bronze medallist -- 2006 Olympian; and Marc-Andre Moreau, freestyle ski, 2006 Olympian. The rest of those selected were connected with summer Olympic sports.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 26, 2006

Monday, September 25, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1878

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

VANCOUVER ISLAND REPS MEET WITH TAIWANESE OLYMPIC OFFICIALS

A delegation representing the Comox and Courtney area of central Vancouver Island reportedly met earlier this month with the Taiwanese International Olympic Committee while on an investment tour of Taiwan. The meeting was held to discuss the merits of the nearby Mt. Washington Ski Resort as a possible location for the Taiwanese national Olympic team to train their skating and Nordic sections. John Watson, the region's Economic Development Officer, reports, “The Comox Valley has a long and warm cultural relationship with the Taiwanese, and to have their team consider the Comox Valley in the lead-up to 2010 is significant.” Last month, technical evaluation representatives of Sweden's national Olympic winter team toured the Mt. Washington area.

NDP CALLS ON VANOC TO PAY FOR "OVER-RUNS"

The BC New Democratic opposition party's critic of the BC government's responsibilities to host the 2010 Olympic Games is claiming the "over-runs", as he puts it, of the Olympics are now more than C$70 million and that VANOC should pay for them. He told a local radio station that, "They have a tremendous opportunity to raise revenue through sponsorship and many other avenues that VANOC has available to them, so they should come to the plate. They are the ones who should be held responsible to pay for the cost overruns rather than going after the taxpayers over and over again." The higher construction cost numbers, which are mostly restatements of 2002 and 2003 budgets expressed in 2007 or 2008 dollars after inflation and reduced construction scope has been factored in, have been emerging in batches over the last few months.

SIMARD, GRANDI, WOOLSTENCROFT AND TAYLOR NAMED TOP CANADIAN SKI ATHLETES

Genevieve Simard of Val-Morin, Quebec, and Thomas Grandi of Canmore, Alberta, were named Canadian Alpine Ski Team athletes of the year at the annual Alpine Canada Alpin congress Saturday. Canadian Disabled Alpine Ski Team athletes Lauren Woolstencroft of Victoria, British Columbia and Calgary Alberta, and guide Bobby Taylor of Vancouver, BC, were also honoured for their performances last season. The awards were given out at the Alpine Canada Congress and Annual General Meeting in Regina, Saskatchewan.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 25, 2006

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #1877
NEW PRIVATE RESIDENTIAL TOWER TO HAVE COMMANDING VIEW OF VANCOUVER OLYMPIC VILLAGE ACTION

A new privately owned high-rise apartment complex with retail along the bottom is expected to provide a front-row seat on the activities of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Athletes Village is to be built just across the street from the the Village's main entrance.

The project is one of the earliest ripple effects of the City of Vancouver's decision to turn the seedy light-industrial area of southeast False Creek into a modern neighbourhood, with the Olympic Village as its core, but there are five other major residential developments in the pipeline for the area.

Vancouver-based Beedie Development, which is better known for industrial developments but has begun expanding into residential, intends to build the complex, whose primary tower is 13 storeys, in time for the opening of the Games and, as long as the Village's current security line stays put along Quebec Street, the 150 apartments will be occupied while the Village is open. The architects are Chris Dikeakos and John Clark, CDA Architects.

City planning analyst Hugo Blomfield says, however, that the RCMP, which are in charge of the Village's security arrangements, have told the developer that if they're forced to expand the security perimeter eastward to Main Street, which would include the building, they won't allow it to be occupied before the Games are over and the Village has shut down, in March, 2010. There is no date by which the security line will be fixed; its location will depend on the RCMP's threat assessment between now and the end of the Games.

The complex also has an eight-storey section on Main street that has commercial space at street level -- which will be its address: 1695 Main Street -- and a six-storey building along First Avenue. It has a total floor-space ratio of 3.5 and 179 parking spaces.

A number of environmental measures are also proposed for the structure, including "green" roofs, on-site storm water management, water-efficient landscaping and a building design that tries to optimize energy use; these are aims of the City in the area.

Blomfield says the City has scheduled an informal public meeting next Thursday for comments on the project, which is part of the property's rezoning process. A portion of the area is currently occupied by a Burger King fast-food restaurant and a video-rental store.

Other private-land developments in the area that surrounds the Village or are nearby, and which are moving through the various regulatory approval processes: 360 West First Avenue -- A new 13-storey apartment building with a three-storey townhouse building; 311 West 2nd Avenue -- A new nine-storey and a new five-storey residential complex with live/work apartments along the street level; 201 West 2nd Avenue -- Two new apartment buildings, the tallest is 16-storeys, that will have retail and commercial along the street on West 2nd, and live-work apartments on Cook Street; 102-160 West First Avenue -- A complex of four new apartment buildings, the tallest of which is 15 storeys. It will also provide storage space the Playhouse Theatre Company; and a complex with three addresses -- 59 West First Avenue, 68 West 2nd Avenue and 29 East 1st Avenue. The tallest of these is expected to be 15 storeys, with live-work studios along the street on 2nd Avenue, and commercial sections on Manitoba Street.

RESOURCES

The Beedie Group
www.beediegroup.ca

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 22, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1876

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

RICHMOND UNION USES VANOC-CITY AGREEMENT AS LEVERAGE IN TALKS FOR NEW CONTRACT

The union that represents about 1,000 municipal workers in Richmond, where the local government is supervising the construction of a sports multiplex that will hold the 2010 speedskating oval, is using some clauses in VANOC's venue agreement with Richmond as leverage in negotiating a new union contract to replace the one that expires in December. Dave Shapiro, president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees's Local 394, also represents about 360 outside workers. Shapiro says that one of the Venue Agreement clauses requires Richmond to do its best to "prohibit strikes and/or lockouts during any period that would include the Games exclusive-use period." The Exclusive Use period starts in November, 2009 and goes to March 31, 2010. It allows VANOC to set up the sports complex for use as an Olympic venue, giving it the look and feel of the Games and setting up such things as security, ticketing, sponsorship concessions, broadcast facilities, computer and communications networking, and the like, then run the competitions, and then remove the Olympic overlay. Other clauses, he says, require city staff to work at the Olympic oval during the period. Still other paragraphs agree to allow volunteers and third-party contractors to work in the multiplex. Shapiro, who wasn't happy that he had to find out officially about the wording of the agreement through access to information laws, said in June that his union doesn't intend to cause labour problems during the Olympics. The union is also now going through the formal grievance process, alleging the Venue Agreement affected the union's contractual relationship between the city and the union.

NEW STREET NAMES PROPOSED FOR VANCOUVER OLYMPIC ATHLETE VILLAGE

Vancouver City Council on Tuesday is expected to confirm the working names of three new streets that are being created in the new 2010 Vancouver Olympic Athlete Village. They are: The north/south street located east of the Salt Building, is to be named Slipway Street, to recognize the shipbuilding industry connection in the area. Slipways were located in a north/south direction in the shipbuilding yards in that area. The east/west street just north of First Avenue is to be named Salt Avenue as a reference to the former use of the signature heritage Salt Building at 85 West First Avenue. And, the east/west street nearest to False Creek is to be named Shipyard Avenue to commemorate one of the historical uses of the area, and to represent one of the three neighbourhoods set up during creation last year in the Official Development Plan. The neighbourhood to the east of that is to be called 'Railyard' and 'Worksyard' is the nickname for the neighbourhood that will be built after 2010, is to the west. City staff, architects and engineers working on the project have been using the names informally for several months.

WADA ISN'T HAPPY WITH LOW-OXYGEN TRAINING, BUT IT'S OK FOR ATHLETES FOR NOW

The Executive Committee of the World Anti-Doping Agency, meeting in Montreal, has approved the recommendation of its own scientific committees that it keep artificially-induced hypoxic conditions off the 2007 list of things that it prohibits Olympic athletes from doing. Lots of athletes, both Olympic and non-Olympic, use hypoxia training. WADA's scientific committees -- Health, Medical & Research, and Lis -- and its Ethical Issues Review Panel spent quite a while reviewing scientific studies and talking to various experts about using artificial low-oxygen training, similar to the kind of conditions found atop mountainous are high-plateau locations. The committees found that the method was, in fact, performance enhancing and that raised some concerns and determined that the method was contrary to the spirit of sport, but but was inconclusive about the method's threat to athlete health, All three conditions have to be present for a process or a substance to be automatically placed on the banned list. A substance or method may be added to the Prohibited List if it meets two of these three criteria, but it's not automatically required to be there. Dick Pound, who runs WADA and is a director of the 2010 Games Board, says, "While we do not deem this method appropriate for inclusion on the List at this time, we still wish to express the concern that, in addition to the results varying individually from case to case, use of this method may pose health risks if not properly implemented and under medical supervision." That's not quite the end of the controversy though. Executive Committee members also suggested that the International Olympic Committee's Medical Commission look into the matter for a medical consideration of the method's impact on athlete health.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 21, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Government
VANOC| #1875
VANCOUVER CITY INITIALS 2010 BRAND LICENSING DEAL WITH VANOC

Vancouver City Council is expected to approve a brand licensing agreement with the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) at its next meeting on Tuesday.

The “Non-Commercial Use Agreement," as it's called, allows the City to use the VANOC's logo and other brands as a part of civic business. As well, there's an administrative process being set up to approve each application of the brands, as well as to monitor the overall usage. The Agreement also allows Vancouver Park Board, the Vancouver Police Department and the Vancouver Public Library to use the brands. The Agreement allows the city to use the brands on business cards, letterhead, banners, signage, posters, publications, merchandise and gifts -- such as lapel pins or umbrellas -- and specific types of uniforms,

Over the past several months, four governments involved in hosting the Games -- the federal and provincial governments, plus those of Whistler and Vancouver -- have been negotiating with VANOC and, through VANOC, with the International Olympic Committee, for the necessary permission to use the brands in a non-commercial way in the lead up to and during the 2010 Winter Games. Since millions of dollars rides on the use of the brands from commercial sponsors, the use is aggressively controlled by the IOC and VANOC to protect the value of the brands, which are owned by IOC and the Canadian Olympic Committee. This revenue contributes to a large part of the Games operating costs.

In Vancouver's case, the main logo will be a vertical blue box with the VANOC emblem in the middle. In the blue panel above the logo, is the city's name; in the blue panel below the logo are the words, in white, "Host City". As a mark, it says "institutional" pretty clearly.

The City's Corporate Communications Division is now developing a strategic plan for how the brands will be used by the City. In addition to recommending actual uses or applications, the plan is expected to also recommend a timeline that will see a "measured but increasing use: of the brands as 2010 nears. The Division also expects to work with the VPB, VPD and VPL to ensure that their use of the brands follows suit. The timeline is required because VANOC's marketing functions don't want to over-saturate the market until the Games are near.

The Agreement also sets out a recognition plan. Vancouver and the other governments are expecting VANOC to recognize them for their contributions to deliver the 2010 Winter Games by including the logos on VANOC-controlled signage, media releases, advertisements and invitations. There is also a process for acquiring merchandise or services from VANOC's licensees, and a process that allows the City staff to work with VANOC to create the “Look of the City” in a manner that uses the context of the “Look of the Games” that VANOC will create around the Olympic and Paralympic venues.

Dave Rudberg, the City's general manager of Olympic and Paralympic Operations, will have the overall control of the brand usage by the City and workshops are to be held with City staff to brief them on what they can and can't do with the logos or word marks.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 21, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1874
VANCOUVER CITY AND PARKS BOARD STAFF GET CREATIVE TO FUND C$28 MILLION SHORTFALL IN SEVERAL 2010 VENUES

Vancouver City planners report that the projected cost of several Olympic and Paralympic venues in which the Vancouver Parks Board is involved will likely be between C$28.1 million and C$28.8 million more than expected.

Faced with the inflation-fueled shortfall in funding the venues, staff are expected to ask City Council and Vancouver Parks Board trustees, in the next week or two, to approve a complex and creative refinancing deal that siphons funds from several future City and Park Board projects and cash flows, as well as add money now from the 2010 Organizing Committee in exchange for looking after conversion costs later, all to keep the projects on time and on track.

The first part of the two-stage approval process is the Park Board's decision on its share of the new funding, which is expected to come at a trustee meeting Monday night. Assuming that goes according to plan, Vancouver City Council would be asked to finalize the refinancing on September 28.

Staff point out that there is still a considerable benefit for going ahead with the projects even though they cost more money. Vancouver would end up with about C$105 million worth of planned infrastructure improvement, but VANOC, through money coming from provincial and federal funds, would pay 41% of the cost, and the City gets the projects sooner, rather than later.

The projects covered by the proposed arrangements are the new Hillcrest Arena, which is expected to be used for Olympic and Paralympic curling as well as Paralympic sledge hockey, and two community ice rinks -- Killarney and Trout Lake -- that are to be used as secondary arenas for the Olympics. The Hillcrest Arena is being designed to be built at the same time as a non-Olympic facility, the adjacent Percy Norman Aquatic Centre. These two are considered to be one project, as they'll be built simultaneously by the City and Parks Board, with some major funding and expertise from the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC), and they use common heating and cooling systems. The Arena is due to converted after the 2010 Games to a variety of uses -- curling, a community centre and a new library branch, primarily.

The estimated cost in 2008 dollars -- which would be about mid-point in their construction during a time when construction inflation is running about 9% per year in the region -- is expected to be C$105.6 million for the venues and the pool. VANOC had earlier agreed to provide the City and Parks Board a total of C$33 million towards the work done on the facilities except for the swimming pool, but has now agreed to chip in an extra C$10 million with some strings attached, and City taxpayers, in a special capital plan vote, agreed to pay a total of C$34.5 million. That means only C$79.9 million of the overall costs are covered by existing funding arrangements.

Documents dealing the refinancing plant to deal with the C$28.1 million shortfall have been prepared by the City's General Manager of 2010 Games Operations and the Parks Board's General Manager of Parks and Recreation, with input from the City's Director of Finance and the City Manager to the City's Planning and Environment Committee. In it, the City Manager Judy Rogers, who is the City's appointee on the Board of VANOC, says, "The facilities... are the primary legacies that will remain with the City once the 2010 Games are completed... Faced with increasing costs for the City-funded portion of these facilities, and with a request from VANOC for funding support for the Curling Venue... Council has difficult choices to make."

The options primarily involve various combinations of going ahead with all of some of the projects as planned, and covering various sized shortfalls by pulling funds from other proposed capital projects, inter agency borrowings, taking on more risk in exchange for money up front that can be used as a sinking fund to pay for conversion of the Hillcrest Arena complex by the City itself. Some of these options could have the effect of forcing VANOC to move a venue elsewhere.

However the staff are offering a plan for the City Council and Parks Board trustees to approve which would see all the venues go ahead as planned, providing they are willing to approve a financing plan that could make quite a few City taxpayers annoyed.

The plan would have the City:

Contribute C$8.2 million to VANOC towards the construction of Hillcrest Arena. Here's where that money comes from -- C$2.3 million for the new Hillcrest Branch Library as a loan from the City's Capital Financing Fund, to be repaid by an increase in funding in the operating budget and subject to the city putting a funding request for the new Hillcrest Branch Library on its 2009 – 2011 Capital Plan planning process as a priority; and C$5.9 million would be another loan from the Capital Financing Fund, to be repaid from unencumbered revenues in the Park Board's operating budgets, beginning in 2010, when some unrelated loans will have been repaid, freeing up discretionary cash flow. In addition this contribution would be conditional: that VANOC contribute at least C38 million, and any further design or construction savings that are identified as the process continues accrue to the City;

An additional C$10.46 million (including about C$400,000 from one of the capital loans above) for the aquatic centre bringing its total allocation to C$29.96 million. The C$10.46 million would be a loan from the Capital Financing Fund to be repaid from "unencumbered revenues in the Park Board Operating Budget beginning in 2010" and continuing for about 10 years:

An internal loan of C$1 million, also from the Capital Financing Fund, so the LEED Gold environmental rating for the curling/aquatic centre complex can be achieved, instead of the usual Silver, with about C$600,000 of that to be paid to VANOC and the remaining C$400,000 added to the project budget of the Aquatic Centre. This "advance", would be repaid by the City's Park Board and Library Board from "avoided energy costs" following conversion of the facility after the 2010 Games:

Assume VANOC's responsibility for converting the Hillcrest Centre to its post-Games configuration at a cost estimated at C$12.35 million in 2010 dollars, on the condition that VANOC give the City C$10.0 million, which is the present value of that future expenditure.

Approve moving C$10.46 million, including the C$400,000 noted above, to the aquatic centre project, bringing the total allocation to C$29.96 million. That C$10.46 million would be a loan from the Capital Financing Fund to be repaid from "unencumbered revenues in the Park Board Operating Budget beginning in 2010."

Approve additional funding of C$6.5 million -- and that may yet change as it's subject to final design and tendering -- to complete the replacement of both Killarney and Trout Lake community ice rinks in time for the 2010 Games, bringing the total cost to C$26.5 million. Here's where that money comes from: C$2 million from a "reallocation" of Park Board funding in the 2006 – 2008 Capital Plan; C$2 million from the i"nflation adjustment provision" in that Capital Plan; and C$2.5 million as a loan from the Capital Financing Fund, also to be repaid from the "unencumbered revenues" in the Park Board Operating Budget beginning in
2010,

The Vancouver Park Board's contribution to the projects would total C$21.5 million which, in broad terms, comes from a C$1 million LEED Gold advance, C$2 million from a "reallocation" of priorities in the Board's 2006 – 2008 Capital Plan earlier approved by voters, and bridge financing of pools, rinks and legacy allowances for the rest. The reallocations in the capital plan involved a host of items, such as C$100,000 from improvements to Stanley Park, C$100,000 in major community centre maintenance, C$75,000 in fixing or replacing roofs of Parks Board buildings, and even C$75,000 that was to go to painting buildings. More than half, however, about C$1.5 million would come from plans to delay demolition and field costs associated with the Hillcrest project until after 2010, when some additional payments on unrelated projects end and Park Board's cash flow correspondingly increases.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 21, 2006

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1873
2010 BOARD CHAIRMAN SAYS VANOC'S FOCUS IS ONLY ON TWO NUMBERS

The chair of the Board of Directors for the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) says that there are only two budget numbers that VANOC is paying attention to, and those are the ones for which it is accountable.

Jack Poole, who has a long history in major real estate development in British Columbia, says the two numbers are those of the capital and operating budgets, which are kept separate in VANOC's accounting system. The capital budget has been set at C$580 million, and VANOC is expected to publish the operating budget, roughly C$1.7 billion, in late November or December.

Poole made his comments amidst a storm of comments and commentary that followed the release of the a report by BC Auditor General Arn van Iersel last week into government costs and cost accounting of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Much of the debate has been over what is, or what should be, defined as an Olympic-related project or service, such as a major upgrade to the Sea to Sky highway between West Vancouver and Whistler, expenditures connected with the rapid transit line under construction between Vancouver, Richmond and the Vancouver International Airport (the RAV line), or the expansion of the Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre, which is to host VANOC's international media centre from the last half of 2009 to the late spring of 2010.

"The infrastructure projects that are underway by the provincial government -- while as a taxpayer, I'm delighted to see them, and they're all helpful to different degrees to the Games -- but we're not accountable in any way for them. Frankly, if we were to be given some credit for the Sea to Sky highway, and the RAV line and the convention centre, I'd wear that badge proudly. But it's the province that decided to proceed with them."

Poole concedes he was taken aback by the Auditor General's report. "I was a little surprised that [van Iersel] would account for them that way, but I never get fussed by the accounting treatment for things. For me, the Sea to Sky highway is more important for what it will do for this region. I think it's the most well-executed P3 [public-private partnership] public works project that we've seen in the country. It is clean, it is professional, it is user-friendly, it's ahead of schedule and under budget. I think it's time people started talking about our wins; it's easy to give lots of negatives."

Poole notes there has been lots of talk about how hard it is to get construction companies, and how labour and materials shortages have contributed to a rise in the costs of commercial and industrial construction. "It's an exciting cycle that we're in. We have virtually full employment. It's a wonderful cycle. It's challenging, but it's a good problem for BC to have. Throw the country into a recession, and sure, we could build the Games for less. This cycle, this prosperity. Look what it's done for our governments revenues; they're soaring. You can give us some credit for that. If the accounting were properly done, the new government revenues may well pay for the total investment in the Games even before they're done. No one denies that."

Poole says cities and their countries compete so hard to host a set of Olympic Games now because, "it's the return on investment proposition for them. It's the tradition in the Olympics that taxpayers pay for the long-term sports venues, and the private sector looks after everything else. And the governments get their money back because they tax the hell out of everything. It's actually a good story, but we're going to be a visible target for everybody from now until 2010."

The Board chair says, however, that he and van Iersel agree that VANOC must always work hard to deal with the risk management that accompanies each of the venues, just as the concept does for every real estate project. He says that VANOC has been doing just that long before the consultant reports commissioned by the federal and provincial governments last spring commented on it as well. "Of course, we have no difference of opinion on that."

And what about the recommendation that, as Poole puts it, VANOC have "construction czar" to oversee all of Olympics construction work. "We engaged one some time ago [for VANOC's venues]. Dan Doyle [Executive Vice President, Construction], he's the best in the business." Poole says that most of the issues that were identified in the review reports "have already been dealt with. We're on the same page now."

Poole says he doesn't want to give the impression that he's minimizing the job that VANOC has left to do, "There are going to be a lot of twists and turns before we get this project [the Olympics and Paralympic Games] home, but we're absolutely comfortable now that we've got the tools to bring the project in under the C$580 million."

Poole says the concept of bringing buildings in for a specific amount of money is not new to either him or VANOC's construction team. "If you're constructing a building, and you've got equity and mortgage financing, and that's all you've got, then you have to complete it for that. And you don't know, at the very beginning, exactly all that you have to do. You have to react, and respond and adjust, and in the end, the cash in and the cash out have to balance. The Olympics are no different."

Meanwhile, Poole, noting that VANOC's first public business plan is expected to be presented to the Board at its November meeting -- "this is the serious one," he says -- it will be a major tool for use in the negotiations VANOC has yet to have with the International Olympic Committee over cost-sharing the revenues from sponsorship and broadcast revenues it has negotiated in the sales of rights packages. The VANOC executive management team spent much of the first part of this month going through the first major draft of the business plan with its middle managers.

Poole says the IOC revenue talks won't take place until next year, so while the November business plan should provide a good look at operational costs of delivering the Games, revenues are still not fixed. Poole says VANOC is holding off on the revenue talks for good reasons. "We don't want to the IOC until we're comfortable, and the Board has basically signed off on what the operating budget's going to be. We don't want to go to it until we have the whole story. Essentially, we can only go to them once. But it will still be cash in, cash out. Once we know what the cash out is expected to be, we'll know what the cash in should be, with some flexibility to fine tune it and take some of the bells and whistles out if we have to. The first thing we need to decide is what the costs are likely to be to get us through to the end of 2010, and then we'll know what to ask the IOC to contribute to balance that."

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 20, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1872

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

MEDIA REACTION TO BC AUDITOR GENERAL'S REPORT STRONG, WIDESPREAD

VANOC executives and the BC government have both been under quite a bit of political and media pressure and editorial complaint since the release of the Auditor General's report last Thursday. Two of the BC opposition-party leaders -- the New Democratic Party's Carole James and the BC Green Party's Adriane Carr -- have each called for the resignation of VANOC CEO John Furlong and, in James's case, the resignation of the head of the Finance Committee in VANOC's Board of Directors, Ken Dobell, a BC government appointee. It's been getting a fair amount of media play, but much more widespread are the editorials and media commentary that are essentially saying the true cost of the Games has ballooned from C$580 million to C$2.5 billion. The former figure is VANOC's capital budget, the latter figure is the calculation by the BC Auditor General of all Canadian taxpayer-related costs of capital projects and government operations -- federal, provincial and municipal -- that the Auditor General connected in various way to the 2010 Games. The stories about the costing debate, in which the numbers have been used as direct comparisons of how the cost of the Games have either changed or been "hidden" have been carried in news media throughout North America and Europe.

BC GOVERNMENT HOLDS FIRM ON OLYMPIC DEFINITIONS

Both BC Premier Gordon Campbell yesterday and his provincial Finance minister, Carole Taylor today, are firmly of the opinion that BC auditor-general Arn van Iersel should not have included items such as the rapid transit line station that is to be built at the south end of the Cambie Bridge in Vancouver, nor the Sea-to-Sky highway upgrade as an Olympic cost. The BC cabinet member in charge of BC's Olympic responsibilities, Colin Hansen, made similar comments last week as report was released. Premier Campbell said the transit station will be used to service a new Vancouver neighbourhood that won't be developed until after the 2010 Games are finished, and that before the 2010 Bid was considered, Victoria had planned to upgrade the highway, which also services Squamish and Pemberton as well as Whistler and West Vancouver, by 2012, that it had simply advanced the timing of what it was going to do anyway. Taylor, as she answered questions following presentation of the province's first-quarter report, said, the Auditor General has not identified any new or unbudgeted costs related to the Olympics. "The Sea-to-Sky, full cost C$1.983 billion, that's in the budget," Taylor said. "The C$600 million, which is the cost of actually presenting the Games, is in the budget. The discussion that's been going on is where in the budget. He would prefer to see it all in one place and labeled Olympics, and the government believes that Olympics is the label for putting on [presenting] the Olympics." van Iersel also estimated the BC government had foregone revenue of about C$150 million by not setting up hedging accounts to offset the quickly changing relationship between the Canadian and US dollar, since Games-related revenues from broadcasting and sponsorships were to be paid in US currency. Taylor said if the Finance department advised VANOC on hedging, which it had not, the large increase in the Canadian dollar value that occurred would not have been anticipated. The ministry forecast at the time was for the dollar to climb to US$0.68, not the more than US$0.89 it has reached, she said.

VANCOUVER CITY STAFF REPORTEDLY WORKING ON PROPOSAL TO ADD DENSITY TO OLYMPIC VILLAGE

The Vancouver Sun's city hall reporter, Frances Bula, reports today that there may be more density allotted to the Vancouver Olympic Athlete Village, the buildings of which are being built by the developer, the Millennium Group. "As for the 'modest market' housing, the one-third of housing that was supposed to be for Vancouver's middle-income residents: it's not going to be one-third. And the 100-150 units out of the 1,100 are only going to happen because because city staff are preparing to ask council to allow an extra 90,000 square feet of density -- worth close to C$20 million at the price Millennium paid -- to make it economically possible to build them. That's in spite of what everyone agrees is an all-out Millennium effort to find creative solutions and to kick in some of its own profit. That potential deal got only narrow approval from the [City's] urban design panel, in a 4-3 vote, and is raising concern from some critics that it will mean altering the feel of the development as more density is shoehorned in." Meanwhile, Merrick Architecture of Vancouver will be working on some of the residential buildings on the site that will house athletes, Robert A.M. Stern, a New York architect is to build the most prominent residential building on the site, and well-known Vancouver architect Arthur Erickson is expected to design the community centre, which will be used by VANOC during the 2010 Games for the main building where athletes, VIPs and broadcasters will be meeting.

RESOURCES

Merrick Architecture
www.merrickarch.com/

Robert A.M. Stern Architects:
www.ramsa.com/

Arthur Erickson:
www.arthurerickson.com/

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 20, 2006

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1871

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

VANOC URGES BUSINESS IN CANADA TO SUPPORT 2010

VANOC CEO John Furlong has reportedly urged business across the country to become involved in the support of the 2010 Winter Games. He was speaking in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, on Monday as a keynote speaker at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce annual general meeting. His comments were noted by local reporters, who quoted him as saying, "We need to somehow really strike a connection with every citizen. We need Canadians to connect with this in a way that will genuinely improve our country."

2010 FIGURE-SKATING QUALIFIER TO BE HELD IN LOS ANGELES

The International Skating Union today awarded the Staples Centre in Los Angeles as the location of the 2009 world championships for figure skating, which will serve as a qualifier for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. Placements at worlds will determine how many spots a country gets for the Winter Games. The 2009 worlds will be held March 23-29. Los Angeles defeated bids from Helsinki, Finland, and Budapest, Hungary.

CANADIAN SKIERS RAISE C$50,000 IN GOLF TOURNAMENT

Alpine Canada and Alberta Alpine, raised more than C$50,000 during the 11th Annual Quest for Gold Golf Tournament in Calgary, Alberta over the weekend according to organizers. About 150 golfers were involved. The money is distributed to the Canadian Alpine Ski Team, the Canadian Disabled Alpine Ski Team, ACA’s National Development programs as well as Alberta Alpine Ski Association. Alpine Canada is the governing ski body in the country. The sponsor list included General Motors, Trump Vegas, Nike, West Jet, Jones Brown, Husky Energy, Peak Photography, Ski Canada Magazine, Resorts of the Canadian Rockies, Canadian Pacific Railway, Raymond James, Fort Chicago, A-1 Signs, the Lake Louise Winterstart World Cup, CBRE and Coca-Cola Bottling Company.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 19, 2006

Monday, September 18, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |General| #1870
NEW SURVEY SHOWS BC'S NOT SURPRISED BY AUDITOR GENERAL'S 2010 NUMBERS, BUT OK WITH GAMES MANAGEMENT

A poll of British Columbians by the survey firm Mustel Group about how people felt about last week's Auditor General’s report of the 2010 Olympics reveals:

A majority of BC adults expect the Olympics to go "over budget" (78% say they are “not very” or “not at all confident” the Games will stay within budget).

Residents tend to be confident in the way the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) is managing the Games, and they also expressed confidence in the provincial government, federal government, as well as the Auditor General in their respective roles in the Games.

If spending exceeds the budget, residents would prefer government to contribute additional funds (55%) than to scale back or eliminate venues (39%, with 6% undecided).

Opinions are more divided on the issue of whether such projects as improvements to the Sea-to-Sky Highway should be included in the Olympics’ budget, but a greater proportion (53%) believe these should be excluded from the budget rather than included (43% with 4% undecided).

Opinions overall are consistent across the province and across various demographic segments, except that residents 55 years and older are more concerned about budget overruns, less supportive of providing additional funding, and less confident in all parties involved in the games. However, they tend to believe that additional projects, such as the highway improvements should not be included in the Olympics budget.

The poll was taken just after the Auditor General's report was released last Thursday; it was commissioned by a Vancouver TV station and a radio station.

RESOURCES

Interview Dates: September 15 - 17, 2006
Sample Size: 500 random telephone interviews
Methodology: Random sample of BC adults, 18 years of age and over
Margin of error: ±4.4% at the 95% confidence level;
Sponsored by: Global TV / 1030 News

RESOURCES

The polling company that did the survey:
www.mustelgroup.com/
The link to the survey, which is shown in graphical form, is here:
www.mustelgroup.com/press.html

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 19, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1869
VANCOUVER MAYOR TO MEET WITH BC OVER OLYMPIC VILLAGE SCHOOL FUNDING ISSUE

Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan says he will meet with the BC government in an effort to get it to pay for an elementary school on the grounds of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Athlete Village so that the structure can first be used as a large polyclinic during the Games.

The Vancouver School Board has been told that the BC Education ministry won't fund the building under its normal policy of waiting until there are sufficient children to populate it. Although the Olympic Village developer, the Millennium Group, plans to pre-sell the apartments in the Village before the Games for people to take possession of their units during the summer of 2010, the School Board is now looking for bridge financing to help construct the school in time for the Games, knowing it can be paid off once the residents arrived in time for the September start of the 2010 school year.

"I will meet with provincial officials to try to impress upon them how important it is that the school be funded as soon as possible," says Sullivan. The Olympic Village is in the southeast corner of False Creek, across from an area that was recently settled quickly. Sullivan says, "We have found on the other side of False Creek that there were a lot of families that wanted to live in higher density neighbourhoods. I expect [the Olympic Village area] will be an real family neighbourhood. It's important for us to get the school up and running as soon as possible."

Sullivan says the School Board, which was considering the City, the developer and the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) as possible sources for the bridge financing before time to start construction of the school runs out next spring, hasn't shown up at his door yet. "I haven't been approached, but I know that the standard approach by the Ministry of Education is that they don't fund the schools for children until they see the whites of their eyes. We know that this neighbourhood will be very attractive to families. We'll do whatever we can to move that timetable forward."

Sullivan, who is a quadriplegic, says that the 2010 Paralympics will help Whistler and Vancouver, which will each be hosting some of the Games, "to be the most accessible cities in the world." And, he adds, he'll be working with Whistler to between now and 2010 to "help make that happen."

Sullivan was in Whistler on Saturday to mark the unveiling of the 2010 Paralympic logo and mark the groundbreaking of the Whistler Athlete's Village.

The Whistler Village, although following a similar process to that of Vancouver's Athlete Village in becoming the core of a new neighbourhood, is taking somewhat different municipal course in getting there. For instance, the rezoning of the Whistler Village was done before any buildings were planned in detail. Vancouver, on the other hand, has worked out a deal with Millennium Development to provide the buildings that will first be used for the 2010 athletes; they will then become private apartments for the centre of a new, much larger neighbourhood, and the rezoning for those buildings is due to come to City Council for approval in October. The city is putting in its own public infrastructure, such as the roads and utilities first.

Sullivan, who's seen a significant draft of the the rezoning plans, was asked if he liked what he saw. He answered this way: "I'm very pleased with the kind of [development]. The pressures they [the developer and the City] are under are pretty significant. There's a lot of negotiating, and a lot of re-thinking that has to be done to make sure that all the stakeholders are happy with the outcome. I think they've done a pretty good job of balancing the interests. It's going to be one of the premier neighborhoods of the City. It's important that what we building in the Olympic Village is going to function as vibrant and healthy neighbourhood. I think our staff has done a great job in ensuring that happens.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 18, 2006

Friday, September 15, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1867
A BC GOVERNMENT STUDY OF VANOC'S VENUE CONSTRUCTION METHODS MAKES SEVEN RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CHANGE

Partnerships British Columbia, in a due-diligence report for the BC government, has offered a list of seven recommendations on how the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) can improve its construction operations.

The report was prepared during April and May, at the same time as a similar review was being conducted for the federal government by Pacific Liacon. Both consulting operations were reporting on whether their respective governments should approve VANOC's request for C$55 million from each to top up its capital construction budget to C$580 million.

The recommendations show that as of last spring, VANOC needed to know that several venues were going to be funded soon, or it would be taking a significant risk if it went ahead with them. The report recommended money be released to VANOC before the full grant was approved, thus "allowing them to proceed." And it recommended the full request not be released until a new agreement with VANOC on reporting was reached. A new agreement with such provisions is now in place.

Interestingly, one of the recommendations -- about setting up an advisory construction committee -- was originally done long ago and announced by VANOC's CEO John Furlong on June 22, 2004. At that time, he said, he was establishing a "volunteer capital works committee" to help work on how the 2010 Games venue development program was to be handled and delivered. The first two appointees of the committee included David Podmore, president and chief executive officer of Concert Properties Ltd, who was to chair the committee, and Eric Martin, the vice-president of development for Bosa Developments of Vancouver. It was the last time the committee was ever mentioned.

Partnership's Al Sakalauskas, the organization's Chief Project Advisor, and Eva Hage, Assistant Vice-President, recommended that:

VANOC should continue to complete project definition reports and project execution plans for all venues, including a complete quantitative risk register and analysis by October 31, 2006 and demonstrate how they will meet the proposed $580 million capital construction budget.

The Province approve and release its share of the funding immediately for venues where risk mitigation strategies are in place -- the UBC Hockey Arena, the Richmond Oval, the Vancouver Athletes’ Village and the Training Venues, allowing them to proceed. For the venues where there are no project definition reports and execution plans or risk mitigation strategies, the Province should not release its share of the additional funding until the proper documentation and reporting is complete.

The Province’s share of additional funding should be released on VANOC expressed agreement that it will provide regular progress reporting of earned value and contingencies, taking into account the risk analysis and VANOC meeting any other funding conditions.

The Province should monitor, on a regular basis, VANOC’s progress on implementing project-support services and risk-management plans to ensure that they are implemented on time.

VANOC should seek opportunities to mitigate construction and schedule risks by transferring risks to third parties with a fixed contribution. Venues where this strategy should be explored include the Hillcrest Curling venue, the Whistler Athletes’ Centre and Whistler Athlete’s Village. VANOC management should report back to the VANOC Finance Committee by October 31, 2006.

A capital works or a construction advisory committee be established at the earliest possible date to receive, review and make recommendations on monthly status reporting, progress measurement and forecasting to the VANOC Finance Committee.

Where “sole sourcing” and “construction management” is the procurement method, a documented and approved value-for-money approach is recommended for the VANOC Finance Committee to demonstrate that this is the preferred procurement method.

Where VANOC has maintained project delivery responsibility, it is recommended that various project delivery options should be considered and incorporated into contract provisions to mitigate the risk of claims at the end of the process. Such contract provisions could include:

-- Incentive Programs
-- Value Engineering
-- Cost and Schedule Controls
-- As-Built Schedule
-- Impact Claim Deadlines
-- Economic Price Adjustments
-- Procurement of Equipment and Materials
-- Realistic Contract and Performance Schedules
-- Timing of Construction
-- Tendering Document Quality
-- Securing Experienced Personnel

Besides Sakalauskas and Hage, the PBC team included specialists in real estate, construction and cost estimation; Mark Miles and Tom Simpson. PBC, in turn, hired consultants with expertise in the construction of ice arenas and real estate development in Whistler for specific analyses.

The Report also lists a number of things PBC found that needed to be fixed. They include:

The investigators felt VANOC was being "optimistic" as it made inflation adjustments. It was using quantity surveyors' estimates that assumed "there is an open and competitive bidders' market responding to stipulated-sum guaranteed contracts."

They didn't think that decreasing labour productivity had been been "adequately accounted for" in developing the current capital construction budgets, "especially for the Whistler venues." They felt that increased the risk of cost overrun for these venues.

They also felt that VANOC's reporting and definitions of contingency are inconsistent, and that made it "difficult to assess what is a 'true' contingency, which they defined as an amount to cover unforeseen events -- versus an allowance for discretionary changes in completing the venues. They felt that VANOC needed to confirm the actual contingency is.

Most of the venues are now at the point where there's not much that can be done in reducing their costs or design through what the Report terms "value engineering," but there is still some potential to adjust the scope for the Whistler Athletes’ Village and the Hillcrest Curling venue in Vancouver, "both venues having scope and design which appears to be in excess of minimum requirements."

They are also worried about the process VANOC's using in the way it's managing some of its venues. It notes that VANOC last spring made "significant investments in project services support to effectively manage the venue projects under its control." Centralized project teams help project managers with administration. But the Reports authors were concerned :that VANOC will not be able to implement this system in a timely manner. It also remains to be seen whether the system is properly implemented and used as planned."

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 15, 2006

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1866

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

GODFREY, FISHER EXPECTED TO BE REAPPOINTED TO VANOC BOARD

Three items of interest on the agenda for Whistler's regular municipal council meeting on Monday. The council is expected to re-appoint two of the municipality's senior people to three-year terms as its representative and alternate to the VANOC Board of Directors on Monday. Council is expected to approve Jim Godfrey, executive director of Whistler 2010 Games as its primary representative on VANOC's board, and Ms. Barrett Fisher, the head of Tourism Whistler since 2003, as its alternate appointee. The terms of all of VANOC's directors expire at the organizatons annual general meeting in November. Godfrey has been a member of the VANOC Board of Directors since VANOC's inception. He also sat on the Board of Directors for the organization's predecessor, the Vancouver Bid Corporation. Leslie Clarke, the head coach for the Canadian Paralympic Team is expected to give a presentation, and the third and final reading of “Zoning Amendment Bylaw Temporary Commercial Uses in Industrial Zones Related to the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games, No. 1759, 2006," to be first debated in council a month ago, allows, once it's approved, the municipality "to issue temporary use permits for temporary commercial uses related to, or associated with, the administration and operation of the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games." It involves 2010-related activities in commercial and industrial areas of Function Junction, south of the municipality. The area specifically includes all addresses on Alpha Lake Road, Millar Creek Road and Lynham Road.

SWEDISH BIATHLON TEAM CONSIDERING MT. WASHINGTON AS 2010 TRAINING AREA

Comox Valley Spirit of B.C. committee chair Susan Kelsey and Evan Jennings, associate director of Olympic Portal Services for Bell Canada, shared the same stage in Comox recently. They were both in the mid-Vancouver Island town of Comox in connection with the Connecting Communities tour of 2010 Legacies Now, which is travelling with a road show about the 2010 Games to 10 communities in the province, reports the Swedish biathalon and cross-country national teams are expressing interest in using the Mount Washington ski resort near Comox as their training grounds until 2010. Kelsey. Jennings, representing the largest Canadian corporate sponsor of the 2010 Games and which is also supporting the Legacies Now tour, gave a C$1,000 grant to a local athlete; that's something the company is doing at each of the stops. 2010 Legacies Now is a non-profit society aimed at assisting communities to create social economic opportunities leading up to and beyond the Olympic and Paralympic Games. It gets most of its funding from the BC government.

CANAL FLATS SLASHES BUDGET OF 2010 VIEWING SITE AFTER GRANT APPLICATION FAILS

There's no word on why, but the little village of Canal Flats in BC's Kootenay area has been told that is application for about C$287,000 as a grant from the BC government's Olympic/Paralympic Live Sites program was rejected. A proposed viewing centre for the 2010 Games was to be located in the new municipal centre. The viewing centre will still be incorporated into the building, officials say, but project costs have been scaled back to C$40,000. The village is located at the south end of Columbia Lake.

RESOURCES

Jim Godfrey's VANOC resume and photo:
tinyurl.com/ge7bn

Jim Godfrey, Executive Director
2010 Winter Games, Whistler
604-935-8102
Fax: 604-935-8109
E-mail: jgodfrey

--

Barrett Fisher's VANOC resume and photo:
tinyurl.com/k9svf

Tourism Whistler
4010 Whistler Way
Whistler, B.C.
V0N 1B4
Phone: (+1) 604.932.3928
Fax: (+1) 604-932-723

--

Our first, more detailed story on the Whistler rezoning bylaw:
'Whistler aims to control "temporary commercial uses" for 2010 staging on more than 100,000 square metres'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:1817; Published on Friday, August 18, 2006]

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 14, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1865

Here are three more moguls we ran into today:

BC OLYMPIC SECRETARIAT PLANNING TO LAUNCH SEVERAL INITITIVES THIS YEAR

The BC government's Olympic Secretariat office says that before this year is finished, it intends to launch what it calls "The 2010 Business Network." This, it says, is to be a "comprehensive database" to profile businesses interested in supplying the 2010 Winter Games. The Secretariat says the Network will "serve as a promotional avenue for these businesses and a way to identify other firms for potential strategic relationships and partnerships. By providing a venue for linking companies together to bid on, and compete for, Games-related projects, B.C. firms will be developing new relationships that may lead to further opportunities to expand into new markets and create new trade and investment activities before, during and after 2010." The idea for this was floated last year when we reviewed long-range plans of 2010 Commerce Now, a government's website. The BC Secretariat also says it will be launching a new "2010 Business Information Kit" by year's end. The Kit, it says ambiguously, is designed, "to help access B.C. communities to Games business opportunities." The BC Secretariat "with a year" will also be launching a storefront 2010 Commerce Centre in Vancouver. The retail operation will be "designed to showcase B.C. businesses and engage foreign investors in building relationships with B.C. and B.C. businesses."

VICTORIA HAS SO FAR SPENT C$13 MILLION OF C$20 MILLION ON 2010 LIVE SITES PROJECTS

The BC government, as of today, has spent or firmly committed C$13.1 million of the C$20 million it budgeted for its 2010 Live Sites program; the money is going to 84 projects around the province. The program provides funding to build or upgrade community facilities "that leave a lasting Games legacy within the community or for the development of Olympic and Paralympic event viewing venues." Awards of up to C$330,000 are available, and most of the committed funds are going to various municipal-related projects.

BC TRANSFER OF LAND TO TWO 2010-RELATED ABORIGINAL GROUPS STILL IN FUTURE

The BC government still thinks it will be able to transfer about 120 hectares (300 acres) of crown land to the Squamish and Lil'wat aboriginal bands as part of its negotiations with them in connection with their support of the 2010 Winter Olympics. The cost of the land, in the Sea-to-Sky corridor between Vancouver and Whistler, is part of the BC government's C$600 million Olympics envelope. However, we've also learned the province has also agreed to "support" the Squamish and Lil’wat in studying potential "economic opportunities on the land. So far, they've identified the potential for a championship golf course, a Nordic lodge, a recreational campground and housing, but specific locations have not been released.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 14, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #1864
VANCOUVER BOARD OF TRADE SAYS BC AUDITOR GENERAL'S ANALYSIS OF 2010 COSTS IS "EXAGGERATED"

The Vancouver Board of Trade is accusing the Auditor General of British Columbia of exaggerating the total costs of the 2010 Olympics.

The Board, under the pen of Dave Park, chief economist and assistant managing director, says the auditor general "issued a comprehensive and thoughtful report on the Province’s commitments with respect to the 2010 Olympic Games. However, the report has once again exaggerated the total costs of the Games to all levels of government."

In particular, the Board says, including the full C$600 million capital costs and related interest costs for the upgrading of the Sea-to-Sky Highway "seriously distorts the total reported Olympics cost, since that project had to be undertaken in any event. A more accurate approach would have been to attribute the cost to the upgrade being undertaken earlier than would have been the case without the Olympics, an approach that other reports have used. The improvements clearly were required regardless of the Olympics, as evidenced by the carnage on that highway from all-too-frequent traffic accidents."

Park also says the Auditor General includes in the Olympic cost total the C$117 million that the City of Richmond will spend on the long-track speed skating oval in addition to the VANOC contribution. "This is despite the fact that cost is largely to provide an enduring asset for the City that to a substantial extent may be essentially a community facility aside from speed-skating. The report spells this out in fine print, but nevertheless attributes the full amount to the Olympics."

In other criticisms of the report, Park notes:

"The report correctly notes that the Vancouver Convention Centre Expansion Project is not a Games project, nor is the Canada Line rapid transit project. However, the Auditor General has included in Olympic costs the C$8 million rapid transit stop at Second Avenue in Vancouver on the grounds that it will serve the Olympic Athlete’s Village being constructed nearby. However, the real justification for this stop is the major development that will emerge there after the Olympics."

The Auditor General also includes in Olympic costs the amounts that Vancouver and Whistler will spend on 2010 Athlete Villages -- more than C$250 million, "despite the fact that the end result will be substantial housing developments, including social housing and recovery of the investment through market housing development. Again this is recognized in fine print, but nevertheless an erroneous impression is left in the bold print totals."

A substantial part of the BC Olympic Secretariat expenses included in the Auditor General’s totals "are being undertaken to stimulate investment here from outside of British Columbia. As in the case of the Sydney Olympics, hundreds of millions of dollars of investment could be secured. It is therefore inappropriate to attribute all of the expense to the 2010 Games without an offsetting credit or at least recognition that the object of the expenses is not the Games, but securing investment for the provincial economy."

Park says it is "unfortunate that these shortcomings" are included in the auditor-general's report, since "most of the document is useful, penetrating and a distinct asset to understanding the overall subject and more specific parts of it." The discussion of risks and suggestions for additional steps in the management process, he says "are constructive contributions."

Nevertheless, Park says, "the major distortion introduced by these questionable items significantly affects the credibility of the overall totals cited in the report. A more reasonable summation would be in the order of $1.5 billion rather than the $2.5 billion cited in the document."

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 14, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1863
IPC SHUFFLES REPS AT PARALYMPIC LOGO UNVEILING; VANOC PARALYMPIC EVENT TO BE EDITED INTO HIGHLIGHTS PACKAGE FOR LATER BROADCAST; NORDIC TRAILS STILL SET FOR CONSTRUCTION NEAR WHISTLER IN SPRING

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

IPC SHUFFLES REPS AT PARALYMPIC LOGO UNVEILING

The International Paralympic Committee has made a last-minute change regarding the person who will represent the IPC at the Paralympic unveiling ceremony scheduled to start at 3 pm Pacific in Whistler Saturday. Ms. Ljiliana "Lilo" Ljubisic, a five-time Paralympian, a member of the IPC's Governing Board and chairperson of the IPC Athletes Council wont' be able to make the event for health reasons, so IPC Governing Board member Patrick Jarvis, who is a director of VANOC's Board, will appear in her place. Jarvis has been a member of the Canadian Paralympic Committee's Board of Directors since 1993, and has run the organization as its president since 1999.

VANOC PARALYMPIC EVENT TO BE EDITED INTO HIGHLIGHTS PACKAGE FOR LATER BROADCAST

There will be a television feed of the Paralympic ceremony Saturday, but it still won't be broadcast live. The IPC says it will broadcasting a highlights program on its Internet broadcast feed, but it will be delayed by a few days. "As soon as the tape arrives in London," says an IPC source, "it will be encoded and then go live. We will send out a message [to those who follow the IPC] once the day has been decided."

NORDIC TRAILS STILL SET FOR CONSTRUCTION NEAR WHISTLER IN SPRING

Whistler's Forest & Wildland Advisory Committee has been told, after meetings with VANOC, that construction of the legacy portion of the Nordic trails that are part of the 2010 Olympic's Whistler Nordic Centre in the Callaghan Valley will begin when the snow melts, around March of next year. The trails, between five and six metres wide, will be built by using, in part, some old logging roads. The width, among other things, allows room for a grooming machine during the Games, and they are also expected to be used afterward for other recreational purposes during summer months. The trails, about 50 kilometres, start at Alexander Falls and loop to Madeley Lake. The area is expected to become a national training area. Advisory Committee member Tom Barratt told the Committee, "The trail system will be impressive on many levels, and the opportunity to host many events is promising."

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 14, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1862
2010 COMMITTEE CEO SAYS REVIEW OF OPERATIONS WAS VALUABLE

The CEO of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC), says in a prepared statement that he's OK with the general idea of the report issued by the BC Auditor-General today about the impact of the 2010 Games on taxpayers. VANOC worked with the AG's department and other government agencies that were reviewing its operations during the past 10 months.

But he still refers to the venue budget as C$580 million, despite suggestions from auditor Arn van Iersel that it's more.

John Furlong says, "We welcome these reports as a valuable opportunity to enhance accountability and to refine and improve upon our game plan. Staging the Games is a tremendously complex exercise, and this in-depth process has been highly useful, both in confirming our successes, and in some cases considering new approaches as we go forward. The reports provide experienced industry perspectives that will help us as we work together with our government partners to ensure that our venue program is achieved within our C$580 million venue budget. We understand our fiscal responsibility to the taxpayers of BC and Canada to achieve our venue plan and to create lasting community and sport legacies that will be enjoyed for generations."

VANOC thanked its "government partners" for their extensive review of the venue program, and for the August 30th confirmation of a C$110 million funding request to cover the cost increases incurred as a result of building in Western Canada's heated construction environment between 2005 and 2008. VANOC's initial capital estimate was prepared, he noted again, according to International Olympic Committee requirements and bid rules in 2002 dollars with no adjustment for inflation and/or potential rising construction costs.

Dan Doyle, VANOC's executive vice president of Venue Construction provided context to comments in the reports on the venue program. "More than 55% of our venue construction will be completed by the end of the 2006 construction season and we have C$66.8 million in our contingency fund. Our team is making excellent progress and continues to meet the aggressive timelines which will allow Canadian athletes to begin training in Vancouver and Whistler in 2008."

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 14, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1861
BC AUDITOR GENERAL STILL WORRIED ABOUT GAMES IMPACT ON PROVINCE AS VANOC, BC REACH NEW MANAEMENT AGREEMENT

The BC Auditor General's long-delayed report on the status of the plans by the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) are "reasonable." He says the best information as of August 31 is that the Games' current estimated operating revenue is C$1.872 billion against total operational expects of C$1.799 billion and a forecast surplus of C$73 million.

But Arn van Iersel indicates he's still worried about the impact of the venue costs on the BC government. In his opinion, the actual venue capital budget is not the one quoted by VANOC and the BC government, C$580 million, but is C$979 million instead. And, he reports, when all of the other taxpayer potential involvement is included, such as contributions and agreements from the municipalities where venues are being built, and defined federal government funding, the total cost to taxpayers of the Games is C$2.5 billion. He also notes against that risk is the BC government's overall projections of economic benefits to staging the Games is about C$4 billion, but he'd like to see more rigour put into constructing that number.

As Arn van Iersel puts it, "We conclude that VANOC has prepared reasonable operating budget estimates for this stage in the Games. While there are risks inherent in the budget, namely broadcast revenues and domestic sponsorships, it is important to realize this is [is based on] the first budget prepared by VANOC and the numbers will change as newer budgets are developed. Unlike venue capital plans which require very specific designs, and result in more rigid cost estimates, operating estimates are typically softer numbers and continually get refined as more reliable information is obtained. Our review of VANOC’s venue capital-cost estimates, however, indicates there are risks that may result in additional costs to the Province."

The BC government, which knew well in advance when the Auditor-General's report would be released, and had seen a late draft of it for comment, was ready. The minister in charge of BC's Olympics responsibilities, Colin Hasen, released more than 100 pages of documents, some of which had already been made public in June. As he did so, he said that VANOC and the government have already entered into a more comprehensive agreement. Hansen said this morning, "We have reviewed the reports in detail and have taken steps to enhance accountability and set clear reporting and management requirements for VANOC’s venue development program through a Performance and Accountability Agreement,” said Hansen. “The agreement outlines how the Province and VANOC will work together to further strengthen overall performance and accountability and reduce potential financial exposure to taxpayers.”

On the other hand, the Auditor General and the BC government disagree on the political choices of what the BC government and he believe should be encompassed by the BC government's taxpayer-funded commitments that are related to hosting the Games -- his are much wider and include a number of government projects and programs over which VANOC has no control, such as BC government grants under the Live Sites program, and the C$979 million Sea-to-Sky highway upgrade between Vancouver and Whistler. The BC government maintains there will be benefits of the highway upgrade that will extend well beyond the Games, and contribute to social and economic growth in the area. The auditor-general says: "We have included this project as a Games cost since it was included in the capital budget presented to the IOC in the Bid Book and in our opinion is a necessary part of the staging of the Games. We also note it would not be possible to accurately determine the costs of acceleration of this project."

Van Iersel, during an interview today, says, he expanded the list of what is considered an Olympic project for good reason: "People want to know what's the total cost of the Games. It's not just what the province is responsible for, but includes the federal government... and the municipal governments as well. When you add it all together, based on the best current estimates, it's a C$2.5 billion price tag... but we do recognize and acknowledge that there are benefits to these costs that go well beyond 2010."

The report says that the BC government should "consider further" these aspects:

POSSIBLE "UN-FUNDED" GAMES COSTS

The BC government has guaranteed to the IOC it will cover any financial shortfall of VANOC, which he says, "would arise if VANOC is not successful in meeting its revenue or expense targets or does not build in sufficient contingencies to cover items it cannot control — such as inflation, exchange rate fluctuations, the state of the economy, world threats, or weather events." He's worried that even though the IOC's Host City contract also means Vancouver is guaranteeing to protect the IOC for financial reasons as well, he's not going along with the BC government's limited interpretation of the Host City contract. "In our opinion... the obligation of the province to ensure the financial success of the Games has the potential to cause the guarantee to be subject to a much broader exposure. In the province’s view, the guarantee to the IOC is not as broad as we interpret, and should not be relied upon by parties other than the IOC. [My] report uses the broader interpretation of the guarantee, beyond the legal interpretation."

The AG's also notes "Negotiations are still underway on certain key venues, so the estimated costs for those venues are not certain. Also, since VANOC has transferred the construction risk for many of the venues to other parties, it does not control the actual construction process — a situation that increases the risk of time delays. Another risk is that many of the venues have not yet finished detailed design stages and as such, when remaining portions of the projects are tendered for construction, the actual costs could be higher than those currently estimated because of rapidly increasing material and labour costs. If the venue partners experience significant cost pressures and are not able to complete their projects as agreed upon, there is a risk the province will have to contribute more funding to VANOC to get the projects completed."

The auditor general flatly doubts the C$76 million uncommitted contingency that remains in the BC government's C$600 million envelope budget for the BC government's commitments for hosting the Games, calling it simply "a balancing figure." As he puts it, "This amount is not supported by an analysis of the potential cost pressures that could be faced by the Province. Instead it is a balancing item in the Province’s $600 million budget envelope. There are still many pressures facing the capital budget for the Games, and risks inherent in the operating budget as well. There are also no current estimates prepared for some of the costs to be faced by the province for items outside the Games operating and capital budgets, namely, security and medical costs, that could put significant pressure on the contingency allocation. In our opinion, the contingency amount should be updated and based on a calculated assessment of the risks, instead of being a balancing figure in the total budget."

ENSURING EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT AND OVERSIGHT

Van Iersel doesn't think much either of how well the BC government is overseeing VANOC. "The Province has developed a risk management plan and risk register to monitor its Games risks. It has not yet approved VANOC’s risk management plan, that was included in its Version 1 Business Plan. There is no coordinated responsibility over the total capital budget for the Games that was presented in the Bid Book estimates. As such, there is no centralized reporting to the public on the total capital costs of the Games, and no single reporting entity managing the risks inherent in the capital estimates."

At the moment, he says, VANOC is only reporting on the federal and provincial contributions to the venue costs but the BC Ministry of Economic Development is responsible for the Olympic Live Site grants -- widely seen as a slush fund for contributing to the construction or renovation of a number of community buildings in various constituencies around the province -- and the Ministry of Transportation and Highways is responsible for the Sea-to-Sky Highway upgrade costs, which the BC government has been adamant as saying it was long intending to upgrade the highway, generally seen as one of the most dangerous and busy in the province, and likely to get much more so as development along its corridor was gunned by the 2010 Games at either end of it, and that it simply move the work higher up its list of priorities when it became apparent the IOC felt it would be important.

Van Iersel notes that Australia's 2000 Summer Games and Torino's 2006 Winter Games were overseen by single agencies established for the capital budget. "With the 2010 Games, no one central agency is taking responsibility for managing these costs," he says.

The government's Hansen, however, says, "The auditor-general's report reiterates the importance of strong oversight on the management of the province's interest in the Games. The province agrees with and is meeting that requirement, and is, in fact, implementing further actions to provide even more effective management."

ENSURING EFFECTIVE MARKETING

The auditor general says, "The Province’s original plans for the Games called for a highly coordinated, long-term, international, tourism marketing campaign, beginning in 2003, to help achieve an estimated C$4 billion in economic benefits. That campaign was to be built around the Games’ host city selection, construction progress and the Games event itself. Not envisioned in that study, however, was the fact that the IOC restricts international marketing of an Olympic Games until the preceding Olympics are over. This means that the Province’s main Games marketing efforts cannot begin until after the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games have concluded, six years after the start date proposed in the Province’s study. This raises doubts as to whether those economic benefits originally forecasted can actually be achieved."

It's unclear, however, whether the auditor-general is giving sufficient weight -- or any weight -- to the amount of public relations activities and general interest buzz that accompanies the Games and the facts about where it's being hosted every time there are tourist articles written about the locations, or whenever there is a signficant news story -- good or bad -- about the Games. Nor is there anything said about the national TV broadcast across Canada by VANOC host broadcaster CTV about the launch of VANOC's emblem. There has been studies done that indicate there's a high penetration of Canada in terms of the general concept of the Games, whose hosting them and when they'll be held, all of which counts as marketing, whether it's "official", "co-ordinated" or not. In addition, each of its major corporate sponsors has done quite a bit of work already -- though they're far from finished -- in activating their sponsorship at various events, in various corporate promotions or using the combination of VANOC's logo and their logo when advertising. There was also considerable marketing going on with the advent of BC/Canada House in the centre of Torino for three months this year from the start to finish of the Italian Winter Olympics, and eight minutes of international coverage to hundreds of millions of people around the world during the closing ceremonies of those Games.

Van Iersel, on a related topic, notes, "The Ministry of Economic Development has prepared a business plan which includes several strategies designed to leverage the opportunity of hosting the Games. An example of one of the strategies is “in-market representation” where representatives will be locally engaged in select target markets in the United States, Europe and the Asia Pacific in order to undertake investment and trade promotion activities. Currently however, there is no independent forecast of any economic benefits that may be obtained from the strategies contained in that business plan." On the other hand, that work has already begun.

EFFECTIVE HEDGING

The auditor-general argues that since the BC government has guaranteed to the IOC to cover any financial shortfall of VANOC, and since Victoria has the resources and expertise to provide for this risk, "we would have expected the Province to implement a hedging strategy soon after the Games were awarded for this manageable risk. However, as a result of not hedging US dollar revenues for broadcasting and international sponsorships at the time the Games were awarded, approximately C$150 million less in revenue will be realized. In our view, the Province needs to work with VANOC to implement a comprehensive hedging strategy for its foreign-source revenues." Van Iersel does not mention that VANOC has been using hedging strategies for since about last February.

ENHANCING ACCOUNTABILITY AND TRANSPARENCY

The auditor-general agrees the province has made some efforts to detail some of its costs, but he feels it needs to do more. "Other costs to the province, currently indeterminable, include provincial crown-corporation sponsorships, the province’s marketing efforts to promote the Games, and financial support after the Games for legacy assets. In addition, there are potential, also currently indeterminable, costs to the province related to its indemnification of the City of Vancouver and the Resort Municipality of Whistler provided in separate Participation Agreements. Those agreements, however, require Vancouver and Whistler to first seek instruction and approval from the Province before they act under the protection of the indemnification."

van Iersel also says his office intends to review the status of the Games again next year, once VANOC's second business plan, expected to be released in November or early December, is available. "That plan is expected to present a more refined projection of the revenues and expenses of the Games since it will involve lessons learned from the 2006 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games held in Torino, Italy in February of this year."

The Auditor General is careful to say that, he didn't include detailed information on VANOC’s operating revenue and expense estimates. That's because, he reports, "VANOC asked us not to publicly release that information at this time. VANOC is not subject to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, and we cannot release that information without its approval. VANOC was concerned this level of disclosure could result in possible commercial harm." As a result, the Report simply shows the Bid Book estimates alongside VANOC’s current revenue and expense totals from its never-released Version 1 Business Plan, given to the BC government in the spring of 2005. VANOC is expected to begin making its budget information public at some point after its Board has approved its Version 2 Business Plan in November.

RESOURCES

The Auditor-General's current, estimated, minimum Games costs:

Games costs: C$4,338 million
Less: Games revenues: (C$1,832 million)
Net Games cost: C$2,506 million

These costs will be funded by:

Province's cost C$1.5 billion
Local government cost: C$389 million
UBC Property Trust cost: C$10 million

Subtotal: C$1,899 million

Plus:
Federal taxpayer cost: C$607 million

Total taxpayer cost: $2,506 million

==

AG's scope:

"This report is based on information to August 31, 2006. It summarizes the Province’s latest estimates of the Games costs and the current budget of the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC). We examined the processes used to develop the current estimates and the assumptions underlying those estimates. We also examined the processes used to identify the risks associated with the planning and staging of the Games, and to develop plans for managing those risks."

"We reviewed VANOC’s budget to understand the extent of the potential cost to the Province arising from that budget. The current revenue and expense estimates by VANOC appear reasonable to us at this stage in the development of the Games. While there are risks associated with the operating budget, a contingency has been set aside by VANOC."

"We did not examine the day-to-day financial operations of VANOC nor did we review the potential legacy or economic benefits from the Games. At the time of our review, no new information about the latter was available. We did not examine the day-to-day financial operations of VANOC nor did we review the potential legacy or economic benefits from the Games. At the time of our review, no new information about the latter was available."

RESOURCES

The full auditor-general's report, in PDF format:
www.bcauditor.com/PUBS/2006-07/Report2/Report2%2020062007.pdf

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 14, 2006

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1860

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

HANSEN COMFORTABLE WITH TOMORROW'S BC AG'S REPORT ON 2010

The long-awaited report on the 2010 Olympics by BC's auditor-general Arn van Iersel is expected to be released in Victoria tomorrow. "I can't tell you what's in the Auditor General's report but I think you might be surprised at his findings in that regard," Colin Hansen, the BC government minister in charge of the province's Olympic responsibilities told Canadian Press today. He's already seen a draft copy of the report. "Let's put it this way," he's quoted by CP as saying, "I found the auditor general's comments around the C$600 million encouraging," he said. Hansen has constantly maintained that C$600 million, which includes a contingency, is the size of the BC government's budget for the projects it considers are required for hosting the Games, including BC's share of venue construction costs. "When it comes to the direct costs of staging the bids and living up to our obligations, we put a $600-million envelope in place and there's nothing to indicate we have to go beyond that $600 million," Hansen is quoted as saying.

WHISTLER MULLS TEMPORARY 2010 RENTALS FOR GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS

Whistler municipal staff have begun developing what they're calling a comprehensive strategic plan to figure out how to make money from by temporarily renting "Whistler assets" leading up and during the 2010 Winter Games in their community. For instance, they say there is "potential for revenue generation from renting" space in various buildings during the Games period to Games-related user groups." These might include 2010 corporate sponsors or specific suppliers. It's a standard feature in communities that host Olympics, particularly if the "assets", such as libraries or halls, are on main streets, near such streets, or near venues or their approaches.

2010 GAMES AS A TOURISM INCENTIVE GETTING INCREASING MEDIA PLAY

The 2010 Games are getting increasing amounts of play as an incentive in tourism articles about Whistler. We've noticed it in a number of articles as scattered mentions over the last few years, but now it's getting whole paragraphs. The latest is in a lengthy article on a popular commercial tourism-news website called TravelVideo.tv published today, but it's typical of some of the material we've seen elsewhere in a number of traditional and electronic media. The increasing amount of coverage extends the Game's marketing reach. Here's the key paragraph: "Winter 2007 marks the three-year countdown to the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Whistler and Vancouver. Venue development is well underway, including the Whistler Sliding Centre on Blackcomb Mountain, the Whistler Nordic Centre in the Callaghan Valley, and the Athlete's Village located at the southern end of Whistler valley. Guests can ski the men's and women's alpine race runs, or get the scoop at the popular 2010 Information Centre complete with Olympic and Paralympic flags, a real bobsled and a medals podium. In 2010, Whistler will host the Nordic, alpine and sliding events for the 2010 Winter Games as well as nightly medals presentations and celebrations."

RESOURCES

Here's the whole Whistler tourism article:
travelvideo.tv/news/more.php?id=9644_0_1_0_M

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 13, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Sports| #1859
INTERNATIONAL SKIING OFFICIALS HAPPY WITH VANOC'S PROGRESS ON CYPRESS VENUE

A newsletter of the International Ski Federation (FIS) offers some expert insight into well the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) is doing with its Cypress Mountain venue these days.

"FIS Flash" reports today that on September 5th and 6th last week, Eric Fremont, VANOC Manager for Freestyle and Snowboard, Joseph Fitzgerald, FIS Coordinator for Freestyle and Marcel Looze, FIS Snowboard Race Director, Canadian Snowsports Association CEO Tom McIllfaterick and Canadian Snowboard Federation managing director Dave Pym toured the ski venue with Michael Chong, Canadian minister for Sport and Intergovernmental Affairs.

Cypress Mountain will be the location of the Snowboard and Freestyle Skiing competitions in 2010. It's located on a popular ski hill above the suburb of West Vancouver, and will be the only snow sport venue in the greater Vancouver area.

FIS Communications manager Riikka Rakic and newsletter editor quotes Fitzgerald as saying: "It is great to see how far VANOC has progressed. Basically, they have finished constructing the mogul and aerial courses... The final grading of the courses should be finished in two weeks. The snow making and lighting will be completed next summer... the Cypress Mountain venue will feature outstanding courses for the events and include all the necessary sport facilities for the 2010 Games relatively inexpensively, due to the great location and the small footprint of the courses. It was good to understand that the athletes will stay in the Olympic Village in Vancouver, where there is lots of room... I was also able to observe the Snowboard courses and I think that without too much work, the snowboardcross course can be easily converted into a ski cross course, if that event gets added to the program."

She also quotes Looze as saying: "Work for the three Snowboard disciplines is just starting. While a lot remains to be done, the situation is totally under control by VANOC and Eric Fremont's team at Cypress. The plans by [Olympic snowboard course designer] Jeff Ihaksi for the snowboardcross course look great. I am also glad that we will be taking advantage of some synergies: while the pipe in Cypress is being built, new pipes will also be built in Calgary and Quebec according to the same specifications, all under the supervision of Steve Petrie." Ihaksi designed the snowboard cross course for the 2006 Winter Games in Torino.

Rakic writes that "To prepare well for the 2010 Games, VANOC and FIS are currently looking for an appropriate test event in the 2008/2009 season. An ideal option could be organizing the World Cup finals for both disciplines, which would require all the events on the program of the Olympic Winter Games to take place in nine days."

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 13, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1858

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

VANCOUVER NEW TOP MARKET FOR HOTELIERS BECAUSE OF 2010

According to a new survey of American hotel-buying intentions by investors, Vancouver is one of the new hot spots thanks to 2010. The Hotel Investor Sentiment Survey, by Jones Lang LaSalle, says, "At least 53% of survey respondents indicated a desire to buy in Hawaii, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Vancouver, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and the Pacific Northwest. Investors are keen to gain a foothold in these markets, which are expected to yield strong performance. Among these perennial favorites, Vancouver is a new entrant to the top 'buy' rated markets, which is attributable in part to its host role in the 2010 Winter Olympics."

SATURDAY'S REFERENDUM TO DETERMINE PENTICTON'S OLYMPIC PLANS

There's a referendum scheduled for Saturday in Penticton, in BC's Okanagan area, asking residents if they approve the city borrowing $36.1 million to help build a C$56 million sports complex they are being led to believe could attract training camps for athletes bound for the 2010 Olympics. That's the first of the two questions on the ballot; the second, which is not binding on governments, is whether it's OK for the city, if the project goes ahead, to contract a private management company to design, build and operate the new facility as well as a convention centre and arena. That's become a political issue in the debate over the preparations for the sports complex. The BC minister looking after provincial responsibilities for the 2010 Olympics, Colin Hansen, says, “It’s a great opportunity for the City of Penticton as the Olympic teams are looking for first-class, state-of-the-art training venues." Penticton mayor Jake Kimberley agrees, adding, “If we’re successful in getting some of these Olympics athletes, figure skaters or speed skaters as well as hockey players, it would be incredible for residents to have an opportunity to watch that." There is expected to be marketing of the concept to sports organizers during the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Additional funding for the sports centre involves casino tax revenues and a C$9.7 million BC grant.

AUSSIES ADVERTISE FOR PARTICIPANTS IN 'STUPID' 2010 SPORT

From our "Stupid is as stupid does" Department: The Australian Institute of Sport has placed newspaper ads to recruit athletic young women to train for the sport of skeleton in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. The Aussies's first skeleton team, which it fielded for the Torino Winter Games last February, placed 13th, and one of the four of that team has since retired. The Institute identified skeleton two years ago as a medal target because there weren't many participants and it demanded a particular type of strength to accomplish the explosive start that plays a large part in determining the sliding time on an ice track where speeds, which occur as the athlete hurtles head first on a small sled, reach 130 kilometres per hour. AIS says their best response has come from women who are competitive surfers. One of the existing team, Emma Lincoln-Smith, was a surfer when she first heard about AIS's interest. "It sounded like a stupid sport, but I was keen to give it a go." She still thinks it's probably a stupid sport. "But I just love it," she said. "I'll do everything I can to qualify for the 2010 Games."

RESOURCES

Here's the Australia Institute of Sport page that details what it's looking for when it comes to qualifying for Olympic-level skeleton:
www.ais.org.au/talent/skeleton/index.asp

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 13, 2006

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1857

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

2014 BIDDER MOVES TO VANCOUVER MODEL OF 2010 GAMES

In a dramatic late-stage move, Pyeongchang, the South Korean city that is one of three bidding to host the 2014 Winter Olympics, has decided to cut the number of planned locations for holding the Games from five to two. The idea is that the much greater centralization will make its bid more appealing. This is the second bid by the community to host a Winter Olympics after narrowly losing to Vancouver in the race to hold the 2010 Games. The Pyeongchang Bid Committee says that, "All Olympic stadiums and the two Olympic Villages will be centralised in the host cities of Pyeongchang and Gangneung," which are only about 30 minutes' drive apart. "These changes will improve the accessibility to the venues, will result in [improved] athletes' convenience and overall will increase security," it said. The hockey and snowboard stadiums as well as the luge and bobsleigh runs would be moved from three other outlying areas to one of the two planned sites. Salzburg in Austria and the Russian resort of Sochi are on the IOC's shortlist to host the 2014 Games. The choice will be made in July 2007; the city that wins the bid will be part of the 2010 closing ceremonies.

INTRAWEST IS DOING WELL, BUT WHISTLER BLACKCOMB IS HAVING ITS UPS AND DOWNS

Intrawest Corporation of North Vancouver, the owner of the land on which will be held some of the major skiing competitions of the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics said today that it's income from continuing operations was US$55.3 million by the time its fiscal year ended June 30m compared with US$24.1 million in 2005. Income per diluted share for the year increased to US$1.12 in 2006 from US$0.50 in 2005. The company has a 77% interest in Whistler Blackcomb, which is one of the nine North American ski resorts it owns and which will host the sliding competitions and the Alpine skiing events in 2010. The company said that Whistler Blackcomb had a 15% increase in skier visits over the fiscal year, compared with 2005, which is when the company's British Columbia operations experienced what Joe Houssian, chairman and chief executive officer of Intrawest, calls "challenging weather conditions, with heavy rainfall in mid-January followed by warm, dry conditions through mid-March." Houssian says, part of this year's visitor decline was "some spill-over effect from the sub-standard ski season last year, evidenced by the fact that notwithstanding near record snowfall, Whistler Blackcomb's skier visits in 2006 were 2% lower than 2004." That spill over, and another, much briefer, stretch of poor weather during a key booking period in what was fiscal year with much better weather overall, considerably reduced the number of Whistler-bound "destination skiers," the most profitable market segment for this part of the company. There was a correspondingly considerable rebound late in the company's fiscal year, but it was only enough to keep the overall results of the mountain for the year at stand-pat levels. The largest increase in the company's consolidated segment called Travel and Resort operations during the fourth quarter of 2006 was at Whistler Blackcomb where skier visits increased by 39% and revenue increased 33%. According to Houssian, that was "due to strong growth in the regional market in response to significantly improved conditions." He adds that "Revenue per skier visit from ticket sales -- our effective ticket price -- increased moderately from US$29.38 to US$29.72" He also notes that "A 4% aggregate increase at six of our resorts was partly offset by a 1% aggregate decrease at Whistler Blackcomb" and two other resorts. Intrawest in August agreed to a US$2.8-billion takeover by Fortress Investment Group LLC, in a transaction that's due to close in October. Intrawest's trading symbols: IDR (NYSE) ITW (TSX).

VANOC LOOKING FOR CABLE GUYS

VANOC is looking for various sizes, weights and types of electrical and fibre-optical cabling that totals nearly 74 kilometres in length, to be used around the Whistler Sliding Centre. And, it wants about 10 kilometres of those cables to be capable of being directly buried. Some of it is to be armoured, some of it not. Some of it is to be capable of carrying a thousand volts and 128 amps, some less. Companies that want to bid on the supply, delivery and optional local storage -- with just-in-time delivery -- of the cabling need to contact VANOC and fill out their forms by September 18. The cable all has to be delivered to the Sliding Centre's site at 4910 Glacier Lane, just north of Whistler by next March 31.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 12, 2006

Monday, September 11, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1856
CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE IN BC TO HELP 2010 SECRETARIAT DELIVER MEDIA-TRAINING WORKSHOPS FOR BUSINESS

We have more information now on the BC Olympic Secretariat's proposal to develop a media-training workshop program for delivery starting in January to small- and medium-sized businesses in British Columbia as a legacy for the 2010 Winter Games. [For our first report on this, see RESOURCES, below].

The project, which is expected to involve workshops in dozens of communities around the province, is to be co-sponsored by local chambers of commerce, which will be expected to do the marketing for the workshops in their area. The Secretariat is also in the early days of considering the possibility the workshops may also be sponsored by major VANOC sponsors, such as Bell Communications and RBC, which are often involved in 2010-related programs where they can reach business executives as part of their marketing programs and 2010-sponsorship activation.

At this point, it's envisioned there will be "some cost, but it won't be much cost" for the participants, according to a government source. The actual time involvement for the workshop will depend on the outcome of the curriculum development process, which won't be completed until the beginning of December, but, for example, the source says, "it might be a half-day work session, which will deal with who the media are, what makes a story, and what kinds of stories they're looking for. It might be more intensive for certain targeted businesses that think they have good stories to tell.

The main driver to the project, according to the official, is that the, "Secretariat is trying to help businesses take advantage of the media interest in the Games." According to the source, "We know there are going to be 10,000 media people arriving in BC to cover the 2010 Games. Some of them are going to start coming soon -- they're not all going to wait until 2010 -- and we're hoping they're going to be looking for more than just what's happening at the Games. We know that some of BC's businesses have great stories to tell to the international media. If they know a little bit about how to package the stories, or how to pitch them, the Secretariat thinks that will be a real advantage."

There are, according to BC government statistics, about 345,000 businesses with less than 50 employees, but the official says that both government and businesses will be learning during 2007, the first year of the program, it will be treated as a pilot project until it's clearer how big the project might eventually become. "The Secretariat thinks that working with the Chambers, they can target some good businesses. They don't know if everybody's going to be interested, but it depends. A florist in a small town might not think they had a chance to get on the BBC [England's public broadcaster], but they might if they have a story to tell that's good enough." Although the full program is envisioned for the whole province, the pilot project is likely going to be for communities outside the Greater Vancouver area. However, says the official, the geographical area also depends on what BC's chambers of commerce want to do. "The project is about them, too."

The Secretariat is taking on the project, instead of 2010 Legacies Now because the Secretariat is part of the Economic Development ministry, and its mandate to help business, while 2010 Legacies Now, which has developed a workshop type of program that invites various speakers to talk about the impact of Olympic Games, has several arms that focus on other aspects of society, such as culture, and not business.

Once the contents of the workshop has been devised, the government in December will look for proposals to implement it. The Secretariat hopes to find people throughout the province who can deliver the workshops to nearby communities, as that would likely be more cost-effective than hiring one or two firms to take the workshop on the road. "They'll see how many people around the province offer to do the work and decide from there; they might hire some Vancouver companies, say, to do a little bit of travelling. Ideally, they'd like to spread around the work. It's a better resource for people if they have somebody from their own community who delivers the workshop," says the official.

The official says that while there are a number of night-school and similar courses available through the BC school system or community centres that focus on various marketing issues, including media-training and public relations, the official says the Secretariat's program is expected to focus on 2010-related issues, which those programs don't usually address. "The media might start looking around and asking about stories beyond venue construction, and asking what are people in BC like, and what do they do? Hopefully, the Secretariat thinks, they can give some businesses a leg up. And maybe it might also prompt business people to think about taking that school or community class as well."

RESOURCES

Our first report on the story;
'Olympics Secretariat to train BC businesses in PR as 2010 "legacy"'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:1849; Published on Thursday, September 7, 2006]

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 11, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Sports| #1855
IOC TO MULL WORLD CURLING FEDERATION'S CONCEPT OF MIXED DOUBLES FOR 2010 GAMES

Canada's Les Harrison, the president of the World Curling Federation, says in a report to members that the organization has dropped its concept of a new Singles discipline in favour of a new Mixed Doubles format. And, he adds, the organization got its proposal into the International Olympic Committee the day before the September 1 cutoff for consideration for the 2010 Winter Games.

The IOC's Olympic Programing Commission is to consider it, and several other potential additions in disciplines in various sports to the 2010 Games during a meeting at the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, October 16th and 17th.

Harrison says mixed doubles in curling is a "far more exciting proposal" than the singles idea, which had been on the table for more than a year. As Harrison reports, "It was developed as a discipline which would provide a tactical test for the players and excitement for the fans, and has established itself as a better all-around discipline than the Singles format used at the same event. The possibility of a mixed, two-person team -- with strategy discussions for players wearing microphones for television, sweeping and the calling of sweeping -- added the dimensions to meet some of the requirements for acceptance. Teams of mixed gender are more appealing to the IOC, as there is a very limited aspect of that in the Winter Olympics. For development purposes, it seemed to make sense that it would be easier to attract two people to play this format in our curling venues around the world, and play an exciting format rather than going to the facility alone to play for points."

Harrison says the main decision for the switch to doubles came during a meeting last February in Torino while the 2006 Winter Games were underway. "Roy Sinclair [the organization's technical specialist] and I had a meeting with the Olympic Games executive director, Gilbert Felli, the IOC's Sports director, Kelly Fairweather, and several other key players from the television broadcast and results side of that organization. During that meeting, a major discussion took place that provided detailed information and direction on what the requirements might be to have any new discipline accepted. It was felt at the conclusion that it would be very difficult to make a singles competition fulfill the requirements."

Harrison also said he held additional meetings with members of the Vancouver Organizing Committee in June, and "It was also felt that the mixed doubles would be a better format for a new discipline." Harrison said the VANOC June meetings, which included Sinclair, were largely as WCF technical delegates for 2010 and that he and the organization's technical staff will return to Vancouver in November, along with Kate Caithness as the WCF Technical Delegate for the Paralympics, "to hopefully finalize building construction details," now that VANOC has decided to move the Paralympics Wheelchair Curling event from the proposed Whistler site to the Vancouver site, along with as Ice Sledge Hockey.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 11, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC, Sports| #1854
ALPINE CANADA, VANOC BEGIN TRAINING OFFICIALS, VOLUNTEERS FOR 2010 SKIING COMPETITIONS

Alpine Canada (ACA) and the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) have officially begun the process of training and developing officials and volunteers for the 2010 Winter Games, according to the national ski organization.

And in the process, ACA has flagged the first 2010 test events, which are to be held in Whistler in February, 2008, two years from the start of the 2010 Games.

To ensure opportunities are available across Canada for interested candidates willing to develop the necessary skills, Alpine Canada has identified several sanctioned events. Participation as an official or volunteer at these events doesn't guarantee a position, as Canadian ski racing wants to field, as Kyle Marr, an Alpine Canada official puts it, "the very best race-organizing committee possible."

However, says Marr, "It is the objective of Alpine Canada Alpin and VANOC to use the identified races to give all interested Canadians the opportunity to demonstrate their interest in the sport of alpine skiing, and to gain valuable experience in key leadership positions."

Resumes of potential candidates are now being evaluated by the ACA National Officials Committee. Candidates are being expected to commit to several development and training events in each competition season. A conference call for those who have applied will be held later this month.

RESOURCES

The sanctioned events identified for officials and volunteer training opportunities for the 2006-07 season are:

2010 TRAINING EVENTS: FIS sanctioned events listed by ACA and held at an Olympic or Paralympic venue, or where the Race Committee will gain direct training benefit for pre-Olympic test events and the Games, organized in coordination between ACA and VANOC:

-- Pontiac GMC Canadian Championships, Whistler, BC: March 19-27, 2007

The following are development events. These are FIS-sanctioned events listed by ACA, where officials and volunteers can gain experience in key leadership positions. These events will be tracked by ACA.

-- Lake Louise (Alberta) Winterstart World Cup – men: November 25-26, 2006

-- Lake Louise Winterstart World Cup – ladies: December 1-3, 2006

-- Nor-Am Cup – DH - Lake Louise: December 4-8, 2006

-- Nor-Am Cup – SG - Panorama Ridge, B.C.: December 11-14, 2006

-- Nor-Am GS/SL – Ladies - Mt. Ste. Anne: January 3-6, 2007

-- Nor-Am Cup – SG - Apex, BC: February 4-7, 2007

-- Pontiac GMC Cup - Sun Peaks, BC: February 18-21, 2007

-- Nor-Am Cup Finals - Panorama Ridge, BC: : March 14-17, 2007

-- MARS J1 Canadian Championship, Eastern Canada: March 15-18, 2007

-- Sierra Wireless Whistler Cup, Whistler, BC: April 6-8, 2007

2010 TEST EVENTS: There are none scheduled for 2006-07. The First scheduled test event is February 2008, Men’s and Ladies FIS Alpine WC races. The FIS-sanctioned events are designated by ACA and VANOC to test part or all of Games preparation. These typically would include, but not be limited to, FIS Alpine Ski World Cup or FIS Disabled World Cup events held at Whistler.

RESOURCES

Alpine Canada's website:
www.canski.org

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 11, 2006

Friday, September 08, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC, Government| #1852
GROUNDBREAKING CEREMONY FOR WHISTLER ATHLETE VILLAGE SET FOR SEPTEMBER 16

The Resort Municipality of Whistler and the Organizing Committee of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games have scheduled a brief official groundbreaking of the Whistler Olympic and Paralympic Village on Saturday, September 16. It will take place at Village's Cheakamus site.

Preparation off the Village, which will be turned into a resident-restricted neighbourhood following the 2010 Games, began earlier this summer with site clearing. Venue construction is expected to begin next spring and be completed in 2009. VANOC is expected to take over the Village area in late 2009 so it can make the buildings ready for the athletes and set up its Olympic overlay, then return the project to Whistler shortly after the Paralympic portion of the Games conclude.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 8, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1851

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

PLETHORA OF FINANCIAL NEWS ABOUT 2010 EXPECTED NEXT WEEK

Stand by for a lot of confusing media stories over the next week about budgeting issues surrounding the 2010 Winter Games. Several BC government-related reports and reviews of Olympic-related expenditures are due to be released next week. Among them is the long-delayed review of BC government spending on the Games and Games-related projects by the BC Auditor-General's office, and another by the BC 2010 Olympic Secretariat office. The general media have a poor understanding of what is, and is not, included in VANOC's budget, and what is, and is not, an Olympic project, and there will also be several agendas at work as various officials and politicians comment on the numbers and the projects. Separate in your mind what the managers of VANOC control and what the BC government is doing separately to leverage its return on the fact the Games are held in its jurisdiction. The two are often blurred in mainstream news reports. As you read the news reports, make sure you're clear on whether the article or the people who are quoted in it are talking about VANOC's construction budget (currently at C$580 million) or its separate operations budget (about C$1.6 billion at last word), whether it's the BC government's budget for directly hosting the Games ($600 million, which includes BC's half of the VANOC construction budget), for intiatives that use the 2010 Games as essentially a marketing/economic-development device -- such as the BC/Canada House project at the Torino Winter Olympics (which cost about C$6 million), for projects the BC government was intending to do anyway but whose timing was advanced to assist with Olympics support, such as the upgrade to the highway between Vancouver and Whistler, or the Richmond-Airport-Vancouver rapid transit line. These two major projects are not under VANOC's control; they are the responsibility of the BC government because they'll be used and maintained for decades after the Games and VANOC are gone. It's also important to keep in mind there are several programs and offices the BC government is running to bolster tourism for its own agenda, or help it with co-ordination of the myriad of government operations. These, too, are not part of VANOC's budget nor under its control. Others include 2010 Legacies Now, a non-profit society that is doing pre-Games organization and local-project funding throughout the province to ready widely-spread communities for the international media attention that comes with the Games, and the BC Olympics Secretariat office, a part of Economic Development ministry that helps the government with Olympics-related coordination and business development. In the next few weeks, two independent reports on the 2010 construction program, the documents on which the federal and provincial government based their decisions to expand VANOC's construction budget by C$110 million, are also due to be made public.

2010'S MEDIA CENTRE BUILDING PROJECT UPDATED

Russ Anthony, president and project director of the C$615-million Vancouver Convention Centre Expansion, which is where the 2010 International Media Centre will be located, has told the Vancouver Province newspaper that expects a huge crane will start hoisting large steel beams into place on the eastern side of the building in November. The crane, one of six that will be working at the site soon, has to complete its work on that side between November and May, while the cruise ship season is dormant, since size of the crane's arm would be too close to the massive ships docked at the existing convention centre next to the project. Steel can only be moved at night due to other constraints. Floor to ceiling glazing of the huge building is expected to begin next summer. The building is due to be completed by 2008. About 10,000 media assigned to cover the 2010 Games will begin arriving to set up in late 2009, but support staff, technicians and electrical engineers will begin arriving before then.

BOBSLEIGH TEAM BUDGET FOR 2010 PREP SET AT QUARTER-MILLION DOLLARS

Radio Jamaica is reporting today that it is expected to cost about C$225,000 for its bobsleigh team for the 2010 Winter Games. The station quotes Jamaica Bobsleigh Federation President, Tal Stokes as saying that the team, after training at Jamaica's Defense Center, is expected to begin a stay in Canada in October, as part of the development project.

RESOURCES

Expansion project home page:
www.vccep.bc.ca/

Expansion Centre webcam:
live8.truelook.com/vancouver/vccep

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 8, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1850

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

GE CLIENT WORKSHOP IN VANCOUVER TO FOCUS ON 2010 BUSINESS

General Electric, which is an international sponsor of the 2010 Winter Games, has decided to make its first official foray in connection with the Games by hosting a workshop and reception on Monday afternoon in Vancouver's business core for the company's regional construction and transportation clients. About 70 to 80 people are expected. Speakers at this conference will include a VANOC Communications department spokesman, the manager of Editorial Services, Sam Corea, who, we're told, will be talking about the state of the organization's construction program. BC's Transportation minister Kevin Falcon (as opposed to BC's minister responsible for the Olympics, Colin Hansen) will be talking in general terms about transportation in BC with references to the Olympics, GE's general manager for Olympics Operations, Peter Foss, and Brian Kreiger, head of the BC government's 2010 Commerce initiative, who will discuss business opportunities. Vancouver-based Dean Shillington, senior manager of GE-Capital Solutions describes the workshop as a "best practices sharing session." Falcon, Shllington says, "has a lot of influence and can provide a lot of good things to our clients on the transportation and infrastructure side." Shillington says the idea is for GE's corporate clients to "see their particular opportunity... manager their cashflows... and we can share our experience with the Games with them." Foss is responsible for GE's Olympic corporate programs world-wide, and he'll be the first speaker on the agenda of the four 20-minute sessions, with a 45-minute question-and-answer session following. GE, headquartered at Fairfield, Connecticut, signed up with the International Olympic Committee in 2003 to sponsor all Olympic and Paralympic Games internationally until the end of the 2012 London Games. It also owns NBC, the American host broadcaster of the 2010 Games.

RICHMOND TO HIRE ON-SITE SECURITY

The City of Richmond, which is building the 2010 Speedskating Oval as part of a larger sports complex at 6080 River Road, will be getting to the point next month where it will need on-site security within the chain-link fence surrounding the 200 metre by 400 metre (860,000 square foot) project. It's looking for companies now to supply the security people. They'll be needed until the project's construction is completed, about October, 2008. You have until September 19 if you're interested in bidding on the work. They'll develop a short list, from the firms that apply, to receive the documentation.

AUSSIE PUMPS IRON TO TRAIN FOR 2010 BOBSLEIGH

Astrid Loch-Wilkinson is the pilot of Australia's first women's bobsleigh team to qualify for the Olympic Winter Games, which the 23-year-old veterinarian student did during the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics. Her team, which includes Kylie Reed, didn't win any medals since they slid in at 14th, so, according to a report published in The Australian newspaper, she is training now to change that at the 2010 Winter Olympics. Her coach, Will Alstergrenm told her she needed to get bigger and stronger, "To head to Vancouver as a medal chance, I told her she needed to really work on her explosive power," Alstergren is quoted as saying. Her response: she joined the New South Wales weightlifting team and currently represents the Aussie state in national contests. "I still don't know how much potential I have as a weightlifter, but who knows... maybe I can do the Winter Olympics and Commonwealth Games all in the one year in 2010," she said. This weightlifting thing is a new direction for her. She is a former national track-and-field athlete and a former Australian soccer player.

RESOURCES

GE Capital Canada
www.gecapitalsolutions.ca/en/

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 8, 2006

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |IOC| #1868
PARALYMPIC EMBLEM LAUNCHED AND OLYMPIC ATHLETES VILLAGE SOD-TURNING IN DAY OF 2010 EVENTS IN WHISTLER

The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) and the Resort Municipality of Whistler yesterday collaborated on two events: unveiling the 2010 Paralympic logo and took part in a ceremonial ground-breaking to formally mark the start of the 2010 Whistler Olympic Village.

The new logo -- it uses similar, but not exact, versions of the blue, green colours of the 2010 logo, plus white, used as "negative space", that are themes of the 2010 Games -- was made public in front of about 4,000 people at an afternoon concert under partly sunny skies at the tail end of a short, general inspirational video about the Paralympic Games. [To have a look at the Paralympics logo, see RESOURCES, below.] The logo was used to sign off the video, and, since it appeared routinely as a standard closing frame of such videos, and without introductory fanfare, the crowd was a little puzzled at first about how to respond. There was some generic applause for the video itself. It wasn't until the afternoon's master of ceremonies, Brian Williams, adlibbed a flourish to underscore the logo's appearance itself. More applause occurred at that point. The logo also incorporates, below the "Vancouver 2010 Paralympic Games Jeux Paralympiques" word mark underscore, the IPC's logo without identification.

Williams is a veteran Olympic Games television commentator, who recently moved from CBC to competitor CTV, which is the host broadcaster of the 2010 Winter Games in Canada and sponsor of VANOC. CTV didn't broadcast the ceremony live, as it did with the unveiling of VANOC logo 16 months earlier, but it did provide a live report for its Saturday evening newscasts, including some B-roll -- secondary shots -- of performers and helicopter views of current construction on the Whistler Nordic Centre, and some close-ups of what appeared to be crews carefully cementing a portion of the Whistler Sliding Centre track. An edited version of the ceremony is to be broadcast later this week on the International Paralympic Committee's web TV site.

The Paralympic logo was unveiled about 45 minutes after the event, which alternated between repartee between Williams and various officials, politicians and athletes connected with the Paralympics, began. Free pins of the logo were available to those attending. The pins are the same width but slightly shorter than the main 2010 logo .

VANOC calls the new logo, created by Karacters Design Group of Vancouver last January, "Man Becomes Mountain." As VANOC puts it, the logo "incorporates a dynamic human form into West Coast blue and green colours in clean graphics that represent Vancouver and Whistler’s lush coastal forests, dramatic mountains and majestic sky. The emblem also reflects the athletes’ mountainous inner strength and personal transformation as they push themselves to new heights in the pursuit of excellence. Man Becomes Mountain symbolizes the heart of the Vancouver 2010 Paralympic Winter Games...". Karacters, which won a Request for Proposals competition to design the Paralympic logo, is also responsible for all the other parts of VANOC's image look and feel, except the 2010 Olympic logo itself.

Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, who provided a brief taped video message for the staged event, said, "Paralympic athletes dedicate themselves so they can give the very best on a world stage, to compete against the world's finest, as individual athletes, as part of a team, and as proud representatives of our country. The 2010 Vancouver Paralympic emblem symbolizes this effort to achieve excellence on the world stage."

VANOC's executive vice-president of Revenue, Marketing and Communications, Dave Cobb, says he is pleased with the look of the new Paralympic logo, and that VANOC will be able to readily use it as the cornerstone of marketing for the Paralympic Games. " we think it's clearly distinct and different from the Olympic logo, but when you put them side-by-side, you can see they are of the same family. I think they match up. The colours and the mountains are reflective of the host region, I think, and you can find balance there, too. I think you're going to see our sponsors using it to a far greater extent than in previous Games." Cobb said the logo was easily chosen from three finalists. "We share [the three of them] with our executive team, including John Furlong, and [the choice] was easy." Cobb says there was no tweaking once it was at the stage of executive-team review. "As I recall, this was what was presented."

Cobb says, however, the appearance is more than skin deep for a logo. "You don't just look at it and say it looks nice. It's got to have longevity and meaning to it. It's also got to work on hundreds of different applications. so there is a thorough technical review first -- can it be fit on a pin, what does it look like on a T-shirt, how about animated -- all those things -- even on fax sheets and in black and white. A lot of logos get eliminated because they just can't meet the technical requirements for all of its applications." Cobb says, personally, "I like it a lot."

VANOC CEO John Furlong told the crowd, "The emblem’s representation of the athlete in nature, literally and metaphorically, symbolizes Vancouver 2010’s vision to deliver an inclusive Olympic and Paralympic Games that celebrate excellence, sustainability and creativity in every endeavour."

The International Paralympic Committee's Governing Board met in closed-door session in Torino, Italy, last March 8 to approve VANOC's logo proposal. "When we showed it to the International Paralympic Committee, they were very, very happy," said Cobb.

There are still a number of major signature pieces for the 2010 Games to be completed, and which will all have to fit together in an overall theme that connects them with the Games. Since their are four aboriginal bands that are integrated into VANOC planning, it's expected that some aspect of their art will be incorporated into some of the pieces, but it has not yet been decided whether it will be incorporated into all of them, some of them or just one of them. An RFP for the design of 2010's Olympic and Paralympic mascots, the next major pieces of image collateral, is expected to be issued in the next week or two. Also to come:

Pictograms that will be used to identify all of the venues and various other international spectator-support services, such as food, elevators, washrooms and the like;

Torches for both the Olympics and Paralympic torch relays, which are heavily sponsored. The design will be led by VANOC, but probably prepared by VANOC-contracted designers, but has not yet started;

Medals for both the Olympics and Paralympics, which are to be produced from VANOC-led designs, also probably prepared by VANOC-contracted designers, by the Royal Canadian Mint, a VANOC sponsor. The design for them has not yet started.

The cauldrons that will burn while the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games are underway; their design is also expected to follow the same pattern: the design will be led by VANOC, but designed and engineered by contractors. The cauldron design process has not yet started.

The sod-turning ceremony for the Whistler Olympic Village, was pro-forma and involved speeches by federal, provincial and local politicians and VANOC's CEO John Furlong. It took place on the grounds of the landfill just south of Whistler. The landfill is being reclaimed as part of the process. Ground-clearing and grubbing actually began last July.

RESOURCES

The 2010 Olympic colours:

Green: Pantone 355C / 354U
Dark Blue: Pantone 288C / 288U
Medium Blue: Pantone 3005C / 3005U
Light Blue: Pantone 652C / 625U
Red: Pantone 485C / 485U
Yellow: Pantone 137C / 137U
Black, White (as negative space)

The 2010 Paralympic colours:

Dark blue: Pantone 2945C,U
Light blue: Pantone 2995C,U
Green: Pantone 361C,U
Black, White (as negative space)

According to Karacters, which created the design palatte, "White is a principal colour in the Vancouver 2010 brand palette. The use of white creates a clean, modern appearance that effectively sets off the Emblems and also suggests the bright, white ice and snow that characterize the sports of the Winter Games. It is also used in all reverse versions of the Emblem [sic]."

RESOURCES

The new Paralympic logo:
tinyurl.com/o7e8z

Karacaters Design Group:

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 17, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1849
OLYMPICS SECRETARIAT TO TRAIN BC BUSINESSES IN PR AS 2010 "LEGACY"

The BC government has decided that public-relations training for small businesses in the province should be a legacy of the 2010 Winter Games.

The BC Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Secretariat, the specialized government department set up to supervise and coordinate BC's portion of the Olympics and Paralympics, expects to begin in mid-January a series of one or two workshops in different locations per month through 2010. The workshops are to train business people in communities throughout the province in public relations, primarily how to use the media to promote their firms and their products or services.

The first step is for the Secretariat to hire a consultant to draft the workshop and its management plan, and arrange for the workshop materials. Firms interested in doing the management and planning should contact the Secretariat by September 20. The Secretariat wants the development work to be completed by the beginning of December. Then the Secretariat will look for at least one company or perhaps more, through a public qualification process, which it expects to hire to conduct the workshops. A budget hasn't been set for either the workshop preparation or delivery work as yet. How much it will cost will largely depend on the results of the search for consultants for the two stages, and what they want to charge for the work.

The Secretariat wants a "plan for the management and delivery of a provincial, proactive media relations and media training program, with workshops that could be delivered by a variety of media relations or training professionals. That is, there will be one company that develops the program, but there may be more than one company supplying media-relations trainers who will be delivering the workshops," according to a Secretariat spokesman.

And the rationale for all this: The BC Secretariat's mandate, in part, is to ensure the "economic, tourism, cultural, sport, and social opportunities associated with hosting an Olympic event are identified early and realized before, during and after the 2010 Games, and evolve into enduring legacies for communities and businesses around the Province."

In the BC Secretariat’s work in communities throughout the province, business people apparently said they wanted the government to provide media-information and -training skills. Thus, the idea of a media-training program that should be a "legacy that would encourage on-going training and development of advanced skills" for these businesses.

BC Secretariat officials say the concept is for the Secretariat to work with local Chambers of Commerce and BC's media relations industry to provide media-handling savvy to the owners of small and middle-sized firms, defined as company management "who would not otherwise have the resources to invest to gain effective media relations skills."

One thing the Secretariat doesn't want in the PR program: "These workshops are not to be designed for issues management or crisis communication purposes; they should focus on proactive media relations."

Intriguingly, the Secretariat has not issued a news release about any of this.

RESOURCES

BC Statistics defines a "small business" as "one with fewer than 50 employees, or a business operated by a person who is self-employed, without paid help." As of December, 2005, according to BC Statistics, there were 345,227 busineses in the province with 49 employees or less. That's 98% of all businesses in the province. Of the small businesses, 87% had less than five employees.

RESOURCES

Here's the BC Secretariat's website:
www.bcsecretariat.gov.bc.ca

The company hired to do the workshop creation will need to sign a contract with the BC government. The general contract it uses in these situations is here
www.pc.gov.bc.ca/psb/GSA/General_Service_Agreement.doc

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 7, 2006

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1848
AMOUNT OF WORK ON VANCOUVER ATHLETES VILLAGE TO SPEED UP IN JANUARY

The tempo of work on Vancouver's Olympic Athletes Village site will increase early in the new year.

The project manager for the development of the Olympic Village and the surrounding area of southeast False Creek, Jody Andrews, says the big contracts for the public development of the Village lands have been issued and are running as the land is cleared and prepared for the construction of the Village buildings. "We have a few [smaller] contracts to come out. This is the peak time on the site, from a public infrastructure perspective."

Andrews says there are heavy construction jobs underway across the entire site. "We're finishing the road construction. We're on Columbia Street right now, building the new portion of that road. The utility installation contract has been issued, and they're on site now, starting with the utility installations in the completed roads. We are also finishing up some of the soil remediation work and clean-up concurrently. The fourth big contract is the foreshore work. We've done the piledriving and we're actually laying in the new shoreline, including the new island and the stabilization work. That work is going to continue quite heavily up to December."

Andrews says the beginning of 2007 is when the Millennium Group, which is the developer chosen to construct the buildings for the Village which will become permanent housing starting in the summer of 2010, mobilizes. In January, Millennium's contractors will start work on the private parcel lands on the site, and will also be involved in shoring installations. "The first sign of the private-parcel development will be the shoring going in to allow them to do their mass excavations of the private parcels, which sets the stage for an early spring placement of foundations."

Andrews says Millennium's contractors will also be doing soil remediation work as they set up their sites. "They'll pick up whatever portions of the private parcels that haven't been excavated and cleaned at that point, which is probably most of the private parcels."

The City contractors will continue to work on the site with specific areas to develop for public space, but for the most part, the site will start to have the appearance of a regular construction site by private developers. "We'll bring the roads up to 'sub-base'" -- the road bed will be in place but it won't be paved until the heavy equipment has finished in the area -- "so they'll be useable by Millennium for staging their construction efforts."

The City won't build the area's internal roads right away; there will be a point in later when city contractors return -- once Millennium has placed its foundations. An integration schedule is in place for that already. "You'll see us around the edges. The site, from a public-infrastructure point of view, won't cool down until early 2009. We'll pull away from areas where Millennium is working and focus on, probably, First Avenue.

The City will also begin working on the foundations of the outwardly dilapidated Salt Building, the signature heritage structure that is the feature building of the Village portion of the lands. "The structure is quite sound. We're going to seismically upgrade the existing foundations." The City expects to issue a Request for Proposals before the end of this month for a third party to do the restoration and re-use of the building itself "from the floor up."

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 6, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1847

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

FEDS TO KEEP VANOC'S "FEET TO THE FIRE"

The Canadian government's Public Safety minister, Stockwell Day, says, "A couple of months ago, when we got tuned in at a federal cabinet meeting that the VANOC Group was coming hat in hand looking for another C$110 million, nobody was totally shocked." He makes the comment about VANOC's request for C$55 million for additional capital for its venue construction from the federal government in his September 6 newspaper column, which he wrote for the Penticton Western News, a community newspaper, as the area's Member of Parliament. He introduces the topic by saying, "Olympian spending. OK, whenever a mega-project is first announced and we hear the proposed price tag we all kind of know there’s no way that’s going to be the final number." And, he implies, the federal government quickly took charge: "That’s a pile of dough. So we got back to them asking for a detailed breakdown and some kind of guarantee that this was the for-real final number. In their defence, nobody could have predicted a few years ago how much the B.C. economy would be rejuvenated from several years in the doldrums. And it’s true that has sent labour rates ratcheting upwards, beyond what anyone would have guessed (which is great for hard-working tradespeople and others by the way). So the deed is done, the cheque is in the mail and I still think the world is going to see a fantastic Olympics. That means long-term benefits for B.C. taxpayers and, if the organizers stay out of debt, it means we are left with a legacy of incredible buildings and sites for our kids and grandkids, courtesy of TV networks’ big bucks paid to us for filming rights. At least that’s the theory, so we’ll hold their feet to the fire to make sure that’s the reality." Day, as Public Safety minister didn't mention how much the federal government's portion of Games security would be.

"LELE" THE COW -- BEIJING PARALYMPICS NEW MASCOT

The mascot of the 2008 Summer Paralympic Games in Beijing, a cartoon cow, was unveiled today, to mark the fact the Games open exactly two years today. The cow's full name is "Fu Niu Lele", but the nickname is "LeLe", which means "happiness." The character was unveiled during a live TV broadcast of the ceremony at the Great Wall of China. The Torino 2006 Paralympic logo was a stylized snowflake. The logo of the 2010 Paralympic Games is expected to be unveiled Saturday, September 16 in Whistler; a mascot is not expected to be selected and chosen until next year for the 2010 Paralympics.

WHISTLER REGION SCHOOLS TO HEAR FROM OLYMPIANS FRIDAY

On Friday, 13 schools in the communities of Whistler, Squamish and Pemberton are expected to be visited by a Canadian Olympian or Olympic hopeful in a program sponsored by the Canadian Olympic Committee to inspire students. The athletes scheduled to speak at a school assembly include Olympic medallists Veronica Brenner (freestyle skiing), Robert Esmie (athletics), Lori Fung-Methorst (gymnastics), Mellisa Hollingsworth (skeleton) and Georgina Wheatcroft (curling). The school visits are held in conjunction with the seventh annual Canadian Olympic Golf Tournament in Whistler.

RESOURCES

LeLe, the Paralympic cow mascot:
en.beijing2008.com/

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 6, 2006

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1846

Here are three more moguls we ran into today:

VANCOUVER CITY COUNCIL CONSIDERS TWEAKING PROPERTY LINES AT OLYMPIC VILLAGE

Vancouver City Council is to be asked by its staff at its September 12 meeting to approve some minor tweaking of the road allowances and property alignments along the foreshore of the Olympic Village in southeast False Creek to ensure the bike and pedestrian pathways can be properly built and will be wide enough. Public construction and land preparation on the site is underway now. Once the Village area is returned to the developer and the City in March, 2010, following the Winter Games, the area will be joined to the new pedestrian and bike paths at the eastern and western edges of the Village, and will eventually join up with the pathways built over the last three decades along the interior of False Creek.

VANCOUVER CITY STAFF TO HIRE PUBLIC ART CONSULTANT FOR HELP WITH 2010 CULTURE

At the same council meeting, the City of Vancouver is to be asked by staff for approval to hire a consultant that will, among many other jobs, set up a process for "art legacies" for the 2010 Olympics. The City's Office of Cultural Affairs wants permission to hire the urban-planning and design consulting firm of Brown & Keener Bressi "to provide public art consulting services for a comprehensive review and development of a new plan for the City’s Public Art Program". The contract is for C$109,715 plus taxes. Part of the work is to develop a "Public Art Space Legacy Plan." Within that project, they'll be asked to "Review, assess, and recommend on processes, procedures and the allocation of public space for public (and other) art legacies anticipated in association with the 2010 Winter Olympics." They'll have a lot of supervisors: The consultants are report to a specific staff in the City’s Office of Cultural Affairs. There will also be an advisory committee formed by representatives of "current and past members of the Public Art Committee, and City staff from Cultural Services, Planning, Engineering Services and Park Board."

WADA EXECUTIVE MEETING SET FOR SEPTEMBER 16

The Executive Committee of the World Anti-Doping Agency will meet on Saturday, September 16, in Montreal for the second time this year. Executive Committee members are expected to approve the 2007 List of prohibited substances and methods, which needs to be published by October 1. if so, it is expected to go into effect on January 1. The Executive Committee will also approve new scientific research projects to be funded by WADA

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 5, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1845
VANCOUVER 2010 VILLAGE PROJECT MANAGER HOPEFUL POLYCLINIC CONTINGENCY PLAN NOT NEEDED

The City of Vancouver's Project Manager for the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Village says there is a contingency plan in place if funding can't be arranged for the athlete's health centre, but he remains hopeful it won't have to be used.

The BC Ministry of Education hasn't put the necessary C$5 million funding in the next capital plan for the elementary school building, which is to be used for the polyclinic during the Games, and then for use as a school in September 2010. The Vancouver School Board confirmed last week that it is looking for an organization to provide bridge financing to cover the building's construction until the government funding is provided. The Board has until next March to complete the arrangements, or the building won't be constructed in time.

Jody Andrews says there has always been a contingency plan if the School Board if the school isn't built. "We've been working from the beginning with [the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC)] on that. There is a plan in place already for a very functional overlay that does not include the school, but it's everybody's preference that the school be there."

Andrews says a temporary structure "isn't necessarily going to be the outcome" if the school isn't constructed. "There is a lot of commercial space in the [Village] development on the ground plane. There are some opportunities. The City has made a commitment to VANOC to make available a certain square-footage of that space, as well as the community centre, and so there are some possiblities around the City's committed space that I think could accommodate a very good polyclinic."

Andrews says the City is committed to making available "a minimum of 30,000 square feet plus the 30,000 square foot community centre, so we built into those commitments some flexibility for ourselves and for VANOC." According to VANOC documentation, the polyclinic needs about 1,050 square metres (11,300 square feet), compared with the 5,575 square metres available under the City's commitments. "At this early stage, three-and-a-half years out," says Andrews, "that's something that could be programmed in. We have the time to work out the plan."

Andrews notes the Village's dining area is planned to be a temporary facility located on the eastern side of the site, near the Village's transportation hub, with some of it on the Ontario Street extension. "If you look at the way the plan is settling in, it's really quite manageable."

The project manager says as the rezoning hearings by the City for the land uses within the Village nears, there are still discussions underway about the final location of the large food store, which is currently slated to be built surrounded by an block of high-end apartments on the eastern side of the Village, with one of its edges on the central plaza that's just north of the Salt Building. There has been a push to move it one block south, adjacent to the Salt Building and bordering on First Avenue, for better customer and truck access. There are a lot of pros and cons to the decision for business and residential complexes in the Village. "That's one of the issues with the current rezoning that's being resolved," Andrew says. "When the rezoning referral report is done for City council, it will have the agreed-upon location for the grocery store. We're probably within a few days of that being resolved."

Andrews says the City's Planning Department is now in the process of preparing its comments for City Council on the rezoning plan, now that the developer, Millennium, and VANOC have worked out how they feel about their requirements, but those comments are not yet complete. "There's always a lot of discussion at this stage; these issues are gone through in great detail with a lot of different players before the final decisions are actually arrived at," he notes.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 5, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1844

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

IPC EXTENDS IMAGE SPONSORSHIP

The International Paralympic Committee in Bonn, Germany, has extended its sponsorship arrangement with a Seattle-based company, Getty Images as the "Official Photography Partner of the IPC". In return, the IPC will be able to use all sport-related images for below-the-line communication purposes, such as on the IPC's website, in its presentations, on posters and in its publications. The sponsorship was first set up for the 2004 Summer Paralympic Games in Athens; the extension takes it until September 2007.

TWO 2010 IOC COMMISSION MEMBERS TO EVALUATE 2014 BIDS

Two members of the International Olympic Commission that oversees the IOC's 2010 Winter Olympics franchise have also been appointed to the 19-person panel that will evaluate the bids from the three cities that want to host the 2014 Winter Games. The two are The Prince of Orange, who is a member of the Dutch royal family, and Jose Luis Marco of Argentina. Both are IOC Members. Marco is a customs and immigration consultant, and an expert on skiing. He'll be dealing with the legal aspects of the bids. The team, composed of representatives of the Olympic Movement and a number of specialists, will analyse the candidature files that Sochi (Russia), Salzburg (Austria) and PyeongChang (South Korea) are to submit to the IOC by January 10, and carry out inspections on site before issuing a report one month before the election of the host city in Guatemala City next July.

BEER SHINE IN RICHMOND

From our 99 Beers on a Wall Department: This is a letter to the editor of the Richmond Review community newspaper from a Mike Smith. Richmond is Vancouver-area community which is helping VANOC build its speedskating oval as part of a larger sports complex. We quote: "Editor: As director of Beer Users in Richmond Parks, or BURP, I must applaud [Richmond councillor] Bill McNulty's call for volunteers during the 2010 Winter Olympics. I am sure that he would agree that we are not just competing for gold at the Olympics. We are competing for the hearts and minds of tourists and their return business after 2010. Alas, if the beer garden competition is any indication of how Richmond is competing, I'm afraid we have lost before we have even started. Here is the score: Beer gardens in Munich: Over 400. Beer gardens in Richmond: Zero. Beer Users in Richmond Parks is a volunteer group of citizens who advocate for beer drinking in public parks. All the city needs to do is give us a few beer gardens, and it will have hundreds of BURPers volunteering to buy our overseas visitors a brewski or twoski and show them around our world class city. The city would get plenty of beer garden income to help pay the Oval off and hundreds of volunteer hosts and hostesses to put a shine in everyone's eyes. The world would get a pleasant introduction to Richmond and a few hours of peace and understanding the BURP way. Everyone wins."

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 5, 2006

Friday, September 01, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC, Sports| #1843
OWN THE PODIUM MEETING THIS MONTH TO REVIEW INITIAL STRATEGIC PLANS FOR NEXT SPRING'S C$22 MILLION IN SPENDING

Officials of Own The Podium 2010 will meet in Calgary with representatives of national Winter Olympic sports organizations in the middle of this month to review the strategic planning of the OTP for winter sports so far, and make adjustments for a new round of project funding next spring.

It will be the first meeting of the OTP as an operating cohesive group.

The OTP "initiative", which has an annual operating budget of C$22 million per year, is a collaboration between the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC), the component of the Canadian Olympic Committee, the Canadian Paralympic Committee, the Calgary Olympic Development Association and the federal government. The actual administrative office has only been open since January, so this is it's first year of operations. The concept was developed by Cathy Priestner shortly before she was hired as VANOC's executive vice president for Sport, Paralympic Games and Venue Management.

The bulk of the OTP's funding comes from Ottawa, which has pledged to provide C$55 million by 2010, and VANOC, which has pledged to raise as much of another C$55 million as it can through negotiations with its private corporate sponsors and the BC government. BC has already contributed C$5 million for OTP 2010. The OTP administration works with sports organizations and individual sport planning to figure out how best to put Canada first in gold medals at the 2010 Olympic Games, and in the top third of gold-medal rankings in the 2010 Paralymics. It makes recommendations to the COC about where the dollars are spent.

Between now and next spring, the OTP will monitor how well the first round of funding this summer is doing in achieving its goals, which primarily involve the sports of short-track speedskating, freestyle skiing, snowboarding and bobsledding.

Claire Buffone, the Director of Operations for Own The Podium 2010, smiles when she talks about her administration's job description, "We call what we do an 'initiative' because it's not an actual program; we're the meat between the sandwich. The COC executes the contracts with the corporations, and VANOC negotiates the deals. We're the lucky recipients of all this good news -- we couldn't be in a better position." (Her name is pronounced "Buf-FOH-nee".)

The timing of the meetings with Canadian winter-sport federations is based on the OTP's fiscal year, which begins April 1, coinciding with government fiscal years. The September meeting will be held in Calgary to discuss a report on current planning that's just been distributed to the federations, but, says Buffone, it will not be made public. "The federations will actually approve our strategic plan in September," she says. "This is a partnership; it's not 'what we say goes.' There are suggestions made to our proposals. We review them, and the plan becomes organic and grows. From there, we'll start assigning roles and responsibilities among the partners in this initiative. We'll figure out how each partner will contribute to the goals."

The OTP cycle of management is basically set up to start each April with a meeting with each sport, discussing their athletic performances, such as at the Torino Winter Olympics last February and March and at other major sport events, their staffing situation and their plans to develop high-performance athletes in the fiscal year.

"We base our funding, basically, on medal potential for 2010," Buffone says. "That process required a lot of meetings and a lot of planning to actually allocate funds to those sports. We've just completed that, so now it's 'monitoring and evaluation'." Buffone says the organizations told OTP their wishlist of things they felt should be funded, such as new national-team coaches; OTP then recommends funding allocations to the COC, which cuts the cheques. "The contracts are actually out the door now, so the federations know how much money they're getting for fiscal '06/07, and we've allocated all of our dollars for this fiscal year now."

Because OTP is focuses on the technical aspects of sports, its administration works each day with various sports officials to, Buffone says, "make sure they have everything they need to achieve the goals they've set out."

She says that OTP does its funds annually, instead of every four years, because it's important to assess the sports all the time. "We have to shift our funding each year. The sports don't like that, but if we want to achieve the goal of number one, we believe this method of funding is the only way to properly do that." Buffone says the short-term funding makes it difficult for the sports federations. "They have the sense, in terms of base, what they're going to get, but there are a lot of unknowns for the sports. That's why the constant communication between them and us is required throughout the year, to make sure that nothing comes to them as a surprise when we do our second cycle of funding."

This year, for example, OTP 2010 has ensured that each winter sport that it funds has a high-performance director in place, which Buffone considers to be a major step. The director ensures that the coaches are working together "to create the best high-performance program to achieve success in 2010." In some cases, this year will be the first time some of the sports have such a director. "Those that we're targeting and funding will have to make arrangements [for hiring a director] by March, to have those people in place and working with our people, to make their high-performance programs world class." This year, as well, OTP is attempting to ensure that all the targeted sports have "the right amount of world-class coaches in place, hired and committed for four years."

Depending on the sport, two or three coaches of this calibre may need to be hired."

Buffone says that when OTP did its initial round of investigation, it discovered there were, as she put it, "things that were missing in the puzzle, pieces of the puzzle that aren't there, but need to be there to ensure success, and so Year One is really to ensure they have what they need to ensure success."

One thing that has to be fitted into the strategic plan is how the increased staffing that's a ripple effect of the OTP program will affect the physical requirements of the two 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Villages, one in Vancouver and the other in Whistler. More athlete support staff means more housing in Villages that are already under space pressures. "I'm not going to be able to comment on that," says Buffone, "because we're just looking at that right now. It's just too early to talk about that publicly. It's interesting, and it still needs lots of discussion."

Now that the heavy lifting of figuring out how the first year's financial allocations are to be made, and OTP has switched to the monitoring stage for six months, Buffone says the organization is now also focussing on understanding the requirements and relationships of the VANOC's major corporate sponsors, who are contributing all of OTP's non-government funding. "There's still a lot for us to learn about what's occurred [in the way sponsorships funding developed], and how we'll provide value to the sponsors, whether it will be us or whether it will be our partners, such as the COC and VANOC, that will do that on our behalf," she says. "I think sponsors see themselves a little differently, and we're trying to understand our roles and responsibilities there, to make sure that everyone, at the end of the day, is getting value for their money."

Buffone says the value equation is important for everybody involved in the initiative, because if it carries on in its work to improve athlete performance after 2010, then sponsors and governments will want to continue being involved. "And," Buffone says, "We want both."

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 1, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1842
VANCOUVER SCHOOL BOARD SEARCHING FOR "ALTERNATIVE FUNDING" FOR VANOC'S 2010 MEDICAL BUILDING

The Vancouver School Board has confirmed the BC Ministry of Education will not provide funding in time to construct a building that the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) planned to use for its main medical clinic at the 2010 Olympic Village during the Games.

However, Henry Ahking, the School Board's manager of Planning & Facilities, says the deadline for funding to be in place is March, 2007 and so alternative funding is being sought for the estimated C$5 million first phase of construction for an elementary school that is tentatively budgeted to be C$10 million when completed in a timetable that is tied to the development of the whole southeast False Creek area centred by the Village.

The building was to be used as VANOC's main medical clinic during the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games, then be converted during the summer of 2010 to its final use as an elementary school.

"There was discussion about the school being built by September '09," says Ahking, referring to talks with the Vancouver School Board, VANOC and the City of Vancouver, who are overseeing development of the Village's buildings by Millennium Development. "Based on that, we requested advance funding from the Ministry to be able to do that. But we haven't heard anything from them, and the reality is that we don't expect we might hear anything from them. So we're working with the City of Vancouver and VANOC... we're exploring alternate funding for that facility."

Who else funds a public school besides the Ministry of Education? Ahking says, "Well, we're exploring everything and everybody. From our point, without consulting other people, the City [of Vancouver], VANOC -- perhaps the developer [Millennium] but, I was told, maybe not. We're in the exploration stage. It's timing that we're looking at. The kids are going to be there [in 2010], funding for us will ultimately be there, but we don't want people to be screaming, or having portables [at a local school] or putting additional pressure on adjoining schools before we actually get the money." The area is in the School Board's Simon Fraser Elementary school catchment area, and Ahking says that school is near capacity now.

VANOC's Vancouver medical clinic, which it calls the polyclinic, will need about 1,050 square metres (11,300 square feet) in which to operate a range of medical services for the athletes and officials, including doping-control tests, a fully-outfitted digital radiography room and medical diagnostic facility, and even first-aid. During the time it's in operation, the polyclinic deals with medical issues involving thousands of athletes and others, and a similar clinic to to be built in the Whistler Athletes Village.

The new population that would attend the school would come from families that will move into the buildings shortly after the Games are completed and VANOC returns them to the developer at the end of March, 2010. The buildings are first being developed as apartments for Olympic and, possibly some Paralympic athletes and their supporter team, such as coaches, trainers and medical staff, and for Olympic officials.

Ahking says, "The first phase we were looking at, to meet the immediate needs of the area in September, 2010, after the Olympic Village gets converted, would be an annex of about 200 students in capacity. The ultimate build-out [of the rest of the south-east False Creek area adjacent to the Village] would be about 450 to 500 students." Ahking estimates the rough total cost of the school by that point would be about C$10 million, depending on actual construction costs.

VANOC's executive vice president of Construction, Dan Doyle, referred questions about the polyclinic issue to the City of Vancouver; Jody Andrews, the City's project manager for Southeast False Creek and Olympic Village was not immediately available for comment.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 1, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1841
EVENT SERVICES FIRMS ASKED TO CONTACT VANOC AS IT CONSIDERS CONTRACTING SENIOR FUNCTION

The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) is considering the idea of hiring a contractor for its event-support services, instead of hiring people in-house to do the work and provide the workforce.

As a result, it's begun asking companies with expertise in such services to let VANOC know by September 29 what they can do and how much they might charge to do it. If VANOC decides to hire a company to do the work -- it will think about the concept during October, taking into account the information it receives in this stage -- it'll issue a formal request for proposals in November from a shortlist it develops of the companies that respond.

The possibility that event services might be contracted is interesting because it's usually one of the largest functional areas of an Olympic Games, winter or summer. The goal of event services is to ensure spectators have a good experience at the Games, and so for the organizing committee, it is usually a core function. To do the event-services work, it sets up a paid and volunteer workforce to perform such tasks as marshalling spectators in a way that doesn't make them feel like they're being herded. It also involves taking tickets, ushering, providing information to spectators, running the Lost and Found, working with the Security function to help control access to venues and other locations with people on the front line, and deciding whether a person with accreditation is in the right area, both within a venue and around it, or helping them to cheerfully find their way back to where they're supposed to be if they wander into the wrong area.

VANOC says these kinds of services will be needed at all of the competition venues, including the Olympic and Paralympic stadiums and the Whistler Celebration Plaza, where the medals for the Whistler events will be held.

VANOC, for obvious reasons, has specific requirements of the potential firms that decide to submit their corporate resumes by the end of September, and those requirements are spread over three phases.

For the planning phase, VANOC wants the firm to be able to provide:

PLANNING PHASE

Management & Administration: Lead, manage and administer the day-to-day operations of the EVS function including budgets, staffing plans and reporting;

Olympic & Paralympic Venue Operations Planning: Develop operating plans, procedures and policies, deal with crowd management and venue-access planning;

Workforce Planning: Work with VANOC on the event-services workforce requirements for selecting paid and volunteer staff, as well as deal with recruitment, retention, scheduling, deployment and policies and procedures of human resources;

Support Operations: Work with VANOC on figuring out what kinds of event-services materials, equipment, technology, vehicles and work spaces will be needed, and procuring it, as well as develop tools to support event-services planning and operations;

Training: Develop and implement the job specific training for event services, which would involve preparing preparing materials and manuals, handling all of the considerable logistics, scheduling and tracking of training;

Spectator Information: Participate with VANOC as it develops spectator information, the operational requirement of venue information booths and the Lost And Found, as well as be involved in the production of the Games spectator guide.

TESTING PHASE

Test event work: Planning and executing VANOC test events, which will be held in the years before 2010;

Tweaking: Test, train, build and evaluate event-services operating plans, policies, procedures, and make adjustments to them from the experiences.

GAMES TIME DELIVERY

Deliver a fully trained, "Games ready" event-services workforce, including both paid and volunteer staff; and

Ensure the delivery of event services is consistent and effective across all of the venues and ceremony areas.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on September 1, 2006

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