Morgan:News:2010:Bronze Edition: October 2006

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

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Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1948
Here are three moguls we ran into today:

NEW SUPPLIER EXPECTS TO HAVE VANOC-BRANDED PRODUCTS FOR SALE BY CHRISTMAS

Wilson International Products, which was granted a licence by VANOC to sell apparel with Vancouver 2010 emblems and Olympic and Paralympic brands last week, expects to have products in stores in time for this year's big Christmas buying period. "There's no deal in the world bigger than the Olympic license. There really isn't. It's bigger than Stanley Cup Finals... It is the most sought-after souvenir license that exists," Tony Wilson, owner and founder of the Richmond-based company, told the Richmond Review newspaper. Wilson International will imprint and embroider T-shirts, sweat shirts and hoodies with Olympic logos and sell them to souvenir shops across the country. Wilson expects to sell "millions of garments" relating to the Games between now and 2010. "That is not an exaggeration. That's not a hype," the 64-year-old businessman told the newspaper. "We're looking at what happened in previous Olympics." Prices are expected to be what other prime sports-branded clothing charge. Wilson, who has 35 employees, figures the company will be able to handle the new workload at first, but as the Olympics get closer, he expects his staff and equipment to double, and that it might have to contract-out some work to keep up with demand. "We can't let this interfere with what we do on a day-by-day business," he reportedly said Wilson. He added that his company has to be maintain the rest of its business, because as soon as the Games go, they're the ones who will keep his firm going.

177 PROPONENTS VY FOR JOB AS VANOC MASCOT DESIGNER

With less than 24 hours remaining before tomorrow's deadline, VANOC says so far 177 proponents have expressed an interest in submitting a proposal for a mascot for the Olympic or Paralympic Games, or both. The expressions of interest including credentials and a portfolio of previous work. So far, 151 of those have been received from Canadians, with 72 from British Columbia, 48 from Ontario and the remainder from various places elsewhere in the country. International submissions were received from Australia, Austria, Brazil, France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. During the five weeks of open call, the VANOC's application documentation, which requires proponents to be professional designers, was downloaded from its website more than 3,800 times. Meanwhile, about 1,900 visitors to the website participated in an on-line poll offering their views on the best mascots. VANOC has also received hundreds of e-mails and suggestions for them. VANOC says that all of the public feedback on the mascot program will be provided to the designer or design team as part of the input for consideration during the design process, which still has several months of evaluation to run.

VANCOUVER CITY NAMING POLICY SHOULD KEEP EYE ON OLYMPIC REQUIREMENTS, SAYS REPORT

Vancouver City staff have recommended to council, which is in the process of developing an updated policy on naming rights for various City assets that such a policy needs to take into account requirements for events such as the 2010 Olympics and Paralympics. Staff note that the organizers of more and more large-scale events that include city buildings. "As part of these arrangements," says a council advisory document, "the City may be required to comply with certain event hosting obligations some of which may involve signage. It is therefore important that any policy with respect to naming not preclude the City's ability to host such events. In particular, the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games may provide both opportunities and constraints relative to naming and signage. While there may be opportunities to secure a naming sponsor seeking a high profile presence during the Olympic period, the City has certain obligations as a Host City [for the Olympic Games] to ensure a [site clean of commercial signage] on City-owned or controlled sites which may be potential sites for Olympic-related activities -- for example rented as part of the Olympic Arts Festival -- or which may be located adjacent to an Olympic venue. Therefore, City staff recommend that as a condition of any City approval [when] naming a civic community facility, that all parties be required to agree that for a specific limited time any interior or exterior signage containing a corporate name may be covered up or removed. and any named building may be referred to by a generic or pre-naming name only." Council is expected to discuss the Naming Policy during its City Services & Budgets meeting Thursday morning.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 31, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Business, VANOC| #1947
FURLONG ENDORSES GM CANADA AND ITS VEHICLES IN NEWSPAPER AD

Quotes from the CEO of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) today appeared in a text-only General Motors Canada ad in the Vancouver Sun newspaper in which he endorses the company and its vehicles.

The ad is professionally written, but at the top of it, the copy reads, "By John Furlong, Chief Executive Officer, Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC)." For the most part, the ad talks about VANOC's mission and the importance of it, or GM's contributions to sport, but about a third of the way down, the copy says, "We have some truly wonderful partners working with us, as we prepare to host outstanding Games. Our association with GM Canada, Official Partner of the Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, is a model example. With a presence in virtually every community across the country, GM Canada offers a line-up of high-quality, dependable vehicles that Canadians know and trust. In 2010, a fleet of GM vehicles will ensure Games participants travel safely, reliably and comfortably while contributing to a sustainable Games."

The black-and-white ad, a column wide and as tall as the broadsheet's page, was opposite a full colour ad a bit larger than half of the newspaper page for specific GM vehicle from its Chevrolet brand, which also promoted its warranty package.

That ad also contains the standard VANOC logo in colour adjacent to the GM logo, which is part of the marketing rights purchased by GMC's when it became a major sponsor. A black-and-white version of the logos appears at the top of the ad in which Furlong is quoted.

The ad's penultimate sentence has Furlong saying, "Behind every great GM vehicle is a network of proud people committed to excellence."

GM is a Tier-1 corporate sponsor of the 2010 Games, and is providing vehicles for use by VANOC staff and other members of the Olympic and Paralympic organizations and related officials. Several are already in use, including vans that shuttle VANOC staff in the city. The Vancouver Sun has an average weekday circulation of about 175,000. The ad appears fairly early in the newspaper's first section, which is among the paper's most-read sections.

BACKGROUND

Here is the full copy of the GMC ad:

By John Furlong, Chief Executive Officer, Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC).

The Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games represent a moment-in-time opportunity for Canadians. Blending sport, culture and the environment, the Games will bring us all together in a celebration of human achievement.

At VANOC, it's our mission to touch the soul of a nation and deliver "Canada's Games" in 2010 -- for Vancouver, Whistler, British Columbia and Canada. And especially for our Olympic and Paralympic athletes, who embody the true spirit of possibility that resides within us all.

We have some truly wonderful partners working with us, as we prepare to host outstanding Games. Our association with GM Canada, Official Partner of the Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, is a model example. With a presence in virtually every community across the country, GM Canada offers a line-up of high-quality, dependable vehicles that Canadians know and trust. In 2010, a fleet of GM vehicles will ensure Games participants travel safely, reliably and comfortably while contributing to a sustainable Games.

GM Canada also has an important legacy of supporting Canadian athletes and amateur sport. It's GM's "Making Dreams Possible Program", which supports the unsung heroes of the Olympic Games -- the coaches who dedicate themselves to improving the performance of our Canadian athletes -- is just one example.

Behind every great GM vehicle is a network of proud people committed to excellence. We're proud to have such supportive travelling companions as we continue our adventure on the road to 2010.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 31, 2006

Monday, October 30, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1946
Here are three moguls we ran into today:

NORWAY TO TRAIN NEAR VERNON, BC, FOR SPRINT, ENDURANCE AT 2010 GAMES

The Norwegian cross-country ski teams have confirmed they will train at Silver Star ski resort near Vernon in British Columbia's south-central Okanagan area just before the 2010 Winter Games. Glenn Bond, Silver Star's Nordic manager, says Norway will bring about 40 men and women — the top athletes on the sprint and endurance teams — to the resort for 17 or 18 days. And, he says, "We're in talks with Finland, Germany and other countries," said Bond. Last November and December, the Norwegians worked out at the resort for two weeks, the longest of all the international teams, in preparation for their sports' World Cup at nearby Sovereign Lake Nordic Centre. Many of the 3,500 beds at Silver Star, he says, are expected to be booked by Nordic athletes, coaches, support staff and families in November. Meanwhile, he says, the coach and a small group of athletes on the Australian national team are scheduled to arrive November 22, and a larger group will arrive December 4. They are already booked for pre-season training through 2010."

C$30 MILLION SPORT COMPLEX AT WILLIAMS LAKE TO BE BUILT TO ENTICE 2010-BOUND TEAMS

The mayor of the town of Williams Lake, roughly in the centre of British Columbia, says a C$30-million multi-sports complex to be built on the Stampede Grounds by the fall of 2008, in time to attract athletes from other countries to train for the 2010 Olympics, will proceed. Some of the construction, Scott Nelson hopes, will begin in about six months. The federal and provincial governments have each pledged to pay a third of the cost, including a grant from the BC government from its 2010 legacies fund. The remaining third of the cost is to be paid by Chiefs Development Group of Burnaby, a Greater Vancouver suburb. CDG would run the facility for 20 years, then turn it over to the city for C$10. City council has authorized staff to enter into negotiations with Chief's Development Group of Burnaby for the design, construction, financing and operation of the event centre after the company was one of eight developers who responded to a formal Request for Proposals on the project. The building is expected to have 2,500 to 3,500 seats, an NHL-sized ice surface, a second ice sheet for curling, a walking track, and rooms that can be used for various purposes.

DOW'S INSULATION AND ANTIFREEZE VIK HEADED FOR WHISTLER

Earlier this month, Dow Chemicals signed on as a Tier-3 supplier sponsor to VANOC, with part in cash and part of the sponsorship as value-in-kind, with the total undisclosed but somewhere between C$3 million and C$15 million. The supplier status, it turns out is because the company supply VANOC with Dow's Styrofoam insulation that are made at Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, as well as heat-transfer fluids. The materials are to be used in a number of VANOC venues, but particularly those in the Whistler area. Shannon Gregg, of Dow Chemical's Fort Saskatchewan, office, says, the amount of VIK is still being negotiated. "Venue construction is underway right now. Dow is working with VANOC to manage the product-supply flow." The heat-transfer fluid, called Dowtherm, is to be supplied by another Dow facility and is a product that will be used in the ice beds for the curling rinks, and the sliding track in Whistler.

RESOURCES

A map showing the location of Williams Lake:
tinyurl.com/yfr2gj

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 30, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1945
WHISTLER SLIDING CENTRE TRACK TO HAVE 1.4 KILOMETRES OF FLOURESCENT LIGHTING

The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) says it expects to start installing the weather-protection mechanism for the track of the Whistler Sliding Centre starting next spring and that the work on it probably won't be done until late August or early September.

About 1.4 kilometres of the 1.7-kilometre track, to be used for the bobsleigh, luge and skeleton events, will have the mechanism installed over it. The cover has two main jobs: one is to protect the icy, twisting, u-shaped track from the sun, rain and snow, which effectively extends its useful life per season, and the other is to hold the track lighting and various other equipment.

VANOC has issued a formal Request for Proposals, which ends November 22, for companies to bid on supplying the track lighting, a line of 885 white fluorescent-lighting fixtures with electronic ballasts and lamps, plus spares, that will be located above the track for the length of the weather shield. The complex track framework of bracing girders and cooling pipes, all covered with a shotcrete-type liner, has been under construction for much of this year, and installation of the steel framework that will provide the weather protection and support for the lighting fixtures will all start together in April.

An electrical contractor, under a separate contract, is to begin installing the lighting in May, so the first third of the light fixtures have to be delivered by then, with the next third by July 1 and the final third by August 1.

To ensure harmony with TV lighting, the lights are to operate at 42 hertz or better to avoid flickering, and the lights are to have a colour temperature of 4,100 degrees Kelvin.

VANOC's instructions for supplying the lighting includes its sustainability policy, in which it tries to keep energy use and similar environmental factors to the fore in judging contractors bidding for the job.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 30, 2006

Friday, October 27, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1944
Here are three moguls we ran into today:

SETH MILLER TOP NBC MARKETER FOR 2010 OLYMPICS

The new man in charge of NBC Universal's Olympics marketing is Seth Winter, who replaces Peter Lazarus. Lazarus joined the big sports marketing company IMG earlier this month. Winter is senior vice president of Sales & Marketing for NBCU's sports and Olympics properties, so he is responsible for management strategy in producing sales for the next three Olympic games -- Beijing, Vancouver/Whistler, and London, England, as well as the 2009 and 2012 Super Bowls. He will also supervise sales for NBC's Sunday Night Football and the U.S. Open golf championship. Winter has a strong technology background. He was vice president of Sales for digital media, and marketed NBCU's Internet and broadband broadcasting, and was part of NBCU's management team that launched NBCSports.com and brought to prominence NBCOlympics.com during the Torino Winter Games in February. That website streamed the men's hockey gold-medal game live, and is expected to be a major live-video broadcast outlet for the American market during the 2010 Games.

VANCOUVER COUNCIL PONDERS C$5 MILLION START TO OLYMPIC LEGACY RESERVE FUND

The City of Vancouver's preliminary budget report for the 2007 fiscal year, expected to be tabled at City Council's meeting Monday, contains the request from staff for the first C$5 million installment of City's Legacy Reserve Fund, discussed earlier. The idea is to build up the fund with equal contributions between now and 2010 until it reaches C$20 million. The City estimates more than 250,000 spectators plus thousands of international media, volunteers and athletes to converge on the City to take in or take part in the 2010 Winter Games. The Legacy Reserve Fund, will carry on after that, but as it relates to the 2010 Games, the idea is to help pay the expenses of getting "communities, citizens, and businesses" involved in the experience of the Games, "allow the City to meet sustainability objectives; and be host to visitors and residents participating in the Olympic experience." City staff think the money can also attract matching funds at some level "to maximize the overall investment by the City." On January 18, 2007, the City's Olympic and Paralympic Operations office is to report to Council on plans for the Fund. The C$5 million request, by the way, is the largest of the section of the budget report that deals with projects that have to be funded by raising taxes. The amount accounts for about a sixth of the preliminary tax hike of 6%. Council has indicated it wants to keep the tax increase to about 4%. To do that, Councillor Peter Lader says, will mean some "tough decisions."

CITY STAFF ASK FOR C$292,800 FOR TWO OLYMPIC VILLAGE PLANNERS FOR TWO YEARS

In another part of the preliminary budget, staff is also asking for a two-year extension for the jobs of two planners working on Southeast False Creek, where the 2010 Olympic Village is being built. The total cost, split between next year's budget and the one for 2008, is C$292,800 in new money. Up to now, the planners' salaries have been funded through "cost recovered" work but that ends this year. About half the time the staff will deal with planning work for the so-called Public Lands portion, and that involves Olympic Village development permits, the Village's signature the Salt Building, urban agriculture, public realm design and things such as that. The other half will handle tasks related to the adjacent private lands, where there are at least six major rezoning requests or significant development applications that have been made. They'll also be working on working on the area's road system. A lot of this support goes to the City's Property Endowment Fund, which is operating as the developer of the public lands in the area, so staff say about half the cost would be funded by the PEF, with the rest coming from city operations.

RESOURCES

Seth Winter
Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing
e-mail: Seth.Winter@nbcuni.com
phone: (+1) 212.664.6073

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1943
Here are three moguls we ran into today:

STILL MORE BROADCAST DEALS TO BE DONE FOR 2010

VANOC CEO John Furlong confirms there are still a number of broadcasting agreements which the IOC has yet to negotiate for carrying the 2010 Winter Games. They include Japan, Italy, Australia, the Spanish-speaking countries, and China. The IOC has so far negotiated deals covering the United States, Canada, Europe (except for Italy), South Korea and the Arabic countries. Furlong says those deals total more than US$3 billion to be split between the IOC, Vancouver and London England's 2012 Summer Games. "For us," he says, "when we sit down to negotiate with the IOC, that the revenue is the most that we could possibly achieve. We want to leave a positive financial legacy. The most important thing for us is to put out a balanced budget." Making some basic assumptions about the approximate splits, exchange rates, and using other published information, Morgan:News:2010 estimates the deals so far have generated a total of C$3.8 billion to be shared among the three, and a potential of about C$250 million for the 2010 Games.

EPCOR'S FUTURE NEGOTIATIONS REASON FOR KEEPING 2010 SPONSORSHIP VALUE QUIET

When Epcor, the Edmonton-based utility company, signed up to be a tier-3 sponsor with VANOC for a cash amount of somewhere between C$3 million and C$15 million, the actual value was not disclosed for "proprietary" reasons. Doug Downs, the senior Communications advisor for the company, says the reason is actually straightforward: "We consider the amount to be proprietary for competitive reasons. Our focus is on the benefit of this sponsorship to Canadian athletes. The amounts of our sponsorships, and the specific benefits involved, are negotiated with each counterpart, and is the basis for competitive differentiation." As for the marketing reasons why the firm became involved, he notes, "Our involvement will solidify Epcor's standing as a Canadian company, support our business strategy, and allow us to help inspire excellence among individuals and communities where we operate. It will associate Epcor with an event whose values and goals are aligned with our own. This new partnership is a logical extension of our work to inspire and support excellence in communities across Canada."

MAGAZINE EDITOR PREDICTS GREATER VANCOUVER, WHISTLER RESTAURANTS TO SHINE IN 2010

Enroute is Air Canada's in-flight magazine. Editor Charlene Rook says she expects many of Vancouver's top-end restaurants are either planning now or soon will be to take advantage of the general city excitement and tourism influx of the 2010 Winter Olympics, and if they hadn't thought about it, they should be. "It'll be similar to what happened in Sydney, Australia," she says, referring to the Summer Olympics there in 2000. "There was an explosion. It was a chance to showcase itself as a culinary hot spot and we have the same opportunity to put Canadian cuisine and the Pacific Rim in the world spotlight. That's what's exciting to me now."

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

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |General| #1942
WHISTLER COMMUNITY MEETING NOVEMBER 7 TO DISCUSS POSSIBLE LOCAL SCHOOL CLOSURES DURING 2010 GAMES

Whistler-area school officials will sponsor a community meeting November 7 to hear opinions from residents about the possibility of school closures while the 2010 Winter Olympics are underway in February, 2010.

The meeting is expected to include representatives from the district parent advisory council, the association of principals and vice principals, the BC Teachers Federation, the Canadian Union of Public Employees that represents school workers, the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) and community groups like the Whistler Arts Council.

The Superintendent of schools for the Howe Sound District, Dr. Rick Erickson, says some of the options expected to be discussed are a two-week closure during the Games, and a three-week closure that would begin a week before the Olympics, to allow for school facilities to be used by visiting Olympic participants that arrive just before the Games begin. Erickson says he recognizes that working parents would be affected by closure, and that the effect would be stronger the longer the closure occured, but that's one of the things that ought be discussed.

He added that the Board would have a look at providing recreation or other activities for students not involved in the Olympics, but with Olympic activity taking over much of the area at the time and the possibility of restricted transportation and a lot of school-sized buses being used for Games transportation, there might no be much in the way of alternative activities for students.

School district staff have talked to VANOC about the opportunity of renting school facilities during the Games, but no commitments have been made. Only colleges and universities were closed during the Calgary 1988 Olympics, and local schools were only closed for students over age 15 at the 2006 Games in Torino, Italy.

VANOC's position is that any closures are up to a local school district and the BC Education ministry. A decision about Olympic school closures in the district is expected to be made by the end of the current school year, which ends next June.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Paralympic| #1941
CANADIAN PARALYMPIC COMMITTEE RE-APPOINTS JARVIS, HUNGERFORD TO OVERSEE 2010 ORGANIZATIONS

Two more of the people overseeing the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) will stick around for a second three-year term.

Paralympian Patrick Jarvis has been reappointed by the Canadian Paralympic Committee (CPC) to the VANOC Board of Directors, and Olympian George Hungerford has been appointed to the 2010 Games Operating Trust. The appointments were made as the CPC's representatives on these organizations.

The appointments of all the directors for their first three-year term on the Board of Directors ends in November. All except Board Chairman Jack Poole represent various stakeholders, such as the Canadian Olympic Committee, the Paralympic Committee and various governments. Whistler's representatives, for instance, were recently re-appointed.

Having completed a three-year term on the VANOC board, Jarvis's second appointment extends through to 2010. Jarvis has been a board member of the Canadian Paralympic Committee since 1993, and was president of the organization from 1999 until early 2006. He competed at the 1992 Barcelona Paralympic Games and served as the chef de mission for the Canadian team at the 1998 Nagano Paralympic Games. He was an official CPC representative at the Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games and the Salt Lake City 2002 Paralympic Games. Jarvis was also member of the first National Sport Advisory Committee to the Secretary of State for Amateur Sport and the 2010 Bid Corporation Board of Directors. Based in Calgary, Alberta, he is a certified engineering technologist and the owner of Amarok Training Services.

Vancouver's Hungerford will represent the CPC on the not-for-profit 2010 Games Operating Trust, which oversees the Legacy Endowment Fund. The Fund provides operating and maintenance money for three major venues to be built as part of the 2010 Games, and funds high-performance programming for Canadian athletes.

"George has a passion for the Paralympic movement and actively advocates for disabled people to become active and get connected through sport. He also has the solid financial background needed for this appointment," says CPC chief operating officer Brian MacPherson. Hungerford won Olympic gold at the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games in pairs rowing with Roger Jackson. The two athletes were awarded the Lou Marsh trophy as Canada's outstanding male athlete - either professional or amateur - in 1964.

A business lawyer with Fasken Martineau DuMoulin since 2000, Hungerford regularly acts for a broad range of clients. He is active in the community, having served as Chair of the Salvation Army Greater Vancouver Advisory Board, Chair of Major Gifts for the BC Cancer Foundation, Chair of Pacific Salmon Foundation, and is currently Chair of the new UBC Richmond Rowing Center. He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1984 and appointed Queen's Counsel in 1991. Hungerford has a Bachelor of Arts (1965) and a Bachelor of Law (1968), both from the University of British Columbia.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1940
Here are three moguls we ran into today:

VANOC PROVIDES UPDATED VENUE COMPLETION SCHEDULE

VANOC has issued an updated list of estimated completion dates for the venues that are under construction. It actually has specific dates by when the project must receive its substantial-completion certificate, but hasn't gone into that level of detail with this release. We've grouped the venues in order of completion, starting with the earliest:

Whistler Nordic Centre: Fall 2007
Whistler Alpine: Fall 2007
Hastings Park skating venue: Fall 2007
Cypress freestyle and snowboard venue: Fall 2007
Whistler Sliding Centre: Winter 2007

UBC ice hockey arena: Spring 2008
Hillcrest Curling Venue: Fall 2008
Whistler Athlete Centre: Fall 2008
Richmond Speed Skating Oval: Fall 2008
Training venues (Vancouver's Trout Lake, Killarney arenas, etc.): Fall 2008

Whistler Athletes Village: Summer 2009
Vancouver Athletes Village: Fall 2009

VANOC ACCREDITATION FUNCTION BEGINS TO INFLATE

VANOC has begun the process of filling out its Accreditation function, with people expected to be added in the new year. VANOC's begun looking for a person to manage the accreditation operations. That involves planning, developing and implementing the accreditation operations plans, accreditation centres and facilities, across all of VANOC's competition and non-competition venues, sports and functions. The person will be working with VANOC staff at each venue to work out logical zones of accreditation. The new manage is also being asked to ensure that accreditation needs are met when procuring, fitting-out and staffing the accreditation centres and facilities at venues, and to develop and deliver specific training for all accreditation staff and volunteers. VANOC is also searching for a manager to deal with accreditation of the so-called "Olympic Family," which includes people from the various winter-sports national and international federations, all the politicians interested in being a part of the process, and all the staff of the sponsors, the media and VIPs. The person applying for the job has to have experience with governmental organizations, visa and immigration issues, and security clearances. The application deadline for both positions is November 6.

IOC GIVES NOD TO NBC IN BEIJING SWIM SCHEDULE DISPUTE

The IOC has decided, in the case of the Beijing Summer Olympics, to side in favour of American broadcaster NBC to schedule the high-profile swimming matches in the morning, so they can attract more of an audience in the US, where they can be carried live in the evening. Australia, a leading nation in Olympic swimming, had noisily opposed morning swimming finals, as it affected training schedules both the Olympics and other contests. The European Broadcast Union and Australian TV channels Seven and Nine, along with FINA, the international swimming sports organization, had also opposed the change. The European and Aussie broadcasters say that such a change would put the competitions at bad broadcast times for them, considerably reducing the revenue they could expect to offset the fees they've paid to broadcast the Games .IOC representative Giselle Davies said the needs of Olympic swimmers were a consideration and that under the Beijing program they would have more recovery time between evening heats and morning finals than if the finals were at night. She also said the decision did not set a precedent and that swimming finals had been held in the morning at previous Olympics and major championships. The US network is also paying the IOC US$2.2 billion for rights to the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver and the London Games in 2012. That, in turn, would boost NBC's ability to generate advertising revenues for the competitions, and thus offset the amounts of money its paid to the International Olympic Committee for broadcasting rights. VANOC had been asked by Morgan:News:2010 if NBC had or other broadcasters had asked for changes to the 2010 schedule, but it did not reply. There is a potential effect on the amount of money VANOC might receive from IOC rights as a ripple effect of this story. The Australian contract to broadcast the 2010 Games has not yet been negotiated, and if the Aussie channels feel similar types of changes might occur in future Olympic Games, such as 2010's, will affect the value of their deal adversely, their bids might be reduced accordingly.

RESOURCES

Here's the story we first wrote about the Beijing issue and its potential effect on the 2010 Games:

'Beijing swimming schedule tussle has potential to splash part of 2010 funding'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:1770; Published on Thursday, July 6, 2006]

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

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1939
FIRST NINE LICENSEES APPROVED BY VANOC; PRODUCT IN STORES BY JANUARY

The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) has started with nine Canadian companies in its new Official Licensee Program, these ones are under the 'Apparel' and 'Headwear' categories.

The licensees, including five BC-based companies and four located in Toronto, Markham Ontario, and Montreal, will develop and sell products bearing Vancouver 2010 emblems and the Olympic and Paralympic brands. More will be added in other categories later. It includes one company that made its name at the 2002 Winter Olympics.

The first nine licensees, in alphabetical order:

Aritzia LP (Apparel and Headwear; women's fashion), Vancouver

Filmar Sportswear Canada Inc. (Headwear; caps and knitted toques), Montreal, QC

Kootenay Knitting Company Ltd. (Apparel and Headwear; knitted sweaters, vests/scarves, matching toques), Cranbrook, BC

New Era Cap Canada (Headwear; caps and toques), Toronto

Panabo Sales Ltd. (Apparel; scarves and ties), North Vancouver, BC

Paris Glove of Canada (Apparel; gloves and mitts), Montreal

Please Mum (Apparel; kids, toddler and infant clothing), Vancouver

Trimark Sportswear Group Inc. (Apparel; lifestyle/activewear), Markham, Ontario

Wilson International Products Ltd. (Apparel; cotton/cotton-blend T-shirts/sweatshirts), Richmond, BC

"Their products will complement the strong merchandising program started by our Premier National Partner, HBC," says Dave Cobb, VANOC executive vice president of Revenue, Marketing & Communications, in releasing the names. The licensee program began with a formal request for proposals earlier this year. "Representing businesses both large and small, these nine licensees reflect the spirit of entrepreneurship for which Canada is renowned, and exemplify how smaller businesses from across the country can get involved in the Games," Cobb added.

The sale of Vancouver 2010 official licensed products contributes directly to Games operational revenue. Merchandise developed by the new licensees is expected to be in stores by January.

BACKGROUND

Here's a look at the companies on the licensee list in a bit more detail:

ARITZIA LP: Aritzia is an off-shoot of Hill's of Kerrisdale, a long-established Vancouver department store owned and operated by the Hill family. Aritzia LP, founded in 1984 by Brian Hill, is a vertically integrated, young-women's apparel retailer, that is also based in Vancouver. Aritzia has 20 boutiques in mall and street locations in Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton. Its target market is young women aged 15 to 30 interested in advanced styles. It's website: www.aritzia.com

FILMAR SPORTSWEAR CANADA INC.: Filmar, a wholesaler for men's and boy's clothing based in Montreal, sells branded headwear and sportswear to the sporting goods industry. Filmar headwear products are distributed under the Bula and Merkley trademarks in 23 countries worldwide. The company also produces private-label headwear for several other brands. The company is also the exclusive Canadian licensee for the O'Neill sportswear brand and Ron Jon Surf Shop retail stores. Founded in 1976 as a startup, the company has grown to the largest domestic manufacturer of headwear to the sporting goods industry, currently employing more than 200 people in its manufacturing and distribution centre in Montreal. The parent company has a domain, www.filmarcorp.com, but it's website is not yet up. Address: 5445 Av De Gaspe, Montreal QC H2T 3B2, Phone: 514-270-4222; Fax: 514-270-1118; President: Phil Marcovitch.

KOOTENAY KNITTING COMPANY LTD.: Kootenay Knitting first came to Olympic attention during the 2002 Winter Games for the knits it sold to broadcasters of the Games. It is a small British Columbia manufacturing company that sells a variety of knit products to outdoor retailers in North America. A growing part of its business is supplying unique logo hats and sweaters to corporations, resorts, special events and sports teams. Website: www.kootenayknitting.com

NEW ERA CAP CANADA: Since 1920, New Era Cap Canada of Mississauga, Ontario, has been a fashion-headwear brand. It produces more than 30 million caps per year. It is also the exclusive manufacturer and marketer of the official on-field cap worn by every major-league baseball team and their minor league affiliates. Other licenses include the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League and Little League Baseball. Some of the Company's core markets include action sports, children, fans, suburbanites, women and fashion/lifestyle. The Company employs more than 1,500 people in New York and Alabama, and at its operations in Canada, Europe and Japan. New Era is a 'Category A' affiliate of the Fair Labor Association. Its website and contact info: www.neweracap.com/talk/

PANABO SALES LTD. A family-owned company based in Vancouver's North Vancouver suburb, has provided made-in-Canada products to the local and international gift and souvenir industries since the 1960s. Some of the major brands include Magenta Designs and three-dimensional works of Boma Manufacturing, as well as leather goods and glassware. Panabo manages distribution outlets in southern Ontario and in Washington State and, it says, "has a dedicated sales force throughout North America and Japan to provide sales support to our customers." Panabo also works with with northwest Pacific aboriginal artists to promote their art and heritage. Website and contact info: www.panabosales.com Note that the website is under construction, but has contact info available on the home page.

PARIS GLOVE OF CANADA: Paris Glove is part of the Paris Group of eight firms, and is one of the oldest glove companies in North America. It's based in Montreal. Since its inception in 1945, Paris Glove has supported Canadian athletes. The company provides 20 nationally recognized brands, across many sport product categories. It makes and sells gloves around the world, and still has production facilities for several of its product groups located in Quebec, Canada. Auclair and Paris have one of the longest sponsor-team relationships in sport with their 30-year history with the Canadian Cross Country ski team. Auclair is also the official supplier to almost every Canadian team on snow and ice including alpine, snowboarding, freestyle, speed skating, bobsled, luge, Nordic combined, biathlon, telemark, speed skiing and, of course, cross country. It operates through its major division AuClair Gloves. www.auclairgloves.com. The president and CEO of the Group is Peter Monk, who took over the company's operations in 1973.

PLEASE MUM: Please Mum is a national children's wear retailer specializing in providing children to age 10 with fashion clothing. Since opening the first outlet in Burnaby, a Vancouver suburb, in 1986, Please Mum has grown to 90 stores across Canada, with about 1,000 full-time and contract jobs and a warehouse in Vancouver. Please Mum also has a strong social side as well, "In the past few years, our partnership with World Vision has generated over half a million dollars to supply schools, education and housing, in Mozambique, Senegal and Mauritania, Africa and we have recently committed to raise another half million for the Survive Five program that gives children there the nutritional and medical essentials they need to survive past the age of five." The company president is Stephen Lee. Its website: www.pleasemum.com Its e-mail contact for suppliers and buyers is <supplierbuyerinquiries@pleasemum.com>

TRIMARK SPORTSWEAR GROUP INC.: Trimark is a privately owned Canadian company founded in 1975, selling lifestyle and performance sportswear within the Canadian logo-apparel industry. The CEO is Derrick Milne, who has an MBA from Harvard and who bought the Markham, Ontario, based company in 1995, says that Will Andrew is to be the president of a new division, to develop a new line of apparel aimed at servicing retailers and sponsors of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. The Group was set up after Trimark bought three American companies: Rivers End Trading Company and LA Loving in 1999 and Loving-Kayman a year later. John Black is the chief financial officer of TSG, and Stuart Campbell is the chief operating officer. Website: www.trimarksportswear.com

WILSON INTERNATIONAL PRODUCTS LTD. Founded in 1973 by Tony Wilson, the company has developed into a diversified operation that provides in-house products and services to its clients in the corporate, retail and event sectors of the apparel and promotional merchandise markets. It has a 1,860 square metre (20,000-square foot) facility in Richmond. Wilson International provides integrated services: in-house graphic design, embroidery, screen printing and e-commerce. It also deals with Silk screen printing, embroidering, sportswear, hats, t shirts, jackets, automotive trimmings, pleating, decorative and novelty stitching, tucking, wholesale men's, women's and children's clothing and furnishings and accessories. Website: www.wilsoninternational.com

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

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1938
2010 OLYMPICS EXECUTIVES TARGET BALANCED C$1.7 BILLION OPERATION BUDGET IN LATEST ANNUAL REPORT

Now that Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) has moved its venue-construction deadlines several times over the last three years, and finally won approval for its increased capital budgets from the Canadian and BC governments, its latest annual report says it's on time and on budget.

VANOC's annual report, for the fiscal year that ended July 31, was released today. Here are the highlights from the management discussion and executive interviews that followed its release:

VANOC's chief operating officer John Furlong says the organization's goal is a balanced operations budget of about C$1.7 billion by the time the Games are completed. The estimates until the end of the Games on that will include a contingency. That's changed slightly. Until now, he had referred to operational expenses of about C$1.5 billion. Three senior VANOC executives said in various ways in interviews following the release of the report that VANOC will complete its venue-construction program within the C$580 million budget provided by the BC and federal government cost-sharing arrangement, which has a contingency of C$66.8 million plus C$14.5 million total in-project contingencies . That includes VANOC's executive vice-president of Construction, Dan Doyle. As Furlong puts it flatly, "We will complete it for less than that figure." Notes Rex McLennan, VANOC's executive vice president and chief financial officer, "We are committed to finishing the venue program under that number." McLennan adds that by December, the venue construction program will be past the halfway mark. (The organization accounts for the two budgets separately, since venue construction is financed by governments and the operations budget is financed by private-sector revenues and expenses.) The annual report's management discussion section adds, "Venue construction is on budget with secured government funding and a healthy contingency relative to the uncommitted capital funds. Excellent progress is being made at all venues and we expect to meet the targeted venue completion dates to support VANOC's goal of maximizing venue testing and athlete training opportunities well before the Games. The sponsorship program continues with strong momentum; revenues are up significantly year over year."

For the first time, VANOC is reporting cash revenue from its sponsorship efforts is now flowing into its accounting department, and for its first year, it was a healthy C$38 million. All told, VANOC has so far raised C$550 million in sponsorship sales, with a target of C$100 million for the current fiscal year.

Thanks to deals with its retailing sponsor, HBC, and to marketing and public interest surrounding last February and March's 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, VANOC sold more than C$3 million worth of licensed merchandise, up from just C$21,250 the year before. Executive vice-president of Revenue, Marketing and Communications, Dave Cobb, told Morgan:News:2010, "We are certainly ahead of the targets that were in the first version of the business plan that we submitted last summer. The results that HBC had around the Torino Games were far in excess of what we and HBC expected and, as a result of that, we will be increasing the revenue targets for merchandise sales in the business plan we'll be submitting to our Board in a couple of weeks." Cobb says the demand was so high for VANOC merchandise, HBC encountered shortages. "We're told that the sales of Olympic merchandise were the highest on a square-foot basis in the history of their company. It was very positive, and I think they are looking at adjusting their plans based on a higher-than-expected demand in the future." Expansion of VANOC's licensed merchandise program will occur over the next several months with a quite number of new products bearing VANOC marks becoming available for purchase soon.

Money is flowing through VANOC at a good pace now, as a result of its own efforts in earlier years. Net revenues were C$32.2 million and C$4.3 million for the years ended July 31, 2006 and 200. Revenues for the year ending last July 31 include cash sponsorship revenue of C$38 million, value in kind (VIK) sponsorship revenue of C$6.5 million, licensed merchandise royalties of C$3.4 million and incidental income of $1.1 million. VIK revenue came from its use of sponsors' telecommunications goods and services, banking services, vehicles, fuel, building products, uniforms and clothing and office furniture.

All of VANOC's major revenue sources have costs attached directly to them because of various contractual arrangements, such as assignment of marketing rights by other organizations. As a result, the revenues are net of C$16.6 million in marketing royalties which are paid to the IOC and the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC). Management attributes the increase of C$27.9 million compared to the preceding year to the overall growth in activity and the activation of several major sponsor agreements. Total revenues before royalties and the like and including merchandise were C$47.8 million, compared with C$1.4 million the year earlier.

The deficit [see BACKGROUND for some reporting presentation details] for the 2006 fiscal year was C$17.5 million, up C$1.5 million from the year before. "It is typical for Games organizing committees to operate at a deficit in their early years as a substantial portion of revenues are generated closer to Games time."

Morgan:News:2010 has been reporting over the last year the amounts of money being spent in directed contracts by the federal government to help the Canadian Meteorological Service build four sophisticated weather stations in the Sea-to-Sky corridor near Whistler. Ottawa is recovering its money. VANOC's report says that some of the C$1.3 million in expenses in its Venue Management section relate to "development of weather reporting systems."

VANOC's major expenses, as expected, are payroll and benefits for the 250 employees who worked for the organization as of July 31, which are lumped in with some sustainability expenses, to total C$23.6 million. The second highest component expenditure was in the Finance, Administration and Legal sections. It spent C$12.8 million on "acquiring,
fitting out, and operating VANOC's office, interest and banking charges, financial systems, insurance and legal fees." Much of it had to do with the set up of VANOC's new headquarters in east Vancouver. The third largest expenditure was C$3.8 million for communications and marketing activities, which included sponsorship-related costs.

The report notes that the Canadian government finally brought its account with VANOC up to date during the latest full fiscal year, contributing C$64 million for venue construction for the years 2005 and 2006. "On a project-to-date basis, venue development funding from BC totals $81.0 million while funding from Canada totals $72.1 million.

VANOC's liquidity position at the end of July seems reasonable, given where the Games are in their development: VANOC had cash and restricted cash balances of C$20.2 million and had borrowed C$48 million against its demand credit facilities with its financial sponsor, RBC's the Royal Bank. The restricted cash balances are connected to expenditures for the Hillcrest Curling venue and the Hastings Park skating venue, both in Vancouver, and had to do with the delays in receiving money from the federal government. The expenses were funded by BC during the interim, and finally reimbursed by the Canadian government.

VANOC' hedging program began last February, and that's reported in detail for the first time in this annual report. VANOC gets a significant portion of its revenues from broadcasting deals made by the International Olympic Committee, and various other sources, in foreign currencies, primarily the US dollar and the Euro. By July 21, VANOC was able to confirm future net cash advances of US$240 million and e50 million, and so it set up forward foreign-exchange option contracts to sell those cash flows at specified future dates through to March 2009. The "downside" weighted average rates are at 1.087 for US dollars and 1.405 for Euros. Since August 1 this year, VANOC received US$17 million in advance, generating C$23,000.

COMING UP:

The report confirms that the organization's second business plan, and the first to be made public, won't be released until "early 2007" and perhaps as late as March. VANOC staff and management have been working on its preparation since March, with a deadline of getting it to VANOC's Board of Directors at its November meeting for the first of several sequential approvals it must go through before being released. After the Board is finished with it, it must also be approved by the federal and BC governments, and the IOC. The federal government approved its first plan, about 18 months ago, but the BC government did not, because it was concerned about a lack of sufficient detail behind the initial numbers. Furlong said in an interview today that many of the numbers were "placeholders" for when the organization was able to test its estimates against the operations of the 2006 Winter Games in Torino.

VANOC's senior staff will hold discussions in about two weeks with the IOC about the process of how negotiations between the two will proceed during the next few months over the critical percentage split of the IOC's revenue from 2010 broadcast auctions and international sponsorship. "We've had a brief chat with the IOC about putting in place a process for those discussions," Furlong told Morgan:News:2010 this morning. "There's a project review coming up in Vancouver with the IOC staff in the next two weeks, and we will likely spend a bit of time talking about how we're going to go through this process at that time." The IOC itself uses only about 8% of revenues it generates for its own operations, and distributes the rest through the world-wide Olympic movement, some of which funds the Canadian Olympic Committee and its programs. VANOC will be aiming for as much as it can get to help fund its operations and achieve its balanced budget. The new business plan won't be released until the outcome of the IOC's talks are known and the revenue figures are nailed down. A conservative estimate of the revenue will be in the draft of the new business plan when it goes to VANOC's board of directors in mid-November.

VANOC is still in discussions with Canadian government officials regarding a request for special legislation to protect the Olympic Brand. VANOC's Dave Cobb hopes the legislation will be "introduced and effective" in time to protect its marks and to prevent or reduce ambush marketing of its sponsors during the period leading up to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games through to the end of the 2010 Games. The legislation would give VANOC the power to "act quickly" to counter violations of its intellectual-property rights, and normally it would take too long to get court rulings in such events. The legislation, hopes Cobb, will bypass the normal system for VANOC. Cobb indicated the legislation, which still hasn't been introduced in Parliament, should have been in place "now."

Terry Wright, VANOC's executive vice president of Service Operations and Ceremonies, confirmed the concept of hiring a cruise ship and berth it at Squamish, about an hour's drive from the Games to help house part of the Olympic family is going to go ahead. Wright says those people include, "media, broadcast technicians, potentially security and other members of the workforce". The alternative, he notes, is to house them in Vancouver, two and half hours drive away. The IOC had initially rejected the concept, saying that the ship would be too far away, and preferring the media, at least to be about 15 minutes away from the Games or less. But Wright says, "We're continuing to work with the IOC, and continuing to press ahead to confirm what the potential arrangements will be [in the Sea-to-Sky corridor], and we'll work through the specific press issues over the next three or four months. We'll meet with the [IOC's] Press Commission before we finalize what the allocation of the rooms on the ship will be to the press."

It appears VANOC may advance the bridge funding necessary to have the Vancouver School Board finance an elementary school at the Vancouver Olympic Village, since it's the policy of the BC Ministry of Education to not build schools until there are students ready to attend it, as it's expected there would be in September, 2010. VANOC plans to use the school building to house its polyclinic, and once the School Board discovered it wouldn't be getting funds in advance from the BC government, it went looking for bridge financing. Says Wright, "Traditionally the polyclinics are housed in a temporary facility, usually a modular-space trailer complex. It's our hope that we might be able to contribute a part of that budget for a temporary lease towards some enhancements of the school. If the school doesn't go ahead, then we'll go with the traditional route. If the school goes ahead, then we'll look for a creative partnership to benefit both parties. We need to know, for that decision, about 18 months before the Games."

Planning activities for VANOC's ticketing program will begin this year to prepare for the anticipated public sale beginning in the spring or summer of 2008.

VANOC will learn officially in November whether the IOC will confirm any new events, proposed by seven sports federations for the 2010 Games. They include such things as skier cross, women's ski jumping, singles curling, mixed culring and team events in some of the sliding sports. The IOC program commission made its recommendations last week, but the IOC refuses to reveal what those recomments to the IOC executive meeting in November are. Furlong says there will be no new sports added, but there were a number of events suggested for various disciplines. The chances of "many of them being added" to the 2010 Games, he predicts, is "slim", and requires VANOC to consider the costs and ticket revenues that would be generated by the additions. "There's always the possibility we'll see a new discipline. We have not been formally notified that there will be a new one... most of the applications are not likely to be successful... once we have been told by the IOC which one they might want us to consider, we would look at whatever the cost implications might be. There may be some cases where there are no cost implications, but there might be revenue implications." Reading between the lines, it appears that women's ski jumping, which has a strong push behind it, doesn't have much cost impact but could generate ticket sales, is likely to have the best chance of being approved.

Construction chief Dan Doyle says a BC government requirement for a risk analysis to be turned in by October 31 has been completed and will be sent to Victoria shortly. Doyle says it will be up to the BC government whether its made public. And, he adds, the four-person Capital Advisory Committee also requested by the government to be in place this month has been set up, and he's awaiting confirmation from the fourth of the four people invited by VANOC to sit on it and oversee VANOC construction spending. Once confirmed, the make-up of the Committee will be made public.

VANOC continues to negotiate its venue agreement with Orca Bay, the owner of GM Place, where VANOC medal hockey tournaments are to be played, among other things, but the reason for the delay in concluding it, according to Revenue chief Dave Cobb is that it's a complex arrangement, not because Orca Bay's negotiators are, as has been said, playing hardball. Cobb says that the cost of the arrangement will come out of VANOC's operational budget, not its taxpayer-funded venue construction budget. "We're working with them on such things as how they can help us. We're looking at doing a joint-marketing program, for example, and other ways to share revenues that may be available to us through events at the venue, and really pulling everything we can with them on both sides. I don't think it's fair to say we're playing hardball. We want to make sure we don't leave any rock unturned. And the [negotiations] are within the timeline we need to have certainty by the time we conclude our operating business plan, which will be early in the new year."

VANOC will be starting its Donor Program about two years out from the Games, which would make it likely to begin in early 2008. Dave Cobb says the planning for the program is still in the early stages, and his staff are looking at what kinds of things previous Games did to raise funds this way. Cobb told Morgan:News:2010 that, "Salt Lake [2002 Winter Games] was quite successful in putting together opportunities for businesses and individuals to donate to various aspects of our program. It is one that will evolve [for VANOC] over the next little while, and when we have that formulated, we will give you more information on it."

VANOC now has 53 of its function areas operating, with senior management recruited for most of those functions. It has 275 staff and Furlong says the target is to have 485 people on the payroll by the end of next year.

VANOC's next quarterly report, for the first quarter of VANOC's new fiscal year, ending October 31, will be issued in December.

BACKGROUND

VANOC reports its financials using Canadian generally accepted accounting principles, but because of the short-term, rapid growth nature of the organization, and its short life span, it makes some adjustments in accounting to reflect that. For instance:

The results of its activities are reported as deferred operating revenues and expenses and venue development presented for the year ended July 31, 2006 with comparative figures for the preceding year. As VANOC has an extended operating cycle with a steep growth curve, management always reports its results on a project-to-date basis, which is more meaningful. All revenue and deficit figures are reported as deferred. In our report above, Morgan:News:2010 removes the word "deferred" for readability reasons.

The results of deferred operating revenues and expenses and venue development activities are recorded in the periods received or incurred and deferred over the extended operating cycle which concludes in 2010 with the staging of the Games. That's why no it calls the reports interim financial statements. No prepayments are recorded, and none of VANOC's assets are amortized or depreciated. It's seen simply as an extended operating cycle. so they will be expensed with the staging of the Games in 2010.

RESOURCES

VANOC's annual report is available for download in PDF format here:
www.vancouver2010.com/resources/PDFs/0610_AnnualReport.pdf

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

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1937
Here are three moguls we ran into today:

DOW CHEMICALS, VANOC STILL HAVE LOTS OF WORK TO DO ON SPONSORSHIP DEAL

Sources close to the Dow Chemical Canada sponsorship negotiations with VANOC say there is still quite a bit of work to be done in resolving the details of the arrangement. The deal, whose total value is being protected for competitive reasons, will be a ratio of cash, value-in-kind and expertise, but what the ratio will be and how the three components will be applied is still undecided. "There's still lots to discuss and sort out," says the source. The Official Supplier category values range from a low of C$3 million to a high of C$15 million, and Dow has also bought rights to support the Canadian Olympic Teams for Games through to the Summer Olympics and Paralympics in London, England, in 2012, but the form of that contribution has also yet to be decided. "Those are all still talks we're having about where the funds and products will be best utilized." As for the marketing strategy, the sources say the marketing aspect for the arrangement gives Dow the opportunity to increase corporate awareness of the quality of its products and applications. "There are going to be a lot of opportunities to highlight the relationship in a variety of means in [Dow's] different businesses, whether that's in trade shows or relationships with [Dow's] customers," says the source. VANOC's public statements indicate that Dow's materials will be used in the construction of the two major venues VANOC is building in Whistler, the Nordic Centre and the Sliding Centre, as well as the Hillcrest Curling Centre in Vancouver, but the source says Dow's involvement has only been confirmed for the Sliding Centre so far; Dow's sponsorship will probably be applied to the other two venues but VANOC's process for assessing the materials and the applications has not yet confirmed it. The source, however, says it's also expected there will be other venues where the sponsorship aspects will be applied, as time goes along, adding, "That's one of the places where the company's materials will be involved, but there are others where it will have the opportunity to bid on projects as the Games progress."

INTRAWEST SALE TO FORTRESS EXPECTED TO COMPLETED TOMORROW

Intrawest Corporation is still expecting its sale to Fortress Investment Group LLC be completed tomorrow. Intrawest owns Whistler-Blackcomb resort, which is a venue of the 2010 Winter Games. Today, the Supreme Court of British Columbia approved the deal involving Intrawest, its shareholders and optionholders and two companies owned directly or indirectly by funds managed by affiliates of Fortress. The arrangement was approved by Intrawest securityholders at a meeting October 17. More than 99.9 per cent voted in favour. Yesterday, the transaction was approved by the Canadian minister of Industry under the rules of the Investment Canada Act. Once the deal's completed tomorrow, the common shares of Intrawest will be delisted from the New York and Toronto Stock Exchanges. Intrawest's shareholders are to receive US$35 in cash for each Intrawest common share they own.

COQUITLAM FIRM MOVED VANOC HQ STAFF

Information released by the BC government shows that Williams Moving & Storage of Coquitlam, a suburb of Vancouver, was the company that moved VANOC staff from their former headquarters in downtown Vancouver to their new building in east Vancouver earlier this year. The 77-year-old, family-owned moving company contracted with Innovation Networks to help it deal with moving computer equipment. Innovation Networks is 56% owned by people from the Tsawwassen aboriginal band, where the firm was formed in 1997. Williams responded to a VANOC ad for a moving company and it and Innovation submitted a joint bid.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 24, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1936
DOW CHEMICAL BECOMES OFFICIAL SUPPLIER OF VANOC'S REQUIREMENTS FOR INSULATION AND HEAT-TRANSFER FLUIDS

The latest supplier-sponsor for the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) is Dow Chemical Canada Inc. (DCC), a subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company.

DCC, in a deal with VANOC that gives it sponsorship rights within Canada for the 2010 Winter Games -- including sponsorship rights for the Canadian Olympic Committee and the Canadian Olympic Team for 2008, 2010, and 2012 -- is to be "the official supplier of insulation materials and heat transfer fluids." Dow Chemical, the international firm, has supported the Olympic movement in various ways for about 30 years.

The deal was given little fan-fare by VANOC. A prepared statement from VANOC says the two organizations are "mutually committed to the principles of sustainability," and that they "will work together to support a green Olympics by increasing awareness of how to reduce waste." Dow's Building & Construction business will supply insulation products that will be extensively used in the construction of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic venues.

Dow Chemical Canada Inc., a subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company, employs approximately 1,300 people in Canada. Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Dow Canada and its affiliates have manufacturing locations in: Sarnia and Toronto, Ontario; Fort Saskatchewan and Prentiss, Alberta; and Varennes, Quebec. The category value is between C$3 million and C$15 million, but the value for the Dow deal was not disclosed, nor the ratio of cash versus value-in-kind.

Jeff Johnston, president, Dow Chemical Canada, also notes that "A portion of Dow's sponsorship will be directed to support VANOC's sustainability objectives, which will include a focus on recycling and litter clean-up initiatives." He added that for over three decades, "Dow's insulation materials and building solutions have been widely utilized at Olympic venues. We are pleased to have so many products that will contribute to VANOC's venue construction program."

The company's products have found application that are diverse, such as protecting ice surfaces, providing for a uniform and consistent cold temperature, and for keeping buildings "warm and comfortable" for athletes and the spectators.

Dan Doyle, executive vice president of Construction for VANOC says that Dow's products will be used in the Whistler Sliding Centre, the Whistler Nordic Centre, both in the Whistler area, and the Hillcrest Curling Centre in Vancouver. "These venues will not only host athletes and spectators during the Games, but will contribute to sustainable sport and recreation legacies for generations to come," he said.

Dow's building envelope products deal with energy efficiency, moisture resistance and durability and includes brands such as Dow Styrofoam extruded polystyrene insulation, Weathermate, housewraps and Great Stuff Pro, a collection of insulating foam sealants and adhesives.

Dow's heat transfer fluids are sold under the brand names Dowther, Dowfrost and Ucartherm. They're used in industrial and commercial applications for high-temperature and low-temperature applications. Dowtherm SR-1, for instance, is to maintain high-quality ice in arenas and other ice-sports facilities.

The international parent company has annual sales of US$46 billion and employs 42,000 people worldwide.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 24, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1935
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT BUYS MORE EXPENSIVE PIECES FOR 2010'S NEW, SOPHISTICAED WEATHER RADAR SYSTEM

The Canadian government's weather service is, for a third time, intending to contract with an American company for more parts for the four weather stations it intends to build by next March that will provided meterological information for the planners of the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics.

Public Works documents show that it will spend C$289,000 with Sigmet Corporation without going to tender to purchase four sets of equipment that will control the weather stations' radar antennae and process the signals it receives. Sigmet Corporation of Manalapan, New Jersey, is a subsidiary of Vaisala Inc of Woburn, Massachusetts. Vaisala, in turn, is owned by a parent company by the same name in Helsinki, Finland. The latest contract brings the total spent by the Canadian Meteorological Service on the Doppler-weather stations to at least C$649,000 in new equipment, without going to tender, but the Service is also using other equipment it bought for other purposes in the network of 30 similar stations in other parts of the country.

Last June, a directed contract was issued to Vasiala for C$360,000 for a wind-profiling radar system and a radio-acoustic sounding system, and on October 3, and in October Public Works bought cavity magnetrons, a high-powered tube that generates coherent microwaves and works like an amplifier, from the same company at an undisclosed price.

The Doppler weather radar system will be located in the Sea-To-Sky corridor not far from Whistler for Olympic and Paralympic weather surveillance, forecasts and detection of severe weather. The Meteorological Service of Canada's National Radar Program will build and deliver the radars for the Games, and they'll be integrated into Canada's overall weather system after the Games are gone.

The reason, says Public Works Canada, that such a large contract is being directed to a specific company is that all of the radar control systems currently in use by the MSC are supplied by Sigmet Corporation. These include operational radar systems and networks, and wind-shear detection. The money will be spent on purchasing an antenna control, model RCP8. This equipment controls the scanning strategy of the radar itself. The antenna dish rotates horizontally, but scans vertically. That produces a large volume of radar return data, as the signal bounces off objects and returns to the dish. Movements of the dish, and the antenna within the dish, must be precise to produce accurate information, and so a sophisticated antenna control system is required.

The Signet signal processor and antenna controllers work in pairs. The main task of radar's signal processor is to make decisions. After a signal has been transmitted, the receiver collects the bounce information, with signals bouncing from near objects arriving first because time of arrival translates into target range. The signal processor makes decisions over whether a specific bounce is due to an object or is just electronic noise. Atmospheric noise enters into the system through the antenna, and all the electronics in the radar's signal path produces noise, and the bounce signal is quite weak. The processor has to decide whether a given bounce is a reflection or noise. If it's too sensitive, the radar screen produces false objects; not sensitive enough, and bounces from far-away objects, or poorly reflecting ones, are ignored.

For the Vancouver 2010 stations to work within the model RCP8 system, specific types of equipment have to be used, says Public Works, which is why they are only buying from Sigmet Corporation: they get data consistency, maintenance expertise, archival assistance and the like in a way that works with the rest of the system.

General scientific expertise, technical support processes, equipment sparing and maintenance strategies used by Environment Canada, says Public Works, "that rely on the availability of Vaisala-Sigmet radar components... The development of operational and systems-management weather-radar capabilities are not trivial and have taken years to develop. The purchase of antenna-control and signal-processing units from other vendors would result in this unit being incompatible with the national system. It could not be recycled back into they system at the end of the Olympic Games. Moreover, no expertise exists in Environment Canada for the operation and maintenance of other vendor's systems. Essentially, it would be unlikely MSC could construct and operate a weather surveillance radar in time for the Games if another vendor or venders were chosen."

RESOURCES

Sigmet contact information:

www.vaisala.com/businessareas/measurementsystems/weatherradar/products/sigmet
--

Vaisala Inc. info
The Helsinki-based company is public; here's its investor-relations page:
www.vaisala.com/investors

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 24, 2006

Monday, October 23, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1934
VANOC TO COMMISSION MAJOR TRAFFIC-REGULATION STUDY FOR GAMES-TIME USE

The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) has launched the process that is to provide it with detailed plans by June 1 for how traffic could be regulated in Greater Vancouver and along the highway between Vancouver and Whistler during the 2010 Winter Games.

VANOC says it has preliminary estimates that indicate that the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games will generate up to 400,000 trips per day. To put that number in perspective, the regional public transit system registered about 500,000 trips daily last year. The estimate is based the fact there were about six million trips that took place daily in the Greater Vancouver area in 2005, and of those, two million were destined for the City of Vancouver alone. About 370,000 vehicles entered or left the City of Vancouver each day.

VANOC is expected to award a contract by December 1 to a traffic-planning firm to develop a transportation model that will help VANOC predict how Games-generated traffic is to integrate with the "background" flow of vehicles that would normally be expected to be using the streets around its Greater Vancouver venues and the Sea-to-Sky Highway from the Eagleridge interchange at West Vancouver and Function Junction, which is just south of Whistler and near the highway exits to VANOC's Whistler Nordic Centre and its Whistler Athlete Village.

VANOC last June received its first third transportation study, all done by Creative Transportation Solutions of Port Moody. VANOC won't release the report or give much detail about it, other than to say that it contains a "geo-marketing study" to identify the origins of spectators, volunteers and skiers, another geo-marketing study to identify spectators' origins for each of its the 2010-Olympic venues, a study of the parking supply in the areas surrounding the venues and how much the parking is used, and a venue-by-venue analysis of transit and parking strategies. By February 1, VANOC wants to have an updated geo-marketing report.

By next June, it wants to have a complete transportation demand model constructed, along with plans for Sea-to-Sky Highway transportation; the mountain area in the Whistler region, which would take in all the Whistler-area Games venues; and a similar plan for the Greater Vancouver area.

All the plans would figure out a list of preferred corridors for both vehicular and pedestrian traffic, an assessment of the impact of street closures, traffic-flow reversal, and any additional transit and park-and-ride capacity that would be necessary to accommodate the additional Games-related traffic.

Here's what VANOC wants to know and the work it wants done:

TRANSPORTATION DEMAND MODEL:

This would be constructed from VANOC's existing transportation studies, and the studies of other government agencies, along with census numbers and projections -- and VANOC's own information about parking, traffic, projected attendance and the assumptions about Games schedules -- as a way of being able "to forecast how Games-related vehicular and pedestrian traffic flows will interact with background traffic" even with Games-related traffic being injected into the traffic flows. The idea is to provide a detailed computer model of the expected regional 2010 transportation system, that includes "forecast non-games infrastructure and demand." It would also mode the regional "Games-induced transportation demand both for direct Games-generated demand and indirect demand" for each of the main VANOC traffic generators [see BACKGROUND, below, for the list of these generators].

It's a model that VANOC hopes will help it manage the "background demand" for motor vehicle use -- that is the general non-Games related traffic -- Games demand, the various shares of different types of transportation, and transportation capacity. "The goal of this exercise," says a VANOC staffer, "will be to maximize the likelihood that the movement of goods and people between the venues will occur within time requirements set by VANOC. The phrase, "by people", it says it defines as, in order of helping: athletes & team officials, workforce (volunteers, staff, contractors), broadcasters, the press, IOC/IPC members, NOC/NCP members, international sports-federation members, marketing partners, spectators, and residents.

The plans are to compile, particularly in the Greater Vancouver area, the list of of Olympic traffic lanes or roadways that might be set aside that would only carry the various categories of VANOC vehicles, such as those carrying VIPs, Olympic officials, athletes and their team support, and the like.

There are a number of agencies that will be using the information the model provides: the Greater Vancouver Transit Authority, BC Transit, the BC Ministry of Transportation, the federal government's Transport Canada, the Resort Municipality of Whistler, Vancouver International Airport, the City of Vancouver, and the Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit, which oversees security for the Games.

Here are the questions VANOC is hoping the model might be able to answer once it's constructed:

Will the vehicular traffic occurring during the Games period -- from January 30 to March 31, 2010 -- generate congestion above the existing levels? If so, where will the congestion occur? What are the options that might mitigate this?

What will be the effects of a street closure or change in flow direction on the traffic flow in surrounding streets?

What are the effects of the creation of temporary pedestrian malls, such as streets dedicated only to pedestrian traffic, on the vehicular and pedestrian flow in the streets surrounding the VANOC venues?

Is the existing public transit capacity to each one of VANOC's competition and non-competition venues sufficient to adequately service the incoming and departing traffic? If not, what additional capacity would be necessary?

Is the existing park-&-ride capacity around the venues and other traffic generators, and in the Greater Vancouver Regional District of municipalities sufficient to accommodate the expected volume of traffic? If not, what additional capacity would be required? (Park & ride is a nickname for car parking lots that have shuttle-bus access from the parking lot to a nearby location.)

THE GREATER VANCOUVER AREA TRANSPORTATION PLAN

This transportation plan is for the area that takes in all of the Olympic and Paralympic venues in and around Vancouver. The primary goal of the plan is to figure out strategies to ensure that the movement of goods and people occurs within time requirements set by VANOC. [See the "Greater Vancouver Area" in BACKGROUND, below, for the list of traffic generators that would be covered by this plan.] The governmental organizations that VANOC would like to help in developing the plan include the BC Ministry of Transportation, the City of Vancouver, the City of Richmond, the District of North Vancouver, the District of West Vancouver and the Greater Vancouver Transit Authority, at a minimum. The idea would be for the plan to provide VANOC with "preliminary contingency strategies to mitigate the effect of any disruption that may occur in the area."

THE SEA-TO-SKY HIGHWAY TRANSPORTATION PLAN

This plan is to be build out of the information provided by the model. The major goal of this plan is figure out strategies that would ensure that the movement of goods and people along the highway corridor occurs within time requirements set by VANOC, which it so far has not released publicly. Although the primary focus is from the Eagleridge intersection at the south end of the highway to just south of Whistler, the corridor plan also has to integrate with traffic using the Upper Levels highway east of Eagleridge junction to Cypress Bowl, which is another of VANOC's venues.

THE MOUNTAIN AREA TRANSPORTATION PLAN

This plan is for the area that covers all of the Olympic and Paralympic venues in and around the Resort Municipality of Whistler and the District of Squamish, to the southwest. The primary goal of this plan, says VANOC, will be to figure out strategies that ensure that the movement of goods and people also moves within the times set by VANOC. [See the "Whistler Area" in BACKGROUND, below, for the list of traffic generators that would be covered by this plan.]

BACKGROUND

The list of locations VANOC wants these studies to involve:

GREATER VANCOUVER AREA

Vancouver's downtown core

Vancouver International Airport

BC Place Stadium, where the medal hockey games will be played

Hillcrest/Nat Bailey Stadium Park, where curling is to be the main driver

The Northern Media Village, which apparently is still contemplated for Squamish, although the International Olympic Committee has frowned on the distance from Squamish to Whistler for the media

Richmond long-track speed-skating Oval

Trout Lake and Killarney Rinks, which will be used for secondary hockey games and practice

Cypress Mountain

IOC/IPC Headquarters

UBC Winter Sports Centre

General Motors Place

Pacific Coliseum at Hastings Park in eastern Vancouver

Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre

Vancouver Olympic Village

WHISTLER AREA

Whistler Sliding Centre

Whistler Celebration Site

Whistler Olympic and Paralympic Village

Mountain Media Centre in Whistler

Whistler Creekside

Whistler Nordic Centre

and

Live sites, where big-screen TVs will be located for public viewing of the Games, and sponsor villages in both Vancouver and Whistler

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 23, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1933
Here are three moguls we ran into today:

VANOC TO HIRE COMPANY PROVIDING MOTOR COACHES FOR AT LEAST TWO YEARS

VANOC is offering a formal Request for Proposals for what appears to be a two-year contract for a company to provide it with motor coaches and drivers, however the contract offer is carelessly prepared, with one part suggesting the contract would be to November 2009, while another part says the contract would start this November and go to February 2010, which is just before the Games are due to start. In either case, VANOC says it's also offering "an option to renew for an additional term to carry through to April 30, 2010" which would take the deal through the period during which both the Olympics and Paralympics would be held, and during which it would be expected there would be heavy demand. VANOC is looking for a company that can provide a wide range of modern coaches, from those that hold 56 passengers to 20-passenger mini-buses, including coaches that hold 30-48 passengers, depending on VANOC's needs at any given time. The services, according to the offer, would be on an "as and when" the buses are required basis, starting this November. These services are required for the Greater Vancouver area including round trips to Whistler; even so drivers need to know "the Greater Vancouver Regional District area, Whistler, Squamish and Pemberton." And, says the RFP, "The services will be used to provide occasional transportation for employees, media and other interested parties as needed up to Games time in February 2010." The coaches all need to be set up with "DVD and CD systems, as well as television monitors." The contract offer appears to be hastily prepared, with parts of the offer template not properly filled in. There are no details at all about the expected motor coach demand during the period. VANOC is insisting that the buses provided be "the newest, most mechanically sound motor coaches regardless of the length of the trip," but it adds elsewhere that the buses can't be more than 10 years old. VANOC says all the supplied coaches will be inspected by VANOC crews before use. The closing date for the RFP is November 14.

COC HAS ANOTHER LOOK AT VANOC VENUES

The Canadian Olympic Committee has conducted its second official site visit to Vancouver as the Committee prepares, as it normally would for any Olympic Winter Games, for the 2010 Games. Members of the Committee's Olympic Preparation and Games department participated in venues tours and met VANOC personnel from most functional areas. The officials' visit was aimed at becoming more familiar with construction plans and progress on the venues so ar, and continuing their discussions with VANOC officials "on strategies that will give Canada home field advantage leading to and during the Game," according to a spokesman. Besides reviewing the venues and the sites of the Olympic Villages that are now both under construction in Vancouver and Whistler, the COC staff identified potential sites for other team activities such as performance services, clothing distribution and special events. The NOC Relations division at VANOC did an excellent job hosting us," said Dermer-Norris, the COC's director of Team Operations. "They anticipated our needs during this visit and provided us with comprehensive information which will help advance our Olympic-preparation strategies and team operations plans." The COC also works with the national winter-sport federations (NSFs) to identify key elements of their individual Olympic plans. "We are encouraged to see the cooperation between the NSFs and the VANOC Sport division on sport venue and technically related matters," said Dermer-Norris, who added that the work should "result in teams being able to maximize their training and pre-Games competition opportunities at Olympic venues." The COC will conduct several site visits to Vancouver and Whistler over the next four years. "When we participate in Games outside the country," said Dermer-Norris, "our focus is to create an environment which is performance centred but also a home away from home for the athletes and coaches. But in 2010, we will already be home. What a unique advantage this will be." The COC's staff who were on the site review besides Dermer-Norris included: Carla Anderson, the manager of Team Operations; Derek Covington, the director of Olympic Preparation and Mike Christie, the technical manager of Olympic Programs.

CODA TO SPEND C$2-MILLION ON UPGRADING CANMORE CENTRE FOR 2010 NORDIC ATHLETES

A new C$2-million investment by the Calgary Olympic Development Association has been established to expand the Bill Warren Training Centre in Canmore, Alberta, for 2010 Olympic-bound Nordic racers. CODA's financial injection is expected to expand the existing Centre by about 560 square metres (6,000 square feet), and "significantly enhance" weight training and aerobic facilities, laboratory testing space as well as expand offices for coaches and support staff. A video analysis room is also to be added. "CODA is committed to providing Canada's athletes with the premier training facilities they need to win in 2010 and beyond," says Bob Nicolay, CODA's president and CEO. The organization is also undertaking to build Canada's first Centre of Sport Excellence. "This investment complements the more than C$30 million the Government of Alberta recently spent to modernize the Canmore Nordic Centre to current world-calibre standards, and will ultimately put more Canadians on the international podium in the sports of cross-country skiing and biathlon," Nicolay says. The Canmore Nordic Centre, he notes, is core to CODA's plan to develop the Centre of Sport Excellence in Alberta. The national body announced two weeks ago construction of five new world-leading facilities at Calgary's Canada Olympic Park for the sports of snowboarding, freestyle skiing, alpine skiing and ski jumping. The expanded training centre, which is home to the national skiing federation, Cross Country Canada, is expected to be available for use in November 2007. The idea is to give Canada's high-performance athletes three full winters to access to new support facilities before Canada hosts the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 23, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1932
Here are three moguls we ran into today:

VANOC FINANCIAL REPORT DUE WEDNESDAY

VANOC is expected to provide its latest financial and business operations report on schedule on Wednesday morning. On the same day, VANOC CEO John Furlong will provide his own interpretation the organization's progress to the Vancouver Board of Trade during a luncheon speech. VANOC began issuing quarterly financial reports with its initial quarterly report last spring, providing the public with financial results, operational updates, recent milestones and a look ahead to the next quarter. The organization's financial year starts July 1.

C$15.8 MILLION SPENT ON RICHMOND OVAL TO JUNE 30

Richmond City's second-quarter fiscal report to June 30 shows the city has spent C$15.8 million so far on building the sports complex that will contain the 2010 Olympic Oval and that represents 9% of the project as being completed. The total capital budget for the project is C$178 million budget. The estimated date of completion for the building is July 31, 2008. VANOC requires the building to be completed by November of that year. It has also spent C$35,000 of the budgeted C$110,000 on the planning for the public art portion of the oval area. That represents about 70% of the job completed, according to staff. The report also shows that KD Engineering of Vancouver won the contract for being the independent commissioning authority for the oval on a bid of C$113,974. and that North American Pipe & Steel, with offices in the Greater Vancouver suburb of Surrey, won the contract for supplying and delivering steel pipe to the oval construction site on a bid of C$91,564.

RICHMOND CAPITAL PLAN PREDICTS OVAL SPENDING OF C$56.6 MILLION TO 2011

Meanwhile, Richmond City's latest five-year capital plan, for fiscal 2007-2011, shows that spending on the sports complex is expected to come to C$56.6 million during that time. All but C$3.8 million is coming from funds generated by Richmond sources, the balance is coming from "future grants/donations/contributions". There's also another C$2.4 million expected to be spent on capital aspects during that period from the Olympic Legacy Fund, which is set up to help operate several 2010 venues after the Games are completed. The Olympic related spending in the proposed five-year plan accounts of 81.7% of the city's total building program. The city's total 5-year capital plan is proposed to be C$135 million. The total budget for the sports complex is C$178 million. The city also expects to spend C$1.8 million on public art in the oval's precinct. The 5-year capital plan is updated annually.

RESOURCES

KD Engineering's contact info:
www.teamkd.com/contact.html

North American Pipe & Steel contact info:
www.napsteel.com/napcontact.htm

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 23, 2006

Friday, October 20, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |General| #1931
ECONOMICS PAPER SAYS 2006 WINTER GAMES EFFECT WAS GENERALLY POSITIVE FOR HOST REGION

A paper released today at an international Olympic symposium at the University of Western Ontario reports the 2006 Winter Olympics had a generally positive effect on Torino and the region that hosted the Games, even though the Games themselves ran a $33 million deficit on spending of $1.3 billion. That made Torino the most expensive Winter Games so far. VANOC has not yet released a business plan but it's total budget is expected to be about $1.7 billion.

The paper -- 'Torino: What Kind of Olympic Games Were They?: A Preliminary Account From an Organizational And Economic Perspective' -- was written by economists Piervincenzo Bondonio and Nadia Campaniello.

The authors note that five of eight Winter Olympics since 19809 have lost money, but it also talks about the growth of the Games in various ways: From Lake Placid in 1980 to Torino in 2006, revenue from TV rights leaped to $832 million from $21 million, athletes to 2,500 from 1,072; participating countries to 80 from 37; media to 10,000 from 3,983 and spectators, 1.5 million from 433,000.

The paper offers a positive perspective on the Torino Games, noting that, like those in BC, the Italian Games were pursued as an economic springboard for a city and region seeking revival. The paper talks about the significant amounts of urban redevelopment that occurred, and that the image of Torino and the surrounding regions is more positive for tourists than before.

The paper reports the infighting and hostility among various levels of government and committees, significant disinterest on the part of Italian media, and continued uncertainty about the legacy of the Games. It also notes that most of the event management expertise that was gathered for the Games has dissipated.

Bob Barney, Western Professor Emeritus (Kinesiology) and founding director of the Western's International Centre for Olympic Studies, which is hosting the symposium in London, Ontario, where the paper was released, says, "Nothing surprised me or shocked me about the paper. Do these things break even? Hardly ever. In the case of Vancouver, I think that the eye that is cast forward in terms of escalation of costs, labour, materials and services required to put on the Games is too conservative or is done fairly optimistically. It should be done with the worst case scenario in mind, but that never happens."

In Barney's view the cost overrun issues that the Vancouver Olympics face are foretold through the research in Bondonio's paper. "Their bids always make it seem as though the Games are going to break even. This isn't usually the case."

Barney says VANOC also needs to pay attention to the legacy buildings of the Games and how those assets have often turn into debits.

"Vancouver should be focusing on the cost of running those facilities once the Games are done," he says. "The history of that in post-Olympic Games is not an attractive history. The operators of the Sydney facilities went back to the state and asked for $10 million to operate them after their initial projections for usage were found to be too high. So that should be a concern for Vancouver." A trust fund is to be set up to help subsidize VANOC's venues following the Games until they can build up enough business to pay their own operational expenses.

"There's no doubt about that in my mind," Barney says, that the Olympic Games franchises are healthy. "Olympic TV viewership for the Beijing Games will approach four billion people, around four-fifths of the world's population. If you look at the Games in terms of corporations willing to invest, or athletes interested in starting a career, then the answer is yes, the Games are still healthy." Barney also notes that the Games are about as pure a family entertainment spectacle as can be found. The inspirational and motivational stories are what Barney sees as the hooks for the Games for all spectators, including himself.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1930
Here are three moguls we ran into today:

CANADIAN FORECASTER SUGGESTS 2010 WINTER LIKELY AFFECTED BY EL NINO

A weather forecaster for the CTV network, the host broadcaster of the 2010 Winter Games, says there's a good chance that the winter of 2010 may be somewhat dryer and warmer than normal because he forecasts it will be part of an El Nino event. That could bode well for reducing the intensity of winter storms coming onto the coastline around Vancouver and Whistler from roughly October 2009 through March 2010. The 2010 Olympics start Feb 12, 2010, while the Paralympics begin on March 12. "It would probably be better for [VANOC] to have calm conditions, dryer conditions as opposed to having storms every day with massive amounts of snow, rain or wind, or all those things associated with storms," said CTV meteorologist Jesse Mason. El Nino is a warming of the Pacific Ocean between South America and the International Date Line, centered directly on the equator, and typically extending several degrees of latitude to either side of the equator. It occurs every two to three years. Typically, El Nino is first noticed along the South American coast around Christmas. The effect on snow packs in the Vancouver/Whistler area of an El Nino event are that less precipitation occurs during the winter and the freezing level is higher, so rain occurs somewhat higher up the mountains, and the season where the snow accumulates is shorter. How strong is the likelihood these effects will occur? In normal years, it's about 50-50 whether a winter will be warm and dry or cold and wet. In the southern British Columbia area, El Nino tends to bring drier winters. Since it tends to occur in cycles, and the coming North American winter of 2006/2007 is also expected to be an El Nino event, it increases the likelihood that the winter of 2009/2010 will be one as well. During an El Nino event, the likelihood of a dry winter is increased to between 65% and 75%. VANOC has made extensive plans for snow-making during the construction of its snow venues, such as significant improvements to snow-guns and pumping machinery at Cypress Bowl and Whistler/Blackcomb, as well as new equipment being laid in place as the Whistler Nordic Centre is constructed. The Olympics planning also tends to put more of the alpine events towards the beginning of the two weeks of Games in case any have to be postponed. In addition, the federal government is in the process of installing sophisticated weather forecast equipment in the Whistler area to help VANOC predict as early as possible whether to go ahead or postpone a particular sports event with enough time to warn spectators if it needs to be delayed.

KIMBERLY BC TO HOST PARALYMPICS WORLD CUP IN SKIING

One of British Columbia's communities that's been trying to lure national Olympic and Paralympic teams to train for the 2010 Winter Games has been chosen to host a World Cup in skiing from January 24 to 26. The International Paralympic Committee's Alpine Skiing committee made the decision following a series of meetings in Bonn, Germany. The event, sponsored by the western-Canadian telco, Telus Communications, will be held at the Kimberley Alpine Resort. About 100 ski racers from an estimated 12 countries are expected to attend. Through a rotation cycle, Canada receives the mandate to host a World Cup event in skiing every two years. There have been international events in 2003 and 2005 in Kimberley. Alpine Canada, which organizes the event, hopes to host a World Cup test event in 2009 for the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games in Whistler.

IOC OPENS POSSIBLITY NEW-MEDIA RIGHTS MAY BE SEPARATED FROM NATIONAL BROADCASTER RIGHTS

The chair of the International Olympic Committee's Marketing Commission, Gerhard Heiberg, says the IOC sees television and new media as complimentary. "Together they will enrich the experience of the Olympic Games and widen their appeal to new audiences," he told the broadcast professionals gathered in Monaco for a five-day conference and forum called Sportel. The forum is held annually for business people involved with all aspects of international sports broadcasting, sports content and sports images. Heiberg told the group that the IOC aims to have the fullest coverage by the different media and the widest possible audience in the world for the Olympic Games. The Games in Athens in 2004 were seen by 4.3 billion unduplicated viewers in 220 countries while Olympic Winter Games in Torino earlier this year were seen, he says, by 3.2 billion unduplicated viewers in 220 countries. So far, the IOC's new-media rights have always been granted to its broadcast sponsors who act as broadcast gatekeepers for their territories. "However, times and opportunities change," he says, "and nobody should assume that this will automatically continue further into the future. The IOC television broadcast rights marketing strategy is based on a territory-by-territory approach and there is now no reason to believe that this territory-by-territory approach cannot be applied with equal success to include new media opportunities." He added that, "We are enthusiastically active in extending our understanding of the best way of offering these rights so as to fulfil our obligations and provide added value to our partners in every territory."

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Sports| #1929
ALPINE CANADA SPLITS TOP EXECUTIVE JOB, READ BECOMES CEO, ALLAN BECOMES PRESIDENT

The top executive position of Alpine Canada, the governing body for ski racing in Canada, has been split into two, as part of the effort to help the organization win at least two gold medals at the 2010 Winter Olympics.

President Ken Read has become the organizations' first full-time chief executive officer, while businessman Gary Allan has been named Alpine Canada's new president, Read's former job.

The executive appointments and restructuring of leadership positions are designed, says Read, to ensure athletes on the Canadian Alpine Ski Team (CAST) and the Canadian Disabled Alpine Ski Team (CDAST) are given the increased support necessary to reach the organization's goal of becoming a sustainable world-leading alpine-racing country by 2010.

Over the past four years of Read's presidency, Alpine Canada revenue has risen 150% through long-term commercial sponsorships, increased fundraising programs such as the Podium Club, Founders Club and Rising Stars projects which now direct nearly $1 million in funding towards athlete development, and through relationships with funding agencies including the federal government's Sport Canada, the Canadian Olympic Committee and Own The Podium, for which the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) is helping to raise C$55 million by 2010.

However, to compete with other ski nations, Alpine Canada estimates it requires at least C$3 million more in funding each year as well as bolstering the Alpine Canada Foundation to its goal of at least C$20 million.

Effective Monday, Read will be responsible for the organization's strategic direction, for developing tactics and for fulfilling Alpine Canada's mission to deliver to athletes the resources -- human, technical and financial -- required to be the world's best.

Allan, a Calgary-based entrepreneur, is to focus on managing the day-to-day operations of the growing sports organization as it prepares to organize major alpine ski events in advance of the 2010 Winter Games. For the past four years, he served on the four-man executive committee of the Lake Louise Winterstart World Cups, and has been involved in bringing more races to Canada.

"Alpine ski racing in Canada has been growing with tremendous momentum," says Read, "and these changes focus resources where they can solidly impact our stated goal of being the best in the world in 2010 and beyond."

Alpine Canada athletes lat season recorded 36 World Cup medals, five Paralympic medals and a strong team performance at the 2006 Olympic Winter Games; it was the country's best performance in alpine skiing so far. Since 2002, the Canadian Alpine Ski Teams have moved from 12th to 6th in the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup Nations ranking and to fourth in the Disabled World Cup rankings.

"Within this new leadership structure, I can dedicate my passion and knowledge to strategic objectives which include developing strategies and securing the resources necessary to get athletes on the podium and build a ski racing system which will compete with the best today, tomorrow and well beyond 2010," says Read. "Our new president will have the time to ensure all our resources support our growing number of initiatives, from the grassroots to the World Cup level."

Founded in 1920, Alpine Canada represents than 50,000 athletes, coaches, officials and volunteer members and has more than 200,000 supporting members.

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

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Business, VANOC| #1928
OWNERS OF BUILDINGS UNDER CONSTRUCTION AROUND VANCOUVER OLYMPIC VILLAGE HELD TO TOUGH SECURITY RESTRICTIONS

Red and green, the traditional colours of Christmas will have a different connotation to the owners of buildings under construction near the 2010 Olympic Village during the 2009 holiday season. There will be at least two security zones surrounding the Vancouver Olympic Village, known as the Red Zone and the Green Zone.

Developers and owners of buildings expected to be under construction in the area are being told that if their property is within the Red Zone, it will have to be locked down for three months by January 12, 2010, a month before the 2010 Games begin. That means that their building will have to be vacant, and all the doors and windows -- and any other access -- closed, bolted or locked by that date. Police and other officials will then move through the area to inspect the buildings.

If Red-Zone buildings are under construction -- Vancouver City Hall has been processing half a dozen applications by surrounding private property owners to tear down existing buildings and build large apartment towers in the blocks between First and Second Avenue south of the Village and on Quebec Street -- they'll have to sign letters of credit with the City to ensure City staff or security forces can ensure the lock-down takes place and, up to the lock-down deadline, the only people who can be on the construction property are those required for servicing, construction, maintenance purposes, and security guards.

After the lock down, the building owners, whether buildings are in place or not, can't have anybody in the building at all except for those doing maintenance and security chores until March 12, 2010, when the last of the Paralympian athletes have left the Village and it closes, and even then the owners will have to follow any Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit (VISU) security protocols requested of them.

Those buildings that are in the Green Zone have to stop construction and servicing on the lock-down date, if they are being built, and not resume work until the lock down end-date in March. They'll also be required to let VISU security planners come onto their property at any time from December 1, 2009 to the lock-down date. During the lock-down, they'll also be required to allow Olympic security forces to come onto their property for "any security purposes [VISU] deems necessary or desirable for the purpose of providing security protection for the Vancouver Olympic Village." That could include pedestrian or vehicle access restrictions to the property before, during and after the Games.

Green Zone property owners will also be required to allow Olympic security and other work forces to come onto their property at any time to allow VANOC to put up or take down on the land any fences, security barriers, screens, drapes, security materials or equipment, or VANOC "pageantry" materials or equipment that will be used for either the security or decoration -- the so-called 'look-and-feel" of the Vancouver Olympic Athlete's Village. The cost of the materials and labour will come from VANOC's Olympic Overlay budget.

The private-land applications are occurring as the old light-industrial area converts to residential as a result of the Village and plans to convert the last part of False Creek's waterfront, from the Cambie Bridge to Main Street, to condos, townhouses and apartments. The Athletes Village buildings are to be completed and turned over to VANOC by November 1, 2009.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1927
Here are three moguls we ran into today:

VANOC TO TALK LICENSING RESULTS SOON

VANOC is expected to make an announcement in connection with some of its licensing deals next week. Companies surveyed by the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses have indicated the amount of administration required to complete a licensing bid application, which in some cases has run more than 90 pages, is considerable. On the other hand, successful applicants will gain the right to place the Olympic logo on products and accessories created for sale in retail outlets, or used by official sponsors to promote their association with the Games. VANOC issued licensing calls for companies to bid on a wide range of products earlier last March. In the first round, VANOC's call was only for Canadian companies, and only for Canadian manufacturing and distribution of branded apparel, but the companies won't have exclusive rights to the clothing. In April the organization followed a similar process to deal with headware, novelty items and confections or other consumables. In June it called for those interested in hardgoods, novelties and souvenirs. The brands involve those owned by VANOC, its sponsors and the governments associated with the organization, such as those of the Canadian and provincial governments, as well as Vancouver, Whistler, Richmond and West Vancouver.

100-PLUS ENTRIES FOR MASCOT DEVELOPMENT--SO FAR

VANOC says that "more than 100" entries "from several countries", including that of a Canadian who is living in Las Vegas at the moment and an American firm in Seattle, have been received so far for those interested in developing a mascot for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The request for proposals from professional designers or graphic firms closes November 2. VANOC says those from other countries will be given equal consideration to Canadians submitting proposals when the six-person VANOC panel evaluates the applications in the multi-phase process. Part of the RFP asks proponents questions about their commitment to their community through arts and culture, sport, the environment or volunteer work. In later stages of the design of the mascot concepts, VANOC says "several factors and unique applications will be considered, including the design's functionality and mobility in the form of a mascot suit." VANOC says that since one of the conditions of applying to do the work is that all the rights of the mascot designs are to be transferred to VANOC, it's possible that the short-listed designers may not end up working with their own mascot concept, but with the concept of somebody else. Such a situation could occur, VANOC suggests, if the judging panel likes a mascot concept, but the firm that submitted the idea doesn't have sufficient capability as others to actually do the development work. The mascots for the three most recent Olympic and Paralympic Games -- the Summer Games in Athens in 2004, the Winter Games earlier this year in Torino, Italy and the Summer Games in Beijing in 2008 -- were developed by competition. One thing the VANOC judging panel won't have for comparison is the mascot development costs for those Games. VANOC also suggests the mascots will be used in literally hundreds of applications, just as is being done for VANOC's logos. It's posted interviews of three Olympic mascot designers on its website: those of Brad Copeland, Javier Mariscal and Leo Obstbaum to help prospective designers understand the range of applications that will use the mascot. Designers won't be expected to be working out of VANOC's Vancouver headquarters, but VANOC expects shortlisted proponents will need to meet with the design-team supervisors for detailed briefings at least twice in the Phase 1 and at least once in phase 2 of the RFP process. VANOC says it works with suppliers, sponsors, licensees and others from across Canada and around the world, and that it "generally ensures smooth project management by providing the most detailed and extensive briefings and updates or responses as possible, but that is also done by e-mail, conference calls or face-to-face meetings.

IOC COMMITTEE RECOMMENDS "EVENTS AND QUOTAS" FOR 2010 GAMES

The Olympic Program Commission of the International Olympic Committee met yesterday in Lausanne, Switzerland, to finalize the Vancouver 2010 sports programming line-up but IOC spokesmen are not releasing the recommendations, other than to say the commission "discussed the events and quotas for the 2010 Winter Games." The recommendations are to be presented for a final decision to the IOC's executive council meeting in Kuwait, which runs from November 29 to December 1. The Commission is responsible for reviewing and analyzing the program of sports, disciplines and events, and the number of athletes, in each sport for the Olympic Winter Games. It is also responsible for developing recommendations on the principles and structure of the Olympic program for the Games.

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

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1926
Here are three moguls we ran into today:

FIS TO INCLUDE WHISTLER IN ALPINE WORLD CUP IN FEBRUARY 2008

The International Ski Federation (FIS) is expected to designate during its November 17 meeting that Whistler and the Panorama Mountain Village ski resorts are expected to join Lake Louise, Alberta, next season to host World Cup races as the International Ski Federation triples the number of alpine race sites in Canada heading into main training period for the 2010 Winter Olympics. The events have already been listed on the proposed race calendar for the 2007/2008 season. With races at three sites, Canada would match Austria as the world leader in hosting races. Men's super g and giant slalom, and women's downhill and super combined are expected to be held at Whistler from February 21st to 24th, 2008. The technical events at Panorama, near the town of Invermere, will permit Canada's women's slalom team to race a World Cup in their home country for the first time in almost 15 years. Proposed are women's giant slalom and slalom races in Panorama from November 17th and 18th, 2007. "These proposed new races in Canada as we prepare for the 2010 Olympics are tremendous for ski racing and our athletes," said Ken Read, President of Alpine Canada. "More of our athletes will be able to compete in their home country, and these new races truly complement the Bombardier Lake Louise Winterstart, Canada's only World Cup venue since 1998. This will also give our officials and volunteers the kind of world-class training needed to prepare for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, which is really only three seasons away [at the time the events are scheduled]."

DOUGLAS TO REPRISE PRODUCTION DIRECTOR JOB IN 2010 FOR OBS

One of Canada's national newspapers, the Globe & Mail, reports today that the International Olympic Committee has decided to hire a U.S. broadcaster for the job of director of production for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Brian Douglas, who was head of production for the host broadcaster last February's Torino Winter Games and those of 2002 Salt Lake City is to fulfil the same role at Vancouver, says the newspaper. The IOC has not confirmed the story. The host broadcast, Olympic Broadcast Services, is controlled by the IOC and headed by Manolo Romero of Spain. Romero will be the top Olympic host broadcast executive at Vancouver. His second-in-command is Nancy Lee, who announced yesterday she was leaving her post as head of CBC Sports to become chief operating officer of OBS Vancouver. Neither the OBS or the IOC has yet name the broadcasters it will hire to produce telecasts at individual Olympic venues in Vancouver, Whistler, Richmond or West Vancouver. A Canadian consortium of CTV, TSN and Rogers Sportsnet is the Canadian TV broadcast rights holder and will provide domestic content for Canadian viewers. The networks rely on pool-type feeds from the host broadcaster, OBS, as do networks of other national broadcast-rights holders, such as those covering Europe, the Middle East and, eventually, Australia and others. The United States rights holder, NBC, will augment its service with its own crews.

BELLINGHAM AIRPORT CONSIDERED FOR EXPANSION IN TIME FOR 2010 GAMES

Executives of the agency that oversees the airport at Bellingham, an American city just south of Vancouver, is proposing to add US$200,000 to the airport's 2007 budget to study whether the airport should be expanded in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Bellingham Port Executive Director Jim Darling told commissioners the funds would be the first step in a terminal expansion project that would go through the design and permitting process in 2008, with construction beginning in 2009, to be completed in time to take advantage of the increased traffic expected from the 2010 Winter Games. That's not the only reason for the expansion. Art Choat, the port's aviation director, said the addition of Delta Air Lines service, and expanded service by Horizon Air and Allegiant, will likely bring the total number of departing passengers for 2006 to 130,000 - up from about 99,000 in 2005. As recently as 2003, the total was under 64,000. At 130,000 passengers per year, air passenger volume out of Bellingham would be back near its peak in the 1980s, when newly deregulated airlines were looking for new markets and Alaska Airlines and USAir offered 150-passenger jet service from Bellingham to Seattle. Terminal space requirements were less in those days because security procedures were far less elaborate, Choat said.

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

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1925
VANCOUVER APPROVES REZONING OF 2010 OLYMPIC ATHLETES VILLAGE

The City Council of Vancouver has approved one of its major regulatory milestones in the development of the 2010 Olympic Athletes Village, and it did so relatively quietly.

In a public hearing last night, only a handful of speakers showed up at City Hall to talk about the rezoning of eight new city blocks full of apartment towers and townhouses, some of the them with the aim to be the most environmentally advanced in the world, that will be used to house 2,800 athletes during the 2010 Winter Games. And most of those speakers mainly wanted to talk about the potential trials of bike riders on the streets in the area following the Olympics.

The opposition side of the Council itself primarily wanted to complain about the relatively lack of social housing that will remain once the Olympics and Paralympic athletes are gone, although that decision had been taken by Council seven months ago. All told, the meeting took three and half hours.

The blocks comprise more than 1 million square feet of residential space, and about 78,000 square feet of commercial space.

Council heard during the debate leading up to the vote to rezone the land from industrial uses to urban that:

Last night was exactly three years and two weeks from when the city blocks, now a wide swath of torn up dirt and heavy machinery as City contractors prepare the City-owned land for construction, are to be provided to the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) fully developed

The development will be using, in some instances, some unusual or unique construction techniques. They include a sophisticated wall design, much thicker than normal, with a C$5 per square metre surcharge for its construction over usual wall systems, and with, as one staffer described it "the insulation on the outside." It's designed to achieve higher-than-normal energy conservation when the buildings are occupied. "It will be a project that will have the lowest possible use of energy and water that you can imagine," notes a senior city staffer. Merrick Architecture, who has responsibility for the overall project design, told council reluctantly that it would be ultimately responsible for fixing the building envelopes should they leak, a sore spot in the Greater Vancouver area. A company well known in the area for dealing with "leaky-condo" buildings, Morrison Herschfield, is one of the subcontractor consultant firms on the project. The same wall system will be used throughout the project.

Millennium Development, which is constructing the buildings, some for itself and some on contract for the City, and which has agreed to purchase much of the development after the Games, was "contributing between C$35 million and C$40 million" to help host the 2010 Winter Games as a result of allowing VANOC to take over use of its buildings. That will happen during what's called the "Exclusive Use Period", which runs from November 1, 2009, to March 31, 2010, when VANOC will prepare the buildings for the use of the athletes and their support teams. "That is Millennium's cost to provide this facility in support of the 2010 Olympics," noted a city staffer.

Millennium has agreed to provide some of the buildings as rental housing "into the heart of the development", according to a city staffer, for a length of time after the Games leave yet to be negotiated but suggested by City staff to be at least 15 years in order to achieve some of Council's social-housing goals for "modestly priced" housing on prime real estate in which most of the buildings are expected to be strata-title sales. Millennium, according to staff, is "probably one of the only developers in Vancouver who has offered to do so in the last few years... and that is a very constructive solution to focus the 'modest-market' housing in a manner that we can ensure the economic sustainability functions properly."

The amount of commercial space in the complexes has been reduced from what was originally required by the City so that the space could be used for more housing units. The amount of square footage is 25,000 square feet more than contemplated in the general Official Development Plan for the area, but that extra primarily involves the Salt Building, a key note heritage structure. The use for it will be decided through a Request for Proposals offer by the City that will begin in a few weeks, but most staff seem to think it will likely be used for commercial.

An estimated 70 people are in the consultant team involved in the development of the project, as the City has two roles, that of regulator and that of developing the public lands and infrastructure of the Village on and around which Millennium will construct its buildings, and because of the priority placed by the City on constructing the Village in time for the Games.

Changes in the last few months during frenzied preparation of the development's plans -- the project is so far behind where it should be that the development and the City have done in about six months what would normally take 18 months -- have resulted in density being moved to the south of the project, sloping up from the waterfront, that it is now blocking parts of the views of some of the new 15-storey developments adjacent to the Village lands that are also proposed to be built in the next few years, prompting complaints from those project owners and a comment from staff that they will be negotiating with them to help resolve some of the view issues, but they're worried about a "domino effect" with owners of yet more properties if staff allow the adjacent owners to change the massing of their buildings. One of the primary project owners in the affected-views category is Bruno Wall, owner of one of the City's largest buildings, the Wall Centre, who is intending to develop property immediately south of the Village, on First Avenue between Columbia and Manitoba. He estimates the proposed height increases of the Village buildings in front of his property will affect the views of 10% of his project, reducing its economic viability, even though he intends to offer more than 44,000 square feet of his building as a public amenity to the Vancouver Playhouse and received City consideration earlier for doing so. Other properties, the City staff estimate, will loose between 16% and 17.5% of their views over the Village.

The decision by Millennium and City staff to move the location of the Village's building that will be used after the Olympics as a community centre, restaurant and service building for a nearby marina is seen by City staff as a significant benefit to VANOC. It will allow, they say, "VANOC's media focus to be centred around a high-level, well-designed, LEED-Platinum, community building that will service its needs effectively." That part of the Village will become VANOC's International Zone, where athletes, VIPs and the media can mingle and through which many of them will pass. Staff suggest that this focus will give a high profile to the building and the concepts under which it is designed by architect Arthur Erickson. However, staff also say the 120 parking spots that the rezoning allows for the building are below what would be expected for the uses and that it will take judicious management of the building to prevent the underground parking to be constantly full. "It's enough parking," said one staffer, "but just barely."

An excavation tender is expected to be issued in about a week with the idea that holes for the foundations of the first buildings are to begin to be dug on January 2, with the expectation that concrete will begin to be poured on June 1. "The concrete trucks will be on the streets come hell or high water to make certain that happens," said a staffer. The City is assembling teams of bureaucrats in the planning and engineering department to fast-track the paperwork processing that will be needed to keep the project on its timelines. Enactment of the zoning bylaws, which are conditional on settling 18 pages of items to be negotiated, is expected by mid-December, according to staff. Development permits for each major building are expected to be received starting this month with more coming in November, December, January and March, but these are not likely to need city council decision-making.

It's still not yet resolved whether the Vancouver School Board, due to a funding issue, will be able to construct an elementary school on the Village which would be used by VANOC for its polyclinic if it were there and one section of the land being rezoned, known as Parcel 8, will not have a building on it in time for the 2010 Games.

The main team of companies working on the project: Merrick Architecture has overall responsibility, Arthur Erickson, Nick Milkovich and Walter Frankl Architects for the community centre, Stu Lyon and LDA, which are working on parcels 9, 5, 4 and 2.

City Council delayed until a committee meeting in November discussion on the pro-forma of the Village development.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #1924
CBC'S NANCY LEE TO BECOME CEO OF 2010'S OLYMPIC BROADCAST SERVICES

CBC Sports executive director Nancy Lee has been hired as the chief operating officer of Olympic Broadcast Services for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics.

OBS, based in Switzerland, is an agency of the International Olympic Committee and is responsible for delivering the pool broadcast feed from the Games to broadcasters around the world.

Lee, a 20-year veteran of the Canadian publicly owned TV network, worked in Toronto and Quebec City doing current affairs before she moved to CBC Sports 10 years ago. She was appointed head of the sports operation in 2000. In 2001, the Canadian Olympic Committee offered Lee the position of its next chief operating officer, which she declined.

She also served as the chef de mission for CBC and its French-language equivalent, Radio-Canada, for the Olympic Games and other major international sporting events. She was the first woman in Canada, and internationally, to hold such a key broadcasting position. CBC's competitor, CTV has the contract to broadcast the 2010 Winter Games to the Canadian market, which happened during her watch. The network lost the broadcast rights to the 2010 and 2012 Olympics to a consortium from Bell Globemedia, which owns CTV, and Rogers Media. Longtime Olympic anchor Brian Williams left the CBC after that decision.

Lee told her department of her decision this morning; she will leave CBC next week and start her new position in November.

BACKGROUND

Torino Winter Games, 2006:

Games-time broadcasting staff: 1,500 (plus 400 qualified volunteers)
Accredited broadcaster personnel: 12,000
Cameras: 400
Commentator positions: 700

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1923
VANCOUVER COUNCIL AGREES TO NAMES OF THREE OLYMPIC VILLAGE STREETS

Vancouver City Council has finally agreed on the names of three new streets to be created within the 2010 Olympic Athletes Village.

Council last month decided not to act on a recommendation by the City's street name committee, a staff committee headed by the city clerk, to name the three new avenues, preferring instead to ask the committee to reconsider the concept once they had had a chance to submit names. The committee did that, and recommended some changes -- the three favoured by Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan. Their recommendations to today's council meeting:

The east/west street nearest False Creek to be named Athletes Way "to reflect not only the athletes competing in the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, but all athletes." This will be the major east/west street and one of the major corridors the athletes at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games will use to travel between their residences and the Olympic Village International Zone, transit, competition venues, and medal ceremonies. Mayor Sullivan said he "wrestled with Olympics, Olympic, Olympiad and Olympian" as possible names for the street, but felt that since Vancouver was hosting both Olympics and Paralympics, the idea of Athletes Way was a good choice.

The north/south street located east of the Salt Building in the centre of the Olympic Village, to be named "Salt Street", "to recognize the strong historical significance and former use of the heritage building at 85 West First Avenue." "Salt" was originally proposed by the naming committee for the east/west street located just north of First Avenue, for the same reason.

The east/west street located just north of First Avenue to be named Walter Hardwick Avenue. Although the Committee usually avoids proposing double-barrelled names for streets, it agreed to recommend the name "in recognition of Walter Hardwick, who was a prominent urban planner and visionary for Vancouver, as well as a driving force for the restoration and redevelopment of the south shore of False Creek." Mayor Sullivan also preferred it, and said so publicly in a news release a couple of weeks ago. Opposing councillor David Cadman said he found it ironic that Hardwick's name would be associated with an area that had a housing split of 80% market and 20% controlled pricing, while Hardwick, who also helped develop the city's Property Endowment Fund that is paying for a large part of the Village development, was associated with the development to the west of Cambie Bridge which has a housing split of 33% market, 33% lower rental and 33% controlled housing.

The naming committee said spent quite a bit of time in discussion over the names, and that it also considered suggestions submitted by the Southeast False Creek Project Office, Millennium Development, City staff, and the Southeast False Creek Stewardship Group. The Committee reported that it eliminated suggestions which were duplicates of street names in Vancouver or neighbouring cities, such as Jacobs or Marine Workers Way, or for other reasons to reduce the potential for confusion when emergency services respond to a call.

Council spent nearly 20 minutes on the naming, turning aside two amendments to name Athletes Way to recognize the shipworkers who found employment in the area for decades.

BACKGROUND

On September 21, the City's Street Naming Committee recommended Council approve these names -- City staff and the developer had been using those working names for months -- before councillors voted for reconsideration:

The north/south street located east of the Salt Building, should 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 should 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.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1922
Here are three moguls we ran into today:

2006 VANOC BUSINESS PLAN MAY BE PUBLISHED IN 2007

VANOC officials are suggesting that it may be next year before its second business plan and budget will actually be made public, even though it is due to go to the Board of Directors for approval in November. VANOC produced its first business plan in June, 2006, but the BC government only received it, not approved it, because VANOC at the time didn't have sufficient information about operational cost of the games, and the revenue, to make the numbers firm enough for public release. The timing in releasing this year's version, which comes after watching how the 2006 Winter Games were run, depends on the length of time it takes for the federal and BC governments to approve the plan after the Board does so, and the Board may take more than one of its monthly meetings to do so. Revenues in the plan at the moment are not seen as firm as the costs -- and there's expected to be a large contingency in the C$1.7 billion plan to deal with that. One of the main components of the revenue side is the amount VANOC and the IOC have yet to negotiate from sponsorship and broadcast funds. VANOC and the IOC share those monies. Board chair Jack Poole has said that the business plan is expected to be updated every November, as expenses and revenues become more predictable.

2010 SCHOOL CLOSURE STORY NO MORE DEFINITE NOW THAN IN 2004

A news story bubble has appeared in the Canadian media in the last 24 hours about the possibility that BC students could be given a two-week holiday during the 2010 Winter Olympics, to make it easier for them to attend the Games and to volunteer for them. Politicians, including BC Education minister Shirley Bond were asked about the idea. All made positive comments, but none made any commitments, which is what happened when we dealt with the story two years ago. Schools normally break in the spring, and one option is to move that break up to February, but no decisions have yet been made. The schools were closed in the venue areas of the 2006 and 2002 Winter Games, and, in BC, school districts decide their own break schedule. We won't be dealing with the story in depth, as we did the story in 2004. We'll note, however, that we wrote at that point that a break would have an effect on business. As we put it, in article #330, May, 2004, "Such a move, however, would have an effect on retailers and their suppliers, and marketers, all of whom predicate a portion of their seasonal business on the timing of spring break for students, which normally takes place around Easter. It would also have ripple effects on a wide range of other businesses as well, as parents working at hundreds of firms would need to adjust their work schedules to deal with children who would not be in school during the period."

RUSSIAN OLYMPIC COMMITTEE MULLS C$8 MILLION-PLUS UNIFORM CONTRACT AUCTION

Capitalism is getting tough for the Russian Olympic Committee these days, and the ROC couldn't be happier. Clothes designer Pierre Cardin is attempting to wedge open a contract, worth at least C$8 million, between the ROC and the designer of its Olympic team, including the hockey uniforms. The outcome will determine who designs the uniforms the team will be wearing at the 2010 Winter Olympics. According to the Russian newspaper, Kommersant, the current uniform is designed by the firm of Bosco di Ciliegi, and it has a contract that expires at the end of this year, but has an automatic renewal clause to 2010 if any firm matches the c$8 million or betters it. Bosco di Ciliegi decided to go for more, since Pierre Cardin was also after the contract.

BACKGROUND

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #330
ABBOTSFORD SCHOOL TRUSTEES TO ASK FOR HOLIDAY SHIFT IN 2010

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

Monday, October 16, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1921
WHISTLER 2010 STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK POLICY'S 11 OBJECTIVES INCLUDE STRONG SUPPORT FOR BUSINESS

Whistler municipal council is to debate a new policy tonight that is intended to provide it and others with the strategies for how it will handle the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.

That's because, the policy says, "Each Whistler resident, business, volunteer and community group is a stakeholder in the Games and has a vested interest in the successful outcome of the Games. [Whistler] has included community engagement as an integral part of organizing the Games and will be organizing a variety of opportunities for the community to become engaged in the planning and hosting of the Winter Games."

The new policy, an 87-page document entitled "Whistler 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Strategic Framework", covers from now until the Games wrap up. Under the policy, the municipality is to take the lead role, with Tourism Whistler helping to "maximize" tourism opportunities in the Framework, the Whistler Chamber of Commerce is to take responsibility for the Framework's business-readiness strategies and the Whistler Arts Council is to implement the arts, culture and heritage plans. It outlines 11 strategic objectives which provide the basis for what must be achieved, and how it can be achieved, in order that Whistler can successfully deliver on its Games commitments. The Framework is designed to be dynamic, and will be updated and refined as needed and formally once a year, starting a year from now.

Each of the 11 objectives comes with a risk analysis, a set of assumptions, key things that need to be delivered. Each also identifies the lead agency responsible for delivering the objectives, and when, as well as where it links to other objectives and Whistler 2020 strategies, and how progress will be tracked.

The foundation strategies are that Whistler is to "effectively" turn Games-related opportunities into long-term legacies for after the Games, to deliver its Games commitments i"n a fiscally responsible manner," and to work with VANOC and the other organizations involved in hosting the Games and the Framework in Whistler. It will do it, from a practical point of view, through its 2010 Winter Games Office. The Office is to be responsible for preparing operating plans "to turn the strategy into reality." The 2010 Winter Games Office will also be responsible for overseeing the implementation of the operating plans.

One of the main objectives is to "To foster business success leading up to, during and after the Games." The Framework hands this aspect off to the whistler Chamber of Commerce, "through the Business Readiness Committee." The Chamber will be responsible for preparing and implementing operating plans on this aspect. This doesn't involve tourism branding or marketing, however, nor does it include visitor information services, plans for delivering commodities to local businesses during the Games period, dealing with accredited or unaccredited media services, which will be VANOC's responsibility, along with ambush-marketing prevention strategies. The Framework assumes that the Chamber will be "supported" by the municipality and Tourism Whistler and will be "assisted" by the British Columbia government's 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Secretariat and its 2010 Commerce Centre. The Secretariat, it says, will also set up a "Hosting the World Business Readiness Sub-Committee."

The Chamber of Commerce is to deliver a business-opportunities guide to be published by the end of 2007, to be funded by the BC government and VANOC sponsor RBC Financial Services, and a business-readiness guide for when the Games are about to begin, to be published in late 2009. The readiness guide is to include a Games schedule, along with a "goods delivery plan, including a co-ordinated delivery and unloading schedule." The Chamber is also to provide a test event opportunities plan to help business when test events are held on the venues leading up to the Games, various workshops that deal with "ambush marketing awareness", procurement and merchandising. The workshops will be funded "through a partnership" involving the BC Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Secretariat, the 2010 Commerce Centre, the federal government's Western Economic Diversification and the Canadian government department, Industry Canada.

It's also to provide a business-mediation support and a "village vendor plan" -- the vendor plan is to be prepared in 2007 -- a "Whistler Spirit Program" in 2008 through to 2010, to make the business community more aware of the Games, and a plan for local businesses to support Whistler and Canadian athletes during the pre-Games events. That will run from 2007 to 2009.

The Framework says that the Chamber, through its Business Readiness Committee, "will work closely with VANOC to maximize merchandising opportunities and other potential business opportunities for local businesses." The Business Readiness Committee is to also coordinate the Business Readiness Guide's development with VANOC.

In planning for the Games, Whistler is expected to be divided into two distinct administrative zones: the Urban Domain and the Games Domain. The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) is responsible for ensuring the levels of service within the Games Domain, and Whistler is responsible for providing normal levels of service for all areas within the municipal jurisdiction that fall outside of the Games Domain (the Urban Domain).

Through a number of agreements signed over the last few years, Whistler is providing VANOC with the use of facilities for staging, competition and cultural events. Whistler has also agreed to develop and deliver the Whistler Athletes Village and will work with VANOC to help develop the Whistler Sliding Centre, the Whistler Nordic venue and the Whistler Athletes Centre (which is located in the Whistler Athletes Village). Whistler is also working with VANOC and the federal government to development the Medal Plaza and Cultural Live Site components of VANOC's planning. On the other hand, Whistler is also responsible for providing regulatory oversight to Games-related construction, events and activities that happen within its boundaries, as it would for any other event or construction project. A spokesman say the municipality's bylaws and regulations apply to Games' activities, "although the municipality will review its existing policies and regulations to coordinate with Whistler's obligations."

The Strategic Framework notes that the Games are big enough that Whistler will have to take on risk to provide them, and it identifies four categories of risk for Whistler:
1. Financial Risk, defined as the potential impact on the Whistler's financial exposure.
2. Performance Risk – Potential of not achieving outlined deliverables on time and on budget.
3. Hazard Risk – Potential of accidents, environmental failures or other mishaps associated with the Games, and,
4. Strategic Risk – Potential of damaged reputation, lost opportunities, political or legal risk.

The Framework says Whistler intends do its best to minimize its exposure to the risks "by implementing a combination of proper governance and management structures, liability and property insurance coverage, effective negotiating including contracts with third parties to allocate or share the risk and/or emergency planning measures. Each of the operational plans to be developed will complete a risk assessment using these categories as a guide."

Whistler is to be part of a steering committee that includes representatives from VANOC, Vancouver, Richmond, West Vancouver -- the four areas that are also hosting venues -- to co-ordinated the services they are delivering, and that's one of the ways risk is to be reduced.

Whistler will also be developing an external communication and media-relations plan. This includes a Critical Incidents Communication Plan that provides direction "for handling unexpected image/reputation issues" during the staging of the Games, both positive and negative

It will also, it says, coordinate the integration of the look and feel of the village with VANOC's look-and-feel of the Games, set up a cultural Live Site program, work with VANOC as it develops a sponsors village and the broadcasting-live site, set up a Municipal Operations Centre in Whistler, and take part in a speakers bureau with the other municipalities, "to share information and engage the community in the delivery of the 2010 Games." The bureau is planned to be set up this year and next, the Operations Centre is to be set up next year.

BACKGROUND

The 21 legacies Whistler says it will get from the 2010 Winter Games:

1. A community land bank of 121 hectares (300 acres) of BC government land, a portion of which is being used for the Whistler Olympic village and its resident neighbourhood. "The remainder of the land bank will be available for the development of resident housing, if required by the community in the future."

2. The Whistler Olympic & Paralympic Athletes Village, that is to turn into a residential neighbourhood and "a model for sustainable living." The neighbourhood will consist of a mixture of housing types, and is expected to include a trail system, indoor and outdoor recreation facilities, convenience retail and other services.

3. Financial tools, which Whistler defines as "revenue options from the provincial government" that will contribute more than C$6 million annually to the resort and will help Whistler achieve its goal of financial sustainability. This is primarily the changes to the amounts of funds generated by the municipality's hotel tax.

4. Boundary Expansion, giving the municipality jurisdiction and better capability to manage its watersheds and growth management policies along its boundaries.

5. Enhanced Accessibility throughout Whistler Village for people with disabilities, "making Whistler one of the most accessible resort communities in the world."

6. Representation on The Whistler Legacies Society (WLS); that's the the not-for-profit agency that will own, manage and operate the Whistler Nordic venue, the Whistler Sliding Centre and the Whistler Athletes Centre after the 2010 Games are finished.

7. Representation on the 2010 Games Trust Society; that's the organization that will provide funding to maintain and operate the Whistler Nordic venue and the Whistler Sliding Centre "to assist with the continued development of high-performance amateur sport in Whistler and also fund not-for-profit organizations providing athlete and coach sport development programs."

8. The Whistler Nordic venue which, during the Games, will be VANOC's venue for biathlon, ski jumping, Nordic combined and cross country ski events. It'll be a resort after the Games.

9. The Whistler Sliding Centre; during the Games it will be the VANOC's venue for the bobsleigh, luge and skeleton events and afterwards will continue to train athletes.

10. The Live-Site Venue: This is the area which will televise live Games events and host other performances and celebrations during the Games. Afterwards, it is to be "an outdoor gathering place and an Olympic and Paralympic Games landmark legacy for Whistler visitors and residents."

11. The Whistler Athletes Centre, a building in the middle of the Whistler Olympic Village, which is to provide a training venue for Olympic and Paralympic athletes as well as some housing during the Games, and will continue to be a training location for high-performance athletes afterwards as well.

12. Increased Public Art "to celebrate local and international talent, and Whistler's growing art, culture and heritage."

13. Strong tourism brand awareness as a result of hosting the 2010 Winter Games.

14. Enhanced snow-making equipment on Whistler-Blackcomb.

15. The work done to fix up to the Sea to Sky Highway between Whistler and West Vancouver.

16. Skills and Learning Development: This it defines as developing "skills and capacity among Whistler residents that are transferable to other elements of community building and economic opportunities as a result of their involvement and volunteering with the Games."

17. Connections with individuals and organizations that will help Whistler continue to build a stronger resort community and a more sustainable globe.

18. "Community-wide knowledge and pride that Whistler residents' entrepreneurial spirit, diverse skill-set and 'can-do' attitude enabled the community to achieve most anything that it sets out to accomplish."

19. "Personal memories and stories of the 2010 Games that are cherished and shared among community members".

20. "A Sponsorship and Funding Opportunities Plan to maximize the opportunities from co-hosting the Games."

21. Enhancements to the Whistler Adaptive Ski Program, which will help to provide passes at reduced rates to train at Meadow Park Sports Centre and the Whistler Athletes Centre.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 16, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |IOC| #1920
COC HIRES TO OLYMPIANS TO HELP PREPARE FOR NEXT SET OF SUMMER AND WINTER GAMES

The Canadian Olympic Committee has hired two well-known former Olympians in new jobs with the title of Manager, Olympic Preparation.

Three-time Olympic rowing gold medallist Marnie McBean and biathlon sport technical expert Roger Archambault will each report to Derek Covington, the COC's Director, Olympic Preparation, McBean and Archambault will have the job of working with the country's national sport federations to "develop and implement customized Olympic Podium Performance Preparation programs for both the Olympic and Olympic Winter Games," according to a spokesman.

McBean will work out of the COC's Toronto office while Archambault will be based in Ottawa. Both are to begin work this month.

The spokesman says the former Director of Corporate and Athlete Programs at Olympic Spirit Toronto, McBean developed an extensive background in athlete mentoring which included serving as an Athlete Liaison Officer and Peer Performance Mentor with the Canadian team at the 2006 Olympic Winter Games; delivering performance presentations at several Olympic training camps, COC Olympic Orientation meetings, COC Excellence Series workshops and acting as a mentor with the Team Visa program.

Archambault, a Master Course Conductor and Learning Facilitator who is a Level 5 National Coaching Certification Program coach, has worked in various senior level positions with Biathlon Canada for nearly 15 years. There, he worked as the organization's Senior National Team Coach, National Training Director, High-Performance Technical Director. Archambault also worked as the team leader for all major international competitions including the 2006 Olympic Winter Games.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 16, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1918
Here are three moguls we ran into today:

EPCOR UTILITIES SUPPLIES CASH FOR VANOC

Epcor Utilities, a large company based in Edmonton that works on energy, water and power projects, has joined VANOC in the official supplier category, which is a tier-3 sponsor. VANOC CEO John Furlong says Epcor's involvement will be an "all-cash" contribution in the range of C$3 million to C$15 million. Neither he nor Epcor Utilities president Don Lowry would specify the amount of the contribution, but sources suggest that it's towards the higher end of that range. The company will also help sponsor the Canadian Olympic team for the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, China, the 2010 Winter Games, and the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, England. In exchange, the firm will have access to the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic logos and various other marketing programs co-ordinated by VANOC. Epcor has 2,600 employees in offices across Canada. It builds, owns and operates power plants, electrical transmission and distribution networks, water and wastewater treatment facilities and infrastructure in Alberta, Ontario, the U.S. Northeast, British Columbia and the U.S. Pacific Northwest. The firm is also involved in a 2010-related fund-raising contest Gold Medal Plates.

MASCOT DESIGNER PUSH CONTINUES

VANOC continues to push the concept of inviting professional design firms to submit an expression of their interest by November 2 in designing the mascot for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. The latest promotion is a bulk e-mail that contains an invitation to view a video interview on the web with designer Javier Mariscal. Mariscal created 'Cobi,' the mascot of the 1992 Summer Games in Barcelona, Spain.

LAUMANN SAYS 2010 SUCCESS SHOULD BE COUNTED IN NUMBER OF ACTIVE, HEALTHY CHILDREN

A Canadian summer Olympics star, Silken Laumann, is telling members of Canada's Parliament today that the federal government should use the 2010 Winter Olympics so that, "The 2010 Olympic Games is a launching pad for a new health promotion strategy and we can use these Olympics as a deadline for action. The Olympic Games are a tremendous opportunity to capture kids' imaginations. Laumann, an Olympic rowing athlete who now heads the health promotion group Silken's Active Kids is testifying at the Commons Standing Committee On Health in Canada's capital, Ottawa. Laumann says that the most important legacy of the Winter Games should not be the number of medals Canadians win, but the number of Canadian children inspired to be more active and healthy.

RESOURCES

Epocor's investors information page on its website:
www.epcor.ca/about/investorinformation

The web interview with Javier Marsical from VANOC:
www.vancouver2010.com/en/Downloads/PublicVideoArchive/showVideo/2006/10/76_0610120848-084?VideoId=42

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 16, 2006

Friday, October 13, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |General| #1917
ACADEMIC WITH OLYMPIC AND ABORIGINAL CREDENTIALS CLAIMS VANOC FAILED ITS FIRST EXTERNAL TEST OF ABORIGINAL COMMITMENTS

An instructor of aboriginal studies at the University of Western Ontario will be taking the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) to task next week when she tells an international symposium VANOC "failed its first test" of its aboriginal commitments.

Christine M. O'Bonsawin, an instructor for the First Nations Studies Program at the University and a member of the Executive Board of the University's International Centre for Olympic Studies, says the "failure" came about by the way VANOC set up detailed and positive agreements with the four aboriginal groups who claim the land on which its venues are being built, then "With this seeming reverence for aboriginal peoples and culture, it is unclear why this committee openly contradicted such sentiments with its selection of a logo that was highly offensive to many and its further orchestration of contentious performances for the Torino Closing Ceremony."

And, she is expected to add, "Attempts to market inuksuit dishonours Inuit culture as it threatens to taint and avert their original functions. Furthermore, the employment of this nationally foreign object on northwest coast territory infringes on the sovereignty of the Lil'wat, Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh." Those are the four aboriginal groups working with VANOC.

She says the original concept of aboriginal participation in the design of the Games was good news. "The establishment and inclusion of the FHFN [the four aboriginal groups] in the planning and organizing of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games has been an exceedingly positive initiative. It serves as an important episode that colonized indigenous nations have united under one banner to serve a common interest, which does not supersede the individual welfares of the respective nations. Despite its apparent appreciation and respect for first nations involvement in the organizing of the Games, VANOC has proven to be unrelenting in its controversial adoption of a foreign symbol that has proven to be both geographically irrelevant and culturally offensive to the FHFN as well as the Inuit populations of Canada's northern regions."

According to O'Bonswain, "The inherent and symbolic meaning for both the choice of the inukshuk logo and the underlying validation for the selection of such a politically-persuasive visual image presents a disconcerting paradox. The first and most blatant irony of the adoption of this emblem, so offensive and inappropriate in the eyes of many, is the obvious disregard for the participation of the FHFN." She then is expected to outline the negative reaction to the logo, created by Rivera Design of Vancouver for a VANOC-run contest, from the local aboriginal groups and Inuit representatives, whose culture the inukshuk-style logo is supposed to link. She is expected to tell the symposium's guests, for instance, that, "In April of 2005, Squamish hereditary chief Gerald Johnston publicly condemned the IOC's selection of the inukshuk logo by declaring that its choice was in bad faith, a deliberate act of assault on Northwest Coast sovereignty, and the symbol of a foreign indigenous nation."

Although there were also positive comments from aboriginal groups and Inuit at the time of the logo's unveiling, she is not expected to mention these.

The Torino Closing ceremony was held in late February, and during the eight=minute segment allotted to VANOC during the three-hour event, VANOC used various performers to build a large replica of its logo out of blocks that were touted as being made of ice or snow. This, she is expected to describe as, a "transparent appropriation of First Nations culture." As she puts it, "The assemblage of this object explicitly dishonoured the traditional and contemporary functions of this symbol as non-Inuit performers from the Cirque du Soleil, Ecole de Nationale Cirque, and Les 7 Doigts de la Main, melodramatically constructed VANOC's coveted inukshuk logo... [the way it was done was] far removed from traditional and functional practice...".

O'Bonsawin is expected to outline how, during the opening seconds of the VANOC section of the ceremony, "Chiefs Gibby Jacob (Squamish), Leonard Andrew (Lil'wat), Ernest Campbell (Musqueam), Bill Williams (Squamish), and Leah George-Wilson (Tsleil-Waututh) relied on time-honoured oral traditions to welcome the world to their ancestral and contemporary homelands, commentators for the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) spoke over the sacred greetings of the tribal chiefs."

She is also expected to note that she even has and issue with the medallion give to the estimate 33,000 people who attended the closing ceremony, since it had an image of VANOC's logo on one side, designed by Squamish artist Jody Broomfield, adding "While the rationale behind the emblem design of the front face appears appropriate, the design choice of the back face does not hold the same clarity. It is unclear why a Squamish tribal member incorporated a symbol that had recently been declared a deliberate act of assault on the sovereignty of the northwest coast by a hereditary chief of his own nation."

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

Morgan:News:2010 |General| #1916
SPORTS MANAGEMENT PROFESSOR OFFERS KUDOS TO VANOC'S "INNOVATIVE" SPONSORSHIP PROGRAM

An Ontario sport management professor says the success of the sponsorship program offered by the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) has "important implications for future Olympic partnerships."

Dr. Sheri Brandish, a PhD from the Department of Sport Management at Brock University in Ontario, is to tell an international symposium hosted next week by the University of Western Ontario's International Centre for Olympic Studies, that "The domestic and global marketing programs and policies of the IOC, the Olympic Movement, and the Olympic Games offer rich opportunities for corporate partners, and have contributed to considerable growth and development for the Olympics, in addition to providing valuable sources of revenue and resources."

In addition, she notes, are some of the innovative components of VANOC's sponsorship program, where parts of the sponsorship are aimed a athlete support in either direct or indirect ways, such as through the Canadian Olympic Committee's Own The Podium program.

Dr. Brandish, who is with the Department's Centre for Healthy Development Through Sport, says tha her analysis of these Olympic marketing programs, which included an examination of the projected successes expected for the Vancouver 2010 Games, "signals further growth and attention in this area of management of the Olympic Games. In particular, it is clear that collaborative principles of marketing should be incorporated into the practice of sport sponsorship marketing as a means to accomplish best the property-partner goals, and to satisfy best the needs and wants of the consumers and partner."

She is to tell the symposium, "The strategic planning and innovative partnerships executed by VANOC and its Division of Revenue, Marketing and Communications further demonstrates the enhanced support for further development of the affiliated marketing programs and policies of the [International Olympic Committee], offering support for the success of other future [Olympic organizing committees], including those who represent smaller market demographics and marketplace expectations similar to Canada. VANOCs marketing support also signals the support for innovative and synergistic partnerships throughout affiliated Olympic marketing programs."

VANOC's 2003 bid book projected that its domestic marketing revenues would reach C$200 million, however, that number had reached C$593.5 million in actual Tier I Category partnerships, and C$133 million in Tier II and III sponsorships by last February, four years ahead of the Games. Brandish notes, "This intense interest and success, particularly in a smaller sport market, signaled a unique and intriguing path in Olympic sponsorship marketing."

She is expected to note that, "With VANOC in particular, and the maintenance of their sponsorship programs toward 2010, it will be important to allocate significant resources to the awareness and activation of their sponsorship partner programs. Also important to the overall legacy of the 2010 Games is the strategic and political implications of their sponsorships, both to the domestic marketplace, and for future global marketing partnerships."

Dr. Brandish offers some advice for VANOC to ensure it delivers the value for the sponsor that the sponsor hopes to get. She says the intent and execution of the proposed athlete support programming of these partnerships "must be clearly maintained and properly executed." And, she adds, "While these programs have the potential to offer great support and assistance to the development and training for athletes, the sustained commitment and positioning of these programs must be strategically planned for the athletes directly involved in the 2010 Games, and will also be best served if they ensure sustained [long-term] athlete development to the entire sport system." She also feels that it's important that the strategic planning of the marketing and management of VANOC's 2010 Games "ensures that all marketing programs are keenly sensitive to the impact on the legacy and responsibilities of the 2010 Olympic Games."

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1915
Here are three moguls we ran into today:

VANOC NEARLY FINISHED VENUE AGREEMENT FOR 2010 HOCKEY AT GM PLACE

VANOC and Orca Bay Sports & Entertainment are said to have finalized all the major components of a complex deal to lease General Motors Place for the 2010 Winter Games, where the medal hockey contests are to occur. The venue agreement, the last of such deals VANOC needed to have in place, hasn't yet been signed, but that's now expected to occur in a few weeks as the final wording goes through the formal approval process. The terms of the arrangement have not yet been released, but they are expected to include the addition of 14 new dressing rooms, a technology area for communications and scoring so Swatch's Omega-branded scoring and timing equipment can be set up and linked to networks provided by another IOC sponsor, Atos Origin, so Olympic broadcasting equipment can be installed and linked to the Atos systems and to other broadcasters, various security arrangements can take place, issues over staff uniforms and, because the Olympics requires advertising-free venues, issues involving what happens to in-stadium advertising and the removal of GM signage and offsets to the stadium's naming-rights agreement, even though General Motors of Canada is a tier-1 sponsor of the 2010 Games.

RBC PLUMPS VANOC AS ECONOMIC "STIMULUS" IN BC

RBC, VANOC's financial-services tier-1 sponsor, claims in a provincial economic forecast this morning that "the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games represent a multi-year stimulus to the regional economy for at least the next five years." However, the report does not quantify whether the stimulus will be significant within the context of the province's heated economy, which the forecast says, "remains strong with expected growth of 4.8% in 2006 and 3.7% in 2007." Those growth rates put the province in second place among the country's provinces and territories, behind Alberta and ahead of Newfoundland & Labrador. RBC placed Ontario, normally the country's industrial heartland, in last place for economic growth. The RBC Economics Provincial Outlook assesses the provinces according to economic growth, employment growth, unemployment rates, personal income growth, retail sales, housing starts and the Consumer Price Index. There's a question of just how much the Games, with a C$580-million capital budget, might be a direct stimulus when the province's Major Projects Inventory shows there is about C$98 billion in capital spending either underway or about to begin in the next couple of years, or even the Games' estimated C$1.7 billion in operational spending, spread over six years, would have much direct impact when compared with, say, just one of BC's larger forest companies, West Fraser Timber, which spends twice that much per year. The RBC report suggests that the Games are just one of the "backdrop" factors in the current strength of the BC economy, which includes burgeoning oil-and-gas exploration due to commodity prices, good international trade and a growing high-tech sector.

NORTHERN BC NEWSPAPERS URGE DESIGNERS TO PUSH KERMODE MASCOT FOR 2010

Newspapers in northern BC communities along the east-west Yellowhead highway are urging local designers to submit bids to VANOC to design a kermode bear as the mascot for the 2010 Winter Olympics or Paralympics. Newspapers in Terrace, Houston and Burns Lake, members of the Black Press group, are carrying an editorial that outlines how northern BC residents have campaigned on making the white-coated bear the mascot as a way of redressing errors made in choosing other symbols of the Games, and as a way of including the northern part of the province in the symbolism of the Games. The unsigned editorial concludes "Given that the provincial taxpayer is on the increasingly expensive hook to pay for the 2010 Winter Olympics it is important that the kermode be afforded every chance to be a mascot." The deadline for submissions -- from any professional graphics-design firm -- to express an interest in working on the mascot design is November 2. The communities, a year or so ago, did some concerted lobbying in an attempt to convince VANOC, the BC government and others to support the kermode concept.

RESOURCES

RBC's Provincial economic forecast:
www.rbc.com/economics/market/pdf/provfcst.pdf

The BC Government's latest Major Projects inventory (PDF file):
www.gov.bc.ca/bcgov/content/docs/@2O2CY_0YQtuW/mpi_june_06.pdf

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

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1914
VANOC'S C$30 MILLION FOR VANCOUVER OLYMPIC VILLAGE PROPOSED FOR 'AFFORDABLE HOUSING' ON SITE

Vancouver city staff will recommend to council on Tuesday that the C$30 million the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) has given to the city to help with construction of the Olympic Village be used instead to subsidize the capital cost of constructing 'affordable' apartment buildings on the site.

Staff say VANOC provided the C$30 million contribution to the development of the Olympic Village to compensate the City for costs it expected to incur from making the site available for the 2010 Winter Games. In its bid to construct the buildings on the site, staff say that Millennium Development agreed to cover most of those costs, including the holding costs of making the residential units available to VANOC for the use of athletes and their support teams for the duration of the 2010 Games. As a result, they say, VANOC's funds can be invested in affordable housing so it can accommodate what are termed core-need households. Those are defined as people in households who must pay more than 30% of their gross income to rent a median-priced rental unit in the Greater Vancouver area.

VANOC's money, plus another C$2 million from development cost levies generated by the Olympic Village lands, should cut the capital cost of constructing the buildings in half. Depending on the degree of need, staff estimate this would allow a third to a half of the units to be occupied by core-need households without any on-going subsidies. The rest of the capital cost would be financed, with the mortgage payments covered by the rents generated from about 250 affordable-housing tenants.

Millennium has agreed to develop the affordable housing for the City on a fee-for-service basis. Staff say the city will ensure financing is available to construct that component and, with the BC government's BC Housing Agency, will provide direction to Millennium. They will also choose the non-profit housing sponsors who will operate the affordable housing after the 2010 Winter Games. The City will own the land under the affordable housing projects, so it expects to lease the sites to the non-profit housing sponsors for 60 years at a "nominal" prepaid rent. BC Housing will oversee the on-going operation, but won't contribute financially.

The plan, however, is contingent on Council approving the rezoning application by Millennium at its Tuesday meeting.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1913
NEW VANCOUVER CITY PROFORMA OF OLYMPIC VILLAGE NEIGHBOURHOOD SHOWS REVENUES AND COSTS BOTH UP STEEPLY

The City of Vancouver is the latest organization to be hit by rising costs for development of the False Creek lands from Cambie to Main, which includes the 2010 Winter Olympic Village.

Although potential and actual revenues are also up by C$200 million and it's still seen as possible the overall development may produce a C$65 million surplus for the City by the time the entire project is completed in 2019, site preparation experience in the past year on the Olympic Village lands shows the amount of money the City's Property Endowment Fund will have to spend to prepare the overall land for development has increased 65% to C$154.4 million. The Village only accounts for a relatively small portion of the Southeast False Creek neighbourhood.

City staff will tell council next Tuesday that a cautious pro forma -- an early financial look at the overall development between now and 2019 -- shows anticipated revenues of C$218 million and expenditures of C$153 million, giving the C$65 million surplus, against council's original target of C$50 million (all figures are net present value). On the other hand, staff point out, it is still early in the development phase and, although there are contingencies for the risks and uncertainties for both revenues and expenditures, "the margin over Council's $50 million objective is not significant."

Some of the major factors in the rise in cost of the development include:

Soil remediation: The lands on which the new neighbourhood is being built were used for heavy industry for about a century. Before excavation on the Olympic Village property, City staff estimated in 2004 that remediation costs -- primarily involving digging out contaminated dirt, hauling it away and replacing it with clean materials -- would cost about C$18.6 million. "However, based on experience to date, these costs could exceed C$30 million when soils and contaminated water issues are included... [and] these costs will likely go higher as excavation proceeds..." in areas outside of the Olympic Village core.

Onsite Infrastructure: These are the costs of the city providing foreshore stabilization, utility installation, streets construction and upgrading, public realm improvements and park development. Now that detailed work has been done for the Olympic Village, foreshore stabilization cost estimates have increased by almost four times from C$8 million in 2004 to C$32 million. Development of streets rights of way, including installation of sewer, water and energy utility infrastructure has risen to C$45 million, up from $26 million in the 2005 plan. Adjacent property work is also up considerably, council will be told; C$17 million for these costs, up from C$7.1 million in the 2004 pro forma. The primary driver of the increase was the redesign of First Avenue, which has jumped from from C$7.3 million to C$13.1 million.

Community Centre: The full service, 30,000-square-foot community centre to be used as a meeting place for athletes, VIPs and the media during the Games, with an attached centre for non-motorized boating that will be set up near the Olympic Village after the 2010 Games, has jumped in cost. The original estimate was C$13.5 million. Although design of the building by architect Arthur Erickson is not yet complete, it's expected now to cost C$19.5 million including design and construction to a LEED Platinum standard and plus underground parking.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1912
VANCOUVER CALLS FOR BIDS ON UPGRADING SALT BUILDING FOUNDATION AT 2010 OLYMPIC VILLAGE

The City of Vancouver is putting out a call for companies interested in bidding on the work necessary to upgrade the foundation of the Salt Building, an historical building that's the centrepiece for the Vancouver Olympic Village development. It's the first work on this project, which is being developed separately from the rest of the Olympic Village.

The work basically includes site preparation, building bracing, supply and installation of steel sheet piling around the building, and construction of a reinforced concrete slab and retaining-wall system beneath the building. The detailed plans are available for purchase at Vancouver City Hall or for viewing at the Vancouver Regional Construction Association. The offer closes October 24 at 10 am.

There's also a pre-tender meeting on Monday from 3-4 pm. The meeting will be held at the Olympic Village Construction Site Trailer, which is located north of 1st Avenue between the extension of Columbia Street and Manitoba Street.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #1911
VANCOUVER OLYMPIC VILLAGE ARCHITECT URGES CITY TO KEEP BUILDINGS FROM BEING A 'FASHION STATEMENT' FOR SUSTAINABILITY

The primary architect of the buildings that will first be used for the Vancouver 2010 Athletes Village says it is essential to the developer's marketing of the housing units after the Games that they not be a 'fashion statement' for sustainability, as some at the City would like to do.

Roger Bayley of Merrick Architecture says in a letter to the City of Vancouver dated September 18 that the "character of this undertaking must be driven by the marketplace into which it is offered, and Millennium and Rennie Marketing Systems are clear in their understanding of the character that will meet the sales and financial objectives of a project that will come to the market in a single offering. It is critical that the project not be a fashion statement that records the state of sustainable development at this moment in time. Sustainability is in its infancy, and while the project will set the standards for sustainable design in Vancouver's residential marketplace for the next two decades, it is key to the marketing success that the architecture have a timeless, classic sense that carries forward into the next 50 years as a defining moment in the evolution of design within the city."

Millennium Southeast False Creek Properties is the developer of the buildings. Earlier this year it agreed to buy all of the development parcels in the Olympic Village area, paying about $205 per square foot, with C$28.9 million (15%) payable this year, and the balance of $164.2 million following the 2010 Games. Rennie Marketing Systems is the company it has hired to sell the estimated 1,100 townhouses and apartments, in a process expected to start next year, for occupancy in late 2010.

Bayley says there is a relationship between "sustainable design, precinct character and the marketing profile required to achieve a successful sales program."

Bayley says Millennium would like to see the timeless design, and that city staff should not be so involved in setting the "precinct character" as it has suggested that it do in some of the aspects it's pushing for during the rezoning process that it gets in the way of effectively marketing the buildings. "Millennium," he says, "is committed to undertaking a high-quality development that attains the highest possible standards of sustainable design -- environmentally, socially and economically."

Elsewhere in the letter, Bayley writes that Millennium is concerned that a City staff proposal to add 14,000 square feet of commercial space, "that the precinct cannot support this additional area, and if the full area is included, it could negatively impact the economic viability of the commercial space being provided by Millennium."

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1910
VANCOUVER OLYMPIC VILLAGE BUILDINGS GET NOD FROM CITY STAFF BUT COUNCIL YET TO VOTE

Vancouver City staff are recommending council approve rezoning the area to be occupied by the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Athletes Village, a key step in its regulatory approval process. The rezoning hearing is to be held next Tuesday in City Council chambers.

However, the staff have also filed an 18-page document filled with recommended changes, instructions and notes to the developer of the buildings for the sites on the shore of south-east False Creek, Millennium Southeast False Creek Properties, and Merrick Architecture, which is overseeing the design of the apartment complexes to be built on the site. Most of the changes have to do with the residential aspects; the few comments about commercial aspects deal primarily with suggestions for increasing it or make it clear in the design where commercial areas end and residential areas begin.

The City's Property Endowment Fund is acting as the developer for the public portions of the Village's preparation, such as streets, utilities, parks, sidewalks and the like. It is to be repaid by completion of the sale of the lands to Millennium after the 2010 Games are finished. The land and buildings are to be turned over to the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) by November 1, 2009, so it can use it for housing athletes and other members of the Olympic athletic support during the Games, until March, 2010, when it will be returned to the developer for conversion in to housing, mostly at market prices. VANOC has been actively involved in the development's planning.

City Manager Judy Rogers, the City's appointee on the board of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC), says in her report to council, "The rezoning submission... 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... that would result in approximately 100 units of modest market housing in addition to the 250 units of affordable housing." The plans call for 1,100 units of housing throughout the development.

The rezoning site includes six city blocks, a total of 7.2 ha (18 acres) of formerly heavy-industrial land which has been subdivided into 12 parcels in preparation for redevelopment, extensions of Ontario, Manitoba and Columbia streets are incorporated as well as three new streets to be named next week by Council. The land is to be developed with a range of residential buildings, from townhouses to 13-storey apartment towers as well as a neighbourhood commercial centre, school and community centre. The major commercial areas are to be anchored by a liquor store, a full-sized grocery story and a drug store, but there are numerous small retail areas on the ground floors of many of the residential buildings. These are expected to eventually house restaurants, cafes, small shops and services, such as banks and medical/dental offices. The rezoning even allows the possibility of grade-level units to be converted into live-work locations.

The centrepiece of the area is an old historical structure, somewhat dilapidated at the moment, called the Salt Building, on First Avenue. The tallest buildings are to be located along the sides of the site, like bookends, with heights stepping down toward the Salt Building, as well as down toward lower forms along the waterfront. Various uses for the Salt Building, which will be refurbished, have been suggested, including high-end retail, but there's been no firm decision yet on what it will become. However, what might happen to it could show up ini adjustments during the rezoning process. If it's going to become commercial, the process requires that another 2,462 m2 (26,500 sq. ft.) of commercial use be allocated in the draft by-law for the Salt Building. That represents the existing ground floor area of the building, plus an allowance for mezzanine and basement space.

At the moment, City staff say, "The most significant concern... is that some of the middle blocks of the site are too dense. In particular, the streetwall along Salt Avenue is too high for the 12-metre (39-foot) width of this street." They're still working with the developer to deal with that. For retail, service and office uses, the application proposes 5,912 square metres (63,640 square feet) of commercial floor space in the parcels that contain housing. The city staff say they're calling on the developer to increase that by a further 1,300 m2 (14,000 sq. ft.) of commercial floor space, "to accommodate a restaurant proposed for the community centre and commercial uses which may locate adjacent to the public plazas."

Assuming the rezoning and subsequent regulatory approvals continue on the current schedule, Millennium's contractors will start work on the private parcel lands on the site in January, and will also be involved in shoring installations. The first sign of the private-parcel development will be the shoring going in to allow Millennium to do excavations of the private parcels, which sets the stage for an early spring placement of foundations.

BACKGROUND
An earlier story we wrote giving some of next year's key timelines for the Village:

'Amount of work on Vancouver Athletes Village to speed up in January'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:1848; Published on Wednesday, September 6, 2006]

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1909
Here are three moguls we ran into today:

GM TO CONTRIBUTE C$5.2 MILLION TO OWN THE PODIUM AND COACHING

General Motors, a tier-1 sponsor of VANOC, says it will contribute C$4 million to the Canadian Olympic Committee's Own The Podium 2010 initiative as well as another C$1.2 million to a new program that will support coaches through the Coaching Association of Canada, which oversees Canada's coaching-education programs. The announcement was made today in Toronto, and follows negotiations between GM, VANOC, the COC and CAC. Own the Podium 2010, is a C$110-million program to be completed by 2010. It was created to help Canada become the number one nation in terms of medals at the 2010 Olympic Games and in the top three at the 2010 Paralympic Games by focusing funding on specific winter sports. Half the total budget comes from the Canadian government, the other half is to come from a best-efforts pledge by VANOC to raise the funds from Canada's private sector. GM's C$4 million donation to the Own the Podium program is to be funded through a cash donation derived from every new vehicle sold by General Motors in 2007 and 2008. The amount of the per-vehicle donation was not revealed. GM is to make a retroactive contribution for all '07 models sold to date. The coaching program, called Making Dreams Possible, is not limited to winter sports. Over the next four years, GM will provide 10 annual grants of $10,000 to high-performance athletes and their coaches, and 100 annual grants of $2,000 to coaches in local communities. These grants can be used to fund special training camps, coaches' travel or education activities that support development of community-sport programs. Applications are submitted by high-performance athletes and coaches for the elite grants, while head coaches, technical directors or the president of local sports clubs can apply for the sport club coaching awards. General Motors of Canada sells its vehicles through 759 dealerships and retailers across Canada. Vehicles sold through this network include the brands Chevrolet, Buick, Pontiac, GMC, Saturn, Hummer, Saab and Cadillac.

2010-RELATED PAPERS TO BE PRESENTED AT UNIVERSITY SYMPOSIUM

There are expected to be at least two papers on specific aspects of the 2010 Winter Olympics that will be presented at an international symposium next week being hosted by the University of Western Ontario's International Centre for Olympic Studies, and several more that deal with aspects related to the 2010 Games. The Eighth International Symposium for Olympic Research is to be held from October 19th to the 21st in London, Ontario. The symposium will feature more than 30 speakers from five continents. The papers directly on the Vancouver/Whistler Games include those of Cheri Bradish, writing about "Marketing the Olympic Rings: Examining the Marketing Impacts and Expectations of the 2006 and 2010 Olympic Winter Games", and Christine O'Bonsawin writing on "The Conundrum of `Ilaanaq': First Nations Representation and the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics". Some papers about related aspects include those of Helen Lenskyj, writing about "The Olympic Affordable Housing Legacy and Social Responsibility", which are factors affecting the development of VANOC's two Olympic villages, two Italian authors, Piervincenzo Bondonio, Nadia Campaniello, are writing about "Torino 2006. What Kind of Olympic Winter Games Were They? A Preliminary Account from an Organizational and Economic Perspective", and Chrysostomos Giannoulakis, David Stotlar, writing about the "Evolution of Olympic Sponsorship and Its Impact on the Olympic Movement".

2010 COFOUNDER MACMILLAN TO BECOME PRESIDENT AND CEO OF MPI

Bruce MacMillan, the one-time executive director for the Vancouver Whistler 2010 Bid Society, has been appointed the president and CEO of Meeting Professionals International. MacMillan will begin work with the organization, based in Dallas, Texas, in December. MacMillan has been president of the Toronto Convention and Visitors Association since 2003. Earlier in his career, he served as chief operating officer for Ad2Media.com, a business-to-business internet firm based in Vancouver. According to Tourism Vancouver, "The 2010 Bid has its origins in 1996, in the offices of Tourism Vancouver, when Bruce MacMillan, then Vice President, Meetings and Events, first raised the idea with Rick Antonson, President and CEO." There were, however, others involved.

RESOURCES
Application details for the Making Dreams Possible program are at:
www.TheDriveIsOn.ca

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

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1908
VANCOUVER MAYOR TO LEAN ON COUNCIL OVER OLYMPIC VILLAGE STREET NAMES

Vancouver City mayor Sam Sullivan says he's personally supporting the idea of renaming three new streets being created in the proposed 2010 Olympic Village to names he likes.

Sullivan's proposed street names would commemorate Walter Hardwick, a former City councillor and BC cabinet minister who played a key role in developing False Creek, pay homage to an historical industrial use of the area as well as its month-long role as the site of the Olympic Athletes Village. Hardwick died last year.

On September 21, the City's Street Naming Committee recommended Council approve these names: The north/south street located east of the Salt Building, should 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 should 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. City staff and the developer had been using those working names for months.

But during the September 26 council meeting, council members voted to have the Naming Committee take another look at its recommendations, once each alderman had added their own suggestions, and report back to council for its meeting next Tuesday. As one alderman pointed out, it's not often a new street is created in Vancouver, and these three are likely to last decades. Now the mayor says he will urge Council to approve the following:

The east/west street located north of First Avenue should be named Walter Hardwick Avenue;

The east/west street located nearest to False Creek should be named Athletes Way; and

The north/south street located east of the Salt Building to be confirmed as Salt Street.

Council is expected to spend some time discussing the Naming Committee's official recommendations at its October 17 meeting.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1907
Here are three moguls we ran into today:

VANCOUVER CITY STAFF REQUEST DOZENS OF CHANGES TO OLYMPIC VILLAGE DESIGN

The staff of the City of Vancouver are expected to file 18 pages of requirements for Merrick Architecture and the Millennium Group to meet as part of its recommendations to a rezoning hearing next Tuesday for the development of the Vancouver Olympic Village's buildings. City Council will hold the public hearing at City Hall, starting at 7pm.

RICHMOND STAFF GIVEN ONE-WEEK EXTENSION TO FIND MONEY FOR OVAL COMPLEX'S TANK

Richmond City's General Purposes Committee, which includes all of the city's councillors, has given staff an extension until next Monday to come up with C$95,000 of "external funding" to pay for including the foundation of a so-called paddling centre when the concrete of the raft slab for the 2010 Oval complex is poured this month. The original deadline was last Monday. The paddling centre, which is not part on the 2010 Winter Games, is an addition to the sport complex housing the speedskating oval. It's aim would be help train summer Olympic rowers and community sports and paddling enthusiasts, but the whole project, as yet unfunded, would cost another C$395,000 to complete, and staff doesn't want to go over the C$178 million budget for the entire sports complex, nor start tapping into the project's contingency funds so early in the construction timeline. At one point during the debate, some councillors wanted to exclude the possibility of naming rights as a condition of obtaining the initial C$95,000 for the pool's foundation imprint, but the amendment was defeated by Richmond mayor Malcolm Brodie and four councillors. The motion to go ahead with the foundation, if the C$95,000 can be confirmed by next Monday was finally approved when it was amended to require staff to come up with "a plan for funding strategies on the balance of $350,000, providing the oval cost to the city of C$178 million does not increase." A raft slab is a floor designed with an integrated edge and internal beams where necessary to support the full load of the oval's structure above.

VISA LATEST VANOC SPONSORS TO RESTRUCTURE

Another of VANOC's major corporate sponsors is to be restructured. Visa, the international credit card association based in San Francisco, sponsors VANOC through agreements with the International Olympic Committee. Visa says it will follow the concept pioneered by its competitor MasterCard by forming a new company, Visa Inc., which will then issue shares to be publicly traded. Visa operates the world's largest consumer credit card system, and is jointly owned by more than 20,000 financial institutions internationally. Visa Inc. is expected to be created through a series of mergers involving Visa Canada, Visa USA and Visa International -- VI covers Asia Pacific, Latin America, the Caribbean, Central Europe, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Visa Europe, which covers the western European nations, will remain a membership association, owned and governed by its European member banks, and become a licensee of Visa Inc. The process would take about 18 months, when the stock would be issued. A new board of independent directors and a new CEO for Visa Inc. are to be sought as part of the restructuring. Visa has about 1.4 billion cards in use, compared with about 750 million for MasterCard, which saw the price of its shares surge, to the point where profit-taking is now underway, after it went public last spring. The restructuring is not expected to have any affect on the Olympic sponsorship arrangements. Other international VANOC sponsors are Coca-Cola, Atos Origin, General Electric, McDonald's Restaurants and Omega.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1906
Here are three more moguls we ran into today:

LIL'WAT CHIEF SAYS VANOC ARRANGEMENTS PRODUCING BENEFITS

Some of the construction companies working on VANOC's two major Whistler-area venues, the Whistler Nordic Centre and the Whistler Sliding Centre, are partly owned by the Lil'wat aboriginal band council. Some of the contract awards have been directed under a VANOC policy of trying to ensure direct aboriginal participation in the venues, which are being built on land claimed by the Lil'wat and Sqaumish bands. Lil'wat chief Leonard Andrew says the ownership is a deliberate attempt to help the firms. "Right from the get-go, we said there were opportunities for business within our territories. With the help of the Squamish nation, we partnered up to figure out who we had in our communities. We joined forces, and we think it's working out quite well, so far. There are a lot of our people who are working [on the Games]." Chief Andrew says VANOC's contract awards for Squamish and Lil'wat businesses have allowed those businesses to develop and for workers to be trained in ways they would not ordinarily have encountered. "They've been doing a lot of specialized work in connection with frameworks and foundations, or just clearing and grubbing, building trails, even trucking." He also notes that aboriginal firms and people have also been involved in working on the BC government's Sea-to-Sky highway expansion project between West Vancouver and Whistler. "The main aim of the contractors has been to do a good job, and do it within budget, and they have done that so far." Chief Andrew says his band has also been involved with VANOC on planning how the Callaghan Valley ski trail network connected with the Nordic Centre will protect various parts of the Valley for aboriginal use -- such as trap lines, hunting locations, gathering areas and native archaeological sites -- after the Games, since the network will open up the Valley to considerable tourism use throughout the year. "It forces the outside world to think of it as our area, and that we're not just saying that for the sake of the Olympics' Opening and Closing Ceremonies. We're fully involved." Chief Andrew says concerns that his group and the Squamish band had over sites that were considered sacred to them, where VANOC had originally proposed trails, have now been resolved after talks between VANOC, the Squamish and Lil'wat band councils, technical staff and the elders of both tribes. "Being fully involved [with the Games] helps us, and not through confrontation. [VANOC CEO John] Furlong has his business side, but he makes sure we're quite involved, really." Chief Andrew paused. "Of course, we push him, too."

IOC, IPC MEET WITH RUSSIAN PRESIDENT

The senior officials of the International Olympic Committee and the International Paralymic Committee met with Russian premier Vladimir Putin today. Jacques Rogge of the IOC and Philip Craven of the IPC met Putin at the Kremlin, later saying the talks involved discussion of the role and development of sport within the Russian Federation and Russia's "efforts in the fight against doping" in sport, and "future Olympic Games." Putin then hosted a dinner for Russian sports representatives and IOC members, including Rene Fasel, the chair of the IOC Commission overseeing development of the 2010 Winter Games. Craven also met with high-ranking officials from the Russian government and sport: Russian deputy prime minister Aleksandr Zhukov, Sports minister Vyacheslav Fetisov and Russian Paralympic Committee president Vladimir Lukin. Those talks, they said, focused on the development of the Paralympic movement in Russia, the Russian government's investment in Paralympic sport and what it's doing to improve accessibility for athletes with a disability. Craven added, "The increased exposure of Paralympic sport in Russia... has resulted in the coming together of the Russian government, the Russian Paralympic Committee and private investment."

OWN THE PODIUM STARTING TO PRODUCE MOGULS BENEFITS

One of the key athletes on Canada's freestyle skiing team credits the Own the Podium program for considerably improving the moguls team at the executive and performance levels. The increased funding for the team this year allowed the athletes to stay together and train for five months on the glacier runs at Whistler. Normally, the team would move to various locations around the globe for two-week sessions of high-intensity training and then train on their own. Freestyler Chris Wong is quoted as saying, "You can have a more consistent training plan. Instead of going to places and working on your own, you're working with the same people all the time, and you actually get more done. You don't have to cram everything into two weeks because it's the only time you'll have your trainer or the technical coaches. Now we have five months to learn and that makes more sense." In addition, the program, an initiative of the Canadian Olympic Committee, VANOC and the federal government, also funds the teams logistics. Wong says it also helps him stay focused on his sports training, knowing his room, food, travel and accommodations, and those of his teammates, are being paid by Own The Podium for the new season.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1905
Here are three more moguls we ran into today:

VANOC 'INTERESTED" IN SOUND PRODUCTS, SAYS KLIPSCH

The president and CEO of Klipsch Audio Technologies, a large audio equipment manufacturer based in Indianapolis, Indiana, says a deal his company has reached with the Beijing Olympics is garnering interest in his company's products by VANOC. Mike Klipsch said the China deal has "already produced interest" from the organizers of the Vancouver Winter Games. But a company representative says that's all the company's going to say about that aspect of the matter. "We cannot elaborate on anything at this time," she told Morgan:News:2010. Klipsch has said, however, the development by the company of a prototype sound system for a "virtual conference center" at Renmin University in Bejing, to be called the Klipsch Conference Center, is expected to serve news media during the Olympic Summer Games. "As you can imagine, during the [Summer] Olympics there will be a lot of traffic, and they've got to have the various hubs for the media to send back their stories," Klipsch has said. "We've been working with the gentleman who is doing the video side, and we're going to do the audio side of that." Klipsch said the company has the opportunity, but not yet the deals, to develop sound systems for any number of Summer Olympic venues, including stadia, housing, medical facilities and the Olympic village.

SOUTH KOREAN BID FOR 2014 WINTER GAMES EYES NUCLEAR RIPPLES

The governor of a South Korean province that borders North Korea doubts if the diplomatic challenges produced by the apparent underground nuclear test in North Korea will affect his province's chances in its bids to host the 2014 Winter Olympics, the Games that follow VANOC's. Kim Jin Sun is currently on a California business trip, and spoke to reporters there. South Korea is one of three countries vying for the Games against Salzburg, Austria, and Sochi, Russia. The International Olympic Committee is expected to pick the winner next July.

BELL CANADA'S PARENT OPERATIONS TO REORGANIZE

BCE said today it will eliminate its holding company operations and convert Bell Canada into an income trust called the Bell Canada Income Fund. The trust is designed to ensure the huge telecommunications company stays competitive in the telecom capital markets. It will have an initial annual cash distribution of C$2.55 per unit, aiming for a 2007 payout ratio of 85%. It's all subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals, and the units are expected to begin trading during the first quarter of next year. "The elimination of BCE is a further step in our plan to focus on Bell and our communications operations," says Michael Sabia, CEO of BCE and Bell Canada. "That is the business we know. That is the business we will stick to." The transaction, he said, will not change current operations or affect either employees or customers. Meanwhile, Bell Aliant Regional Communications Income Fund says from its Maritimes headquarters that it intends to buy all of the units of the Bell Nordiq Income Fund it does not already own, consolidating its operations with those of Bell Nordiq and operating the two as a single trust. The exchange of shares and units is expected to involve a value of about C$2.8 billion. Bell Communications is a tier-1 corporate sponsor of VANOC, and Aliant is a tier-2 sponsor.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1904
Here are three moguls we ran into today:

VANOC AND GM CANADA TO FOCUS ON OWN THE PODIUM TOMORROW

VANOC and one of its major corporate sponsors, General Motors of Canada, are expected to unveil on Thursday in Toronto a new sport-development program to help Canadian athletes at both the elite and community-club levels of the Canadian Olympic Committee's Own the Podium initiative. "As part of its commitment to Canada's podium success in 2010," says a GM spokesman, "General Motors has developed a new program to support Own the Podium 2010's initiative to ensure Canadian athletes have every opportunity to make Canada the number one nation in terms of medals at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games and to place top three at the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games. VANOC's chairman of the Board, Jack Poole and the author of the report that kick-started the Own the Podium program, Cathy Priestner, VANOC's executive vice president of Sport, Paralympic Games and Venue Management are expected to be on hand for the announcement, along with 1988 Olympic ski medalist Nancy Greene Raine and Joannie Rochette, the 2006 Canadian figure skating champion. VANOC and the Canadian government have each agreed to provide C$55 million to fund the Own the Podium program until 2010, with all of VANOC's funding coming through arrangements with private companies. The event will take place at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

TOURIST CENTRE PLANNED FOR SURREY / US BORDER AREA TO HELP WITH 2010 QUERIES

The legal-use status of a small parcel of land near a highway between Vancouver and Seattle has been cleared for the municipality of Surrey to build a tourist reception centre just north of the Canada/US border. Linda Hepner, Chair of Surrey's Spirit of 2010 committee, says, "This tourist information centre will be the first point of contact for visitors to Surrey who are coming up for the 2010 Olympics. It will provide Surrey with another wonderful opportunity to capitalize on the excitement and spirit of the games while providing an economic boost for our tourist industry." BC's Agricultural Land Reserve released the small parcel from its stock saying it was not useful as farmland. The proposal for the structure, on the east side of Highway 15 between the Customs Station and 8th Avenue, is expected to go before Surrey Council for approval either later this month or next month.

POTENTIAL 2010 SPORTS FOCUS OF YOUTHFUL SKI TOUR

A small US company out of Ketcham, Idaho, called Ski Tour, is in the process of creating a ski-hard, party-hard tour that is half power skiing and snowboarding competitions and half festival, and it's betting the IOC will add skiercross and skier halfpipe to the 2010 Winter Games. The company is run by Kipp Nelson and Steve Brown. The men's-only competitions of skiercross and superpipe, backed by a broadcasting deal with American TV network ABC and patterned after the nightlife factor of the Telus Festival in Whistler, is to tour four American ski resorts, with prize money on the order of US$25,000 per winner and big-name bands at each stop. The tour, hopes organizers, will be a potential showcase for the high-action sports as the IOC meets in November to decide on the final makeup of the 2010 Games. Ski Tour is due to start at Sun Valley on Jan. 11-14, with Breckenridge on February 1-4, Aspen February 22-25 and Squaw Valley on March 8-11.

RESOURCES

Ski Tour's new, under-construction website:
www.theskitour.com

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

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1903
2010 VOLUNTEERS COULD BE ASKED TO PAY FOR PART OF THEIR UNIFORMS

The executive vice-president of Human Resources, Sustainability and International Client Services for the 2010 Organizing Committee seems to be suggesting that volunteers for the Games may have to pay a portion of the cost of their uniforms, but how much is not yet known.

During an interview on CBC Radio, Donna Wilson said, "The uniforms will be part of what they get as a volunteer. We are in the planning stages right now to see how much of that is purchased versus how much of that becomes just part of being a volunteer." She was not further questioned about the matter, however. HBC and VANOC have been asked to clarify if the supply of volunteer uniforms without cost was part of its value-in-kind section of the sponsorship contract, or if other arrangements were made. However, VANOC has not responded.

Uniforms were to be designed and made under the supervision of HBC, the retailing giant that owns the Hudson Bay Company and Zellers in Canada, according to information provided by VANOC at the time HBC's C$100 million sponsorship deal was reached in March, 2005. At that time, HBC's deal made it the "official clothing supplier to the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games volunteers", among many other things, and that "HBC has committed to provide uniforms for the 25,000 volunteers that VANOC will need between 2007 and 2010 to test and host the Games."

The then-president and CEO of HBC, George Heller, told Morgan:News:2010, "I put my hand up and said, 'I'll volunteer to outfit VANOC's 25,000 volunteers with uniforms. I know John [VANOC CEO John Furlong]: whatever I said I was going to do, he's going to get me to do a heck of a lot more than we talked about, because he's going to ask me to do things that he's going to need help in. At the end of the day, am I going to give him a bill for stuff that I did that we didn't talk about? Of course not. The essence of a sponsorship is the relationship." An American-based company took over HBC last March, replacing Heller with Mike Rousseau as president. The sponsorship contract was completed just days before the take-over date, but has never been made public.

Catherine Raso, an HBC spokesman, asked for clarification comments from Rousseau, side-stepped the request and the question entirely, saying only, "It is early yet and although we are concentrating on the Vancouver 2010 Games, we are in the very early stages and don't know what the outfits for athletes or volunteers will include." HBC did not respond to follow-up questions. VANOC's Sponsorship Department vice-president, Andrea Shaw, did not return a request for clarification, nor did three other VANOC representatives.

Wilson also said during the interview that VANOC expects volunteers will be used to fill a wide range of jobs connected with Games. "There will be many, many host positions. We will have information kiosks where we will need people with multiple languages, we'll have drivers -- these will be people who could have the privilege of driving, potentially, a gold-medal athlete. Runners for communications, for press operations -- a real variety."

There are about 275 staff now on VANOC's payroll, and that's expected to double by the end of 2007, growing to about 1,200 by 2009. About 25,000 volunteers are expected to be needed, all of them will be trained and outfitted, by the time the Games are held in February and March, 2010. However, the main VANOC recruitment drive for volunteers is expected to begin in early 2008. "We'll do the normal kind of hiring process," says Wilson. "We'll screen people for attitude, and for a match with our values and our vision of the Games... as we bring people in the general training... we'll put them through in waves... it'll be a couple of years of engagement with us, we hope."

She added that when the main volunteer call goes out, VANOC will make available information to make it clear "exactly what kinds of jobs we're looking to fill. I recommend everyone give it a really hard look, and give it a try... We expect we'll have applications from volunteers across Canada. In fact, we'll even have them internationally, because that has happened at every Olympic Games."

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 10, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1902
Here are three moguls we ran into today:

10 'SPIRIT OF 2010' COMMITTEES PLAN STRATEGY IN ABBOTSFORD

Representatives of 10 Spirit of 2010 Committees have taken part in a planning session to co-ordinate their activities for events between 2007 and 2010. The meeting took place in Abbotsford, a city about 65 kilometres east-southeast of Vancouver. The representatives, who heard from VANOC's community-relations spokesperson, Stephanie Herdman, about the current status of the 2010 organization and VANOC sponsor RBC about potential business opportunities, came from 2010 Spirit Committees in Chilliwack, Coquitlam, Hope, Kent-Harrison, Langley, Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows, Mission, Surrey, Tri-Cities and White Rock. Christine Wiebe, chair of the Abbotsford Spirit of BC Community Committee, said, "By working together, we can showcase the things that make our region unique, and use our strengths to ensure Fraser Valley communities share in the benefits of B.C. hosting the 2010 Winter Games. The more we have to offer in this region, the easier it will be to attract first-time and repeat visitors."

UBC USES 2010 VENUE RINKS AS HOCKEY PLAYER ENTICEMENT

Dave Newson, head coach of the Thunderbirds women's hockey team at the University of BC, says he hopes the construction of the new ice-hockey rinks as venues for the 2010 Winter Olympics will help convince more women to choose UBC to enhance their hockey careers. In turn, he hopes to place one or more of them on the Canadian women's Olympic hockey team. UBC also has a high-performance program that it can put on that ice, once it's built in late 2007. American colleges, with scholarship funding, are his competition, but so is soccer and basketball, both favourite sports of young, competitive, athletic women. We've got the schedule, the competitive environment, we've got the off-season training all the things you need," Newson told the Vancouver Courier newspaper. "But you're going to have to shell out of your own pocket for your dorm room and your books." While the rinks are under construction at UBC, the training is being held in other BC cities, such as Prince George, according to Newson.

ALPINE CANADA SKIERS CONDUCT SECOND ROUND OF WIND-TUNNEL TESTING

Alpine Canada skiers took part in a second round of aerodynamic testing Saturday using the high-performance wind tunnel owned by General Motors's Aerodynamics Laboratory in Warren, Michigan. "GM provides technical expertise, vehicles and world-class facilities to drive the newest generation of elite Canadian skiers to be the best," said Fred Lautenschlager, manager, promotions and special events, GM of Canada. "We try to take our relationship with Alpine Canada beyond the traditional sponsorship by making the latest technology available to propel Canada's Team to greater success on the World Cup circuit this year." Coaches and athletes use the wind tunnel to experiment with various race positions and the current downhill suits, gloves and base layer as well as helmets and goggles against wind speeds of up to 140 kilometers per hour. World Cup races are preludes part of the training for Olympic winter athletes. GM Canada is a sponsor of the 2010 Winter Olympics. A similar round of testing took place last year.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 10, 2006

Friday, October 06, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1901

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

BC AVIATION COUNCIL CONFERENCE HEARS 2010 SECURITY PANEL IN PRIVATE

The BC Aviation Council's 2006 Conference, an annual convention which this year was held in Richmond BC, apparently heard yesterday about airport and aircraft security aspects planned for the 2010 Winter Games; we assume they did, but the information was provided behind closed doors. The Conference's keynote speaker was VANOC CEO John Furlong, whose speech was followed by one of three main panels discussing aviation and the 2010 Games. The main panel on security included: RCMP Sgt. Major (Retired) Hugh S. Stewart, the senior planner for Security Operations for the Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit; Mark Duncan, the executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority; Linell Redmond, the chief of Corporate Development & Program Management for the Canada Border Service; Colonel Eric Stevens of the Canadian Air Force, who is the deputy director of Plans at the North American Air Defense headquarters; Jean Barrette, the director of Security Operations in the department of Transportation Security and Emergency Preparedness of the federal government's Transport Canada in Ottawa; and Buryl E. Dooly, a master aviator, who was in the US Army for 28 years. Dooly provided contractor support to the Utah Olympic Public Safety Command as its Aviation Security Planner during the pre-Game phase of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, and was the Command's Aviation Operations supervisor during the Games. He co-ordinated the Command's Aviation Workgroup, who were experts representing 26 federal, State, and local government agencies. Dooley worked on all of the Command's aviation plans, requests for assistance, meeting agendas and minutes, the Command's Aviation Procedures Guide, and the 500-page Aviation After-Action Report of the Command. He also planned and directed the training program for all aviation support personnel. During the Games, he provided Command oversight and supervision of the Aviation Security Operations Center at Hill Air Force Base in northern Utah. Dave Nowzek, who is the Director of Civil Aviation for Transport Canada and Chair of the VANOC Aviation Sub-Committee was also in the audience. A senior VANOC staffer who was also at the Conference: Michael Pitt, VANOC's Program Director of Transportation & Logistics.

BCAC CONFERENCE PANELS LOOK AT 2010 AIRPORT CONTROL ISSUES

There were also two other panels at the conference: the one entitled "2010 Aircraft and Airport Operational Challenges" included the panelists: Air Transport Association of Canada's Andy Vasarins, the vice-president of Flight Operations, Brian Jenner the president and CEO of the Helicopter Association of Canada, Bill Boucher, the vice president of the Canadian Business Aviation Association Jamie Molloy of Harbour Air Seaplanes, who was representing the BC Float Plane Association; Jim Facette the president & CEO of the Canadian Airports Council and, representing the cargo aspect, Graeme Riddell, Director Air Operations at Purolator. And the third panel session, entitled, "2010 Airspace Control Challenges", included Kathy Fox, the vice president of Operations for NavCanada, the company that owns and operates Canada's civil air navigation service; Ron Carter, the Chief of Standards for Aerodromes & Air Navigation in the Civil Aviation of Transport Canada, Hardy Staub the chair of the General Avaiation subgroup of the BC Aviation Council, a BCAC Director and representative of the Canadian Owners and Pilots Association for the BCAC General Aviation Cluster; and Mark Beaty from the US Department of Homeland Security.

BRITAIN APPOINTS HAY TO OVERSEE 2010 TEAM PREP

The British Olympic Association has appointed Mike Hay to the position of Olympic Performance Manager for Winter Sports. Hay was the coach of Britain’s curling team that won a gold medal at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. Hay will lead all technical matters in support of Britain's entry in seven Olympic Winter sports for the 2010 Games in Vancouver. BOA Chief Executive Simon Clegg, in making the appointment said, "I am delighted that Mike has agreed to join the BOA professional staff at the start of the Vancouver Olympic Cycle. Mike’s extensive experience as an athlete, coach and Performance Director in a sport with gold medal credentials will be a huge asset to all seven Olympic Winter sports. I am confident that Mike can make a tremendous contribution in building on the results achieved in Turin earlier this year to deliver medal winning performances in Vancouver." In particular, Clegg said, Hay will be responsible for delivering the BOA’s multi-sport preparation camp for the 2010 Games.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1900

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

VANCOUVER'S 2010 HEALTH PROGRAM LAUNCHED

City of Vancouver councillor Heather Deal joined Park Board chair Heather Holden today to launch the Active Communities Vancouver program. It's the City's commitment to help achieve the BC Premier Gordon Campbell's goal to increase physical activity among citizens "20 per cent by 2010." The City of Vancouver was the first municipality in BC to accept the Premier's challenge. Deal says, "One of the outcomes of this initiative will be to make Vancouver one of the healthiest municipalities to ever host an Olympic and Paralympic Games, while ensuring a long-term sustainable legacy that benefits all Vancouverites. It fits with our goal of taking small steps to make Vancouver the cleanest, greenest, healthiest city in the world." The initiative involves programs such as "Step Out" walks that highlight popular Vancouver parks, trails and walks; "Fitness and Adventure" passports that offer fitness opportunities for children; "Athletes in Vancouver" grants that create associations with elite athletes; an annual special-events calendar that focuses on local fitness situations; and establish an Active Communities web site linked to the Vancouver Park Board's website www.vancouverparks.ca.

2006 VERSION OF QUEST FUNDRAISER FOR 2010 LAUNCHED

Another round of the Quest for Canadian Culinary Excellence, an 2010 Olympic-related fundraising and marketing program designed to support two Canadian Olympic Committee projects -- Own the Podium-2010 and its summer Olympic equivalent -- is about to be launched. The contest is known as Gold Medal Plates. The Quest was first held in 2003 and has so far raised C$950,000. In seven cities this fall, including Vancouver Canadians will again toast the Olympics in food, sport and wine. Chefs have been selected in each city. They will be paired with one of Canada's Olympians or Paralympians. Together, they will create a dish, which will then be paired with a Canadian wine. Five regional food and wine critics will serve as culinary judges and, with a local jury, they will decide the top three winning creations. Each city will choose a gold, silver and bronze winner. The Gold Medal Plate winner in each city will then take part in a national competition being held in Whistler next February, and will compete to be the Gold Medal Plates Canadian culinary champion for 2006. Diners contributing to the fundraising will have the opportunity to meet the chefs and some of the athletes, which include: Catriona Le May Doan (speedskating), Paul Rosen (sledge hockey), Cassie Campbell (hockey) and Clara Hughes (speedskating). There will also be live auctions involving wines and personal experiences with athletes. While they're in a particular city, the athletes will also visit schools to talk to children about the Olympics. The event is sponsored by General Electric, an international Olympic corporate sponsor that is also contributing to the 2010 Winter Games, and Epcor, a presenting sponsor for the events in each city. The company, headquartered in in Edmonton, Alberta, provides industrial power generation and water systems.

IPC SETS UP HISTORICAL DATABASE ONLINE

The International Paralympic Committee has put online its Paralympic Games Historical Results database. It's a collection of Paralympic Games results available from 1960 to 2006. The database includes preliminaries, heats and finals, scores, times, distances and the like, as well as world and Paralympic records. It has two main search options, the ‘General Search’ by Games, Sport and Event, and the ‘Athlete Search’ by Athlete’s Name, Games, Sport and national Paralympic Committee.

RESOURCES

The dates of the Gold Medal Plates events:

Halifax Oct. 17
Winnipeg Nov. 2
Edmonton Nov. 6
Toronto Nov. 9
Vancouver Nov. 14
Ottawa Nov. 16
Calgary Nov. 22

RESOURCES

The address of the IPC's historical database:
www.paralympic.org/release/Main_Sections_Menu/Sports/Results/paralympics_search_form.html

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1901
Here are three moguls we ran into today:

BC AVIATION COUNCIL CONFERENCE HEARS 2010 SECURITY PANEL IN PRIVATE

The British Olympic Association has appointed Mike Hay to the position of Olympic Performance Manager for Winter Sports. Hay was the coach of Britain's curling team that won a gold medal at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. Hay will lead all technical matters in support of Britain's entry in seven Olympic Winter sports for the 2010 Games in Vancouver. BOA Chief Executive Simon Clegg, in making the appointment said, "I am delighted that Mike has agreed to join the BOA professional staff at the start of the Vancouver Olympic Cycle. Mike's extensive experience as an athlete, coach and Performance Director in a sport with gold medal credentials will be a huge asset to all seven Olympic Winter sports. I am confident that Mike can make a tremendous contribution in building on the results achieved in Turin earlier this year to deliver medal winning performances in Vancouver." In particular, Clegg said, Hay will be responsible for delivering the BOA's multi-sport preparation camp for the 2010 Games.

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1900
Here are three moguls we ran into today:

VANCOUVER'S 2010 HEALTH PROGRAM LAUNCHED
City of Vancouver councillor Heather Deal joined Park Board chair Heather Holden today to launch the Active Communities Vancouver program. It's the City's commitment to help achieve the BC Premier Gordon Campbell's goal to increase physical activity among citizens "20 per cent by 2010." The City of Vancouver was the first municipality in BC to accept the Premier's challenge. Deal says, "One of the outcomes of this initiative will be to make Vancouver one of the healthiest municipalities to ever host an Olympic and Paralympic Games, while ensuring a long-term sustainable legacy that benefits all Vancouverites. It fits with our goal of taking small steps to make Vancouver the cleanest, greenest, healthiest city in the world." The initiative involves programs such as "Step Out" walks that highlight popular Vancouver parks, trails and walks; "Fitness and Adventure" passports that offer fitness opportunities for children; "Athletes in Vancouver" grants that create associations with elite athletes; an annual special-events calendar that focuses on local fitness situations; and establish an Active Communities web site linked to the Vancouver Park Board's website www.vancouverparks.ca.

2006 VERSION OF QUEST FUNDRAISER FOR 2010 LAUNCHED

The International Paralympic Committee has put online its Paralympic Games Historical Results database. It's a collection of Paralympic Games results available from 1960 to 2006. The database includes preliminaries, heats and finals, scores, times, distances and the like, as well as world and Paralympic records. It has two main search options, the 'General Search' by Games, Sport and Event, and the 'Athlete Search' by Athlete's Name, Games, Sport and national Paralympic Committee.

BACKGROUND

The dates of the Gold Medal Plates events:

Halifax Oct. 17
Winnipeg Nov. 2
Edmonton Nov. 6
Toronto Nov. 9
Vancouver Nov. 14
Ottawa Nov. 16
Calgary Nov. 22

RESOURCES

The address of the IPC's historical database:
www.paralympic.org/release/Main_Sections_Menu/Sports/Results/paralympics_search_form.html

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

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1899

Here are three more moguls we ran into today:

FURLONG SAYS NEW FEDERAL AUDIT "GOOD, POSITIVE"

VANOC CEO John Furlong says he welcomes the federal government's decision to audit the money flows between the federal Heritage Department and the 2010 Olympic organization during the last three government fiscal years to April 1, 2003. "The federal government has to account for the funds it gives to organizations," notes Furlong, "and in this case, they would use this audit to have a look at how we're spending the money, and what we've done. There are careful criteria under which funds are spent and up to now the federal government's spending on the Games has been largely around venues, as has BC's. We see this [new audit] as a good, positive thing that they are doing and should do." The audit, with a focus on the venue-construction funding, is due to start in November and be completed by the end of March, the end of the current federal fiscal year.

PHOTOGRAPHER CHOSEN FOR 2010'S ABORIGINAL ATHLETE PROFILE CAMPAIGN

Perry Zavitz Photography, whose studio is located in East Vancouver, one of the areas that's important to VANOC for social-development reasons, has won the bid to provide professional photography services for an aboriginal athlete profile campaign VANOC intends to run. ANOC's Brand & Creative Services department, working with its Aboriginal Participation section, came up with the idea last July, and wanted the photographer to start working last August, but the award wasn't given until September 22nd and the information about it was only released this month. The idea is to produce at least two posters per year until 2010. VANOC's idea is to encourage greater aboriginal participation in sport in Canada by showcasing, "aboriginal athlete role models, building winter sport awareness and inspiring sport participation." the target audience for the campaign are aboriginal people in Canada, "particularly youth ages 12 and up." The key messages it wants the posters to covey: that aboriginal people in Canada are a part of the 2010 spirit and that the way to celebrate the spirit of 2010 is to participate in sport. The tone of the campaign is "to be inspirational, exciting, cool, youthful," with the pictures to match. Zavitz has been a professional photographer in Vancouver for about 15 years. He's a fan of Henri Cartier-Bresson, a French photographer who pioneered the "decisive moment" style of now used by news photographers world-wide. Zavitz's style is quite bold, with lots of contrast.

RICHMOND COUNCIL APPROVES CITY BRANCH OFFICE AT VANOC HQ

Richmond Council's General Purpose Committee, which includes a majority of council members, has approved a staff request that it be allowed to spend the necessary funds to fix up and rent an office at VANOC's headquarters in Vancouver. It will cost C$14,000 in capital expenses, plus about C$3,600 per year in rent for an enclosed office and a cubicle just outside of it. Vancouver and Whistler have offices at the building, along with several corporate sponsors. Meanwhile, the same Committee spent quite a while at the same meeting discussing a staff presentation about how the Richmond sports complex that houses the 2010 speedskating oval will be programmed, and how flexible the building will be to accommodate various types of programming after the Games are completed. There wasn't any discussion about the use of the speedskating track, which is only a minor part of the complex's proposed business plan after the Games, but there was discussion about adding other type of sports, such as whether bowling could be accommodated. There was also discussion about the ability of the facility to accommodate trade shows and similar events, and the number of people which could be accommodated in such cases, but no decisions were taken. The manager of Oval Sport & Business, Gerry DeCicco, was with the city's director of Recreation & Cultural Services, Kate Sparrow, and Fitness and Wellness Coordinator Alison Dennis during the meeting. Mayor Malcolm Brodie is the committee's chair.

RESOURCES
Perry Zavitz Photography's website:
www.perryzavitz.com

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

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1898

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

VANCOUVER OLYMPIC VILLAGE REZONING HEARING SET FOR OCT 17

The City of Vancouver has scheduled a public hearing for October 17 at City Hall as part of the rezoning process for the development that will be first used by VANOC for the Vancouver Olympic Athlete Village. If the rezoning is approved, Millennium Development Group would be given approval to create a new neighbourhood at the heart of what the City staff call the Southeast False Creek sustainable community. The area includes new streets and blocks of land on False Creek to the north of West 1st Avenue between Ontario ad Columbia streets. The developer, after an intensive six-month collaboration with City staff and public meetings proposes to create 109,611 square metres (1,179,884 square feet) of residential floor space and 9,674 square metres (104,140 sq. ft.) of commercial floor space. The residential buildings are to include 250 units of "affordable" housing, with the rest to be sold at market prices. About 100 units of that would be of "modest market" housing and about 750 units of housing at full market pricing. The commercial component is to include a grocery store, a drug store and a liquor store as anchors, as well as smaller shops, cafes and restaurants eventually. Public amenities include a community centre, an elementary school -- which may or may not be built in time to be used as the Games' polyclinic -- childcare facilities and a centre for boats without motors. The heritage Salt Building will be retained is expected to be re-used, possibly in commercial or social ways. The proposed building heights vary up to a maximum of 40.5 m (133 feet); that's 13 storeys. This public-hearing portion of the rezoning process is formal, and in this case all or most of the City council members are expected to be at the meeting to hear kudos or concerns from the public, who have to register if they want to speak at the meeting. Council generally takes as long as necessary to hear speakers, although they are usually given a general time limit, and takes what they have to say into account when considering whether to rezone the property.

SFU STUDENT WORKS ON TRACKING SUSTAINABILITY

One of the key threads in VANOC's venue-construction program and operations management is sustainability. It's built into a lot of VANOC's contracts, RFPs and ITQs, for instance. But how to keep track of it and be able to report on how sustainability has helped? That was the focus of work being done by Ian Ponsford, a Master’s Candidate in Resource and Environmental Management for Simon Fraser University in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby. Ponsford's role was to help ensure that the 2010 Olympic Games, both before and after, be conducted in an environmentally friendly manner. Among other things, he's has been designing an electronic tracking system for VANOC’s environmental assessment-related commitments and assurances.

WINNIPEG MUSEUM SUGGESTED AS 2010 'NO FLYOVER' ZONE

From our Any Port in a Storm Department: The tourist draw of the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver and Whistler is being cited as one of the reasons for urgency in raising money for a proposed C$293-million dollar Museum for Human Rights to be built in Winnipeg, 1,800 kilometres (1,100 miles) from Vancouver. Gail Asper, the fundraising chair for the Museum told reporters today that there are two major reasons for getting the project completed before 2010: "There's a big homecoming planned for Manitoba in 2010, and we would sure love not to miss the homecoming, where people from Manitoba and around the world are being invited back home. Plus, it's the Olympics, and we would really like to actually promote Winnipeg as a place to stop for all the people who are coming [from] around the world. We don't want to be the flyover city anymore for the Olympics. We want to have something truly spectacular that will speak to the world." About C$100 million has been raised so far.

RESOURCES

Stories we've written in the last few months as the rezoning process nears for the Vancouver Olympic Athlete Village:

'Vancouver Council squeaks Olympic Village along timeline to rezoning hearing'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:1880; Published on Tuesday, September 26, 2006]

'New private residential tower to have commanding view of Vancouver Olympic Village action'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:1877; Published on Friday, September 22, 2006]

'Amount of work on Vancouver Athletes Village to speed up in January'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:1848; Published on Wednesday, September 6, 2006]

'Vancouver City Council considers tweaking property lines at Olympic Village
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:1846; Published on Tuesday, September 5, 2006]

'Vancouver 2010 Village project manager hopeful polyclinic contingency plan not needed'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:1845; Published on Tuesday, September 5, 2006]

'Vancouver School Board searching for "alternative funding" for VANOC's 2010 medical building'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:1842; Published on Friday, September 1, 2006]

'An inside look at the state Vancouver Olympic Athlete Village as rezoning nears'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:1820; Published on Monday, August 21, 2006]

'Costs of public amenities in and around Vancouver Olympic Village swells, and so has the payment methods'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:1731; Published on Tuesday, June 13, 2006]

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

Morgan:News:2010 |General| #1897
HOW THE WHISTLER OLYMPIC VILLAGE IS EXPECTED TO BE DEVELOPED

The chair of the Whistler 2020 Development Corporation, which is developing the Whistler Athletes Village and its related projects, says site preparation on the 2010 venue, which started in July, will continue until snow this winter prevents work from continuing.

Eric Martin says that between now and next spring, the civil and design engineering work for the public infrastructure of the Village by a company called Ekistics Town Planning, of the project will be underway. This work includes sewer, water, drainage, lighting, road design and the like. There are also a number of geotechnical and civil consultants working on the project now as well. The Whistler 2020 Development Corporation is a corporate subsidiary of the Resort Municipality of Whistler, a structure that Martin helped devise. All of the rezoning and public-hearing requirements have already been fulfilled.

"That work will all be bid during the winter," says Martin, "then we'll start up again [on the land] probably in March to finish off the site work. We're moving right along at the moment; we're probably a third of the way through this part of the job now."

The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) is expected to spend about C$16 million for the Whistler Athlete Centre in the middle of the Village and C$37.5 million for the remainder of the Whistler Olympic & Paralympic Village. About C$6.5 million of that C$37.5 million will be set aside for aboriginal legacy housing. All that money comes, via VANOC, originally from a pool of funds contributed 50/50 between the federal and BC government. The BC government has also contributed about 135 hectares (300 acres) of land, but only a portion of it -- 37 hectares (91 acres) -- will be used for the Village and its related facilities.

In some respects the way the Whistler Athlete Village will be provided generally follows the plan of how the Vancouver Athlete Village is being done, but in other respects, it's quite different.

Under the "similar" list: the Resort Municipality of Whistler is responsible for getting the Village done on time and paying for it in part with a grant from VANOC and, in return, Whistler will have, just like Vancouver, the core of a large, new residential neighbourhood available after the Games. And, Whistler, through its wholly owned subsidiary, Whistler 2020, is acting as the developer for all the public amenities, just like Vancouver's Property Endowment Fund. As a result, both Vancouver and Whistler act in a dual role: that of developer and regulator. Both sets of municipal staff have set up systems to ensure the roles are kept separate, particularly when money and politics is involved. Both Villages will have, in the long term, "affordable" sections and "market" sections that will determine housing unit pricing after the Games and will help pay for the development costs. Both locations are to be built to LEED Gold enviromental standards, and all of the governments and VANOC want both Villages to be showcases for a successful, environmentally friendly infrastructure. The marketing of the housing component after the Games is expected to be done before the Games to help ensure funding for the Villages. And both Whistler and Vancouver are under an almost impossibly tight deadline to have their Village done in time.

There are other similarities: Both Athletes Villages in Vancouver and Whistler will be divided into several distinct zones for the Games. The International Zone and the Residential Zone are two of them. The Residential Zone is a restricted area where national Olympic committees and their teams relax or prepare for competition in private. The International Zone is where accredited VIPs, invited guests and the media can mix -- assuming they have the proper accreditation -- with athletes and officials, and where national Olympic and Paralympic committee members can meet their guests; there's also entertainment and shopping facilities they can use. The two zones are separated by fencing, and there are security check points that restrict movement between the zones. There are two other major areas, which provide operational support: the Transport Zone and the Village Operations Zone. For security reasons, only accredited service vehicles and in-venue transport vehicles are allowed entry to the Village, which means that transport facilities will be located around the Village perimeter. The Village Operations Zone will provide a materials-transfer area as well as back-of-house compounds, for logistics, fit-out and maintenance, technology, vehicle servicing and that sort of thing.

Under the "differences" list is how Whistler 2020 is expected to approach the idea of getting the buildings themselves built. Vancouver, for instance, sold the lands to a single developer through a formal Request for Proposals process, and that developer is providing several architects to design various buildings. It is about to go through Vancouver's formal rezoning process before construction can start. In Vancouver's case, most of the buildings when the Games are over will be priced according to the market -- they'll be expensive, while the City had mandated that at least 20% will be housing for people with "moderate" incomes. In Whistler's case, about 90% of the legacy housing will be priced for Whistler employees, while the remainder percentage will be left to market pricing, also to help pay for the project. "Vancouver went out and selected one developer," Martin notes, "and here we may have a number of different developers, including ourselves." In Whistler, it's expected at the moment that the housing, which will be primarily wood, can be built for an average of about C$215 per square foot, including a 7% "green" premium, warranty fees and architectural fees.

The Whistler 2020 organization is a true BC company, with all the flexibility of any other corporation to raise and spend money, even though its sole shareholder is the Resort Municipality of Whistler. "It allows us the flexibility to do the things a municipality doesn't normally do, such as building housing or take out construction loans. It also gives the municipality a level of insulation from risk. In other words, the borrowing would be done within this entity, and collateral would be put up by this entity, not the municipality, so it really protects the taxpayers. So, if something goes wrong the risk is to the collateral put up for the loan." The process, recommended two years ago in part by Martin, a vice-president of a well-known housing developer, Bosa Development, was put in place in March, 2005.

Although most people think of the Whistler Olympic Village as one venue, it's actually two, and that's also different from Vancouver. One project is the Whistler Athlete Village section that houses the athletes and looks after their needs and support during the Games, and the other is the Whistler Athlete Centre, a complex to be built roughly in the middle of the Village.

The Centre, budgeted at the moment at C$16 million, is expected to be used for decades as a place for high-performance athletes to stay and train on the permanent facilities that are being built for the Games in the Whistler area, such as the Whistler Nordic Centre and the Whistler Sliding Centre. It'll be used during the lead-up to the Games to help athletes for VANOC test events and as additional room to stay and train during the Games themselves. VANOC is responsible for building and funding that centre, while Whistler is ultimately responsible for building and funding the Athletes Village, with the help of a major capital grant from VANOC. There will be, however, no operating subsidies either identified or set up, so the Centre will need to be self supporting once it moves into the long-term legacy state. VANOC is said to be drafting a business plan for it, but that has not yet been released. A portion of the Centre's capital budget -- just how much is still being calculated -- will be transferred to the Village's budget to help pay for the Centre's site servicing costs.

VANOC began looking for architects for the Athletes Centre last July and is late in the Request for Proposal stage. We know the Centre will be built of timber. It will have three major sections. The first section incorporates about 20 town homes of various sizes with between two and four bedrooms each, with garages and storage space to allow for long-term housing for an athlete and their family. The second section is about 90 small hostel-style units for athletes staying only a few days. These two areas will be served by a central kitchen and recreation room at ground level and associated parking as required by the Resort Municipality of Whisstler, with the possibility of underground parking as an option. The third section incorporates a free-weight training gymnasium for community people and high-performance athletes, multi-purpose rooms that could be set up for classrooms or studios, a reception area, change rooms for men and women with an optional sauna or spa, various sports and fitness-testing rooms, some office and some laboratory-style spaces for fitness testing and recovery equipment. VANOC expects it to be operational by October, 2008.

There's also going to be a commercial core to the Whistler Village, with commercial, retail and service areas, but just what that will entail will be worked out during the design stage. The Vancouver Village has three main anchors: a liquor store, a full-sized grocery store and a drug store, with a number of commercial areas scattered along the ground floors of many of the apartment complexes that are to be built there. Like Vancouver, Whistler Village partment units for Games time are expected to be located above the commercial space, and that the amount of revenue from it will be about equal to the costs for the future commercial space.

Yet another player could be the Hostelling Association, to find a developer willing to built a hostel in the Village. The concept is that the hostel developer, if that's how the talks conclude, could construct the hostel for VANOC's use before Games time, and then operate the hostel after the Games with either a long-term lease or an outright purchase from Whistler 2020.

All told, between 278 to 300 housing units are required to accommodate more than 3,000 athletes and officials for the Games; at least 2,000 beds must be provided. However, after the Torino Games debriefing, the International Olympic Committee told VANOC that the Whistler Village should be built to accommodate 2,425 beds, but even at its maximum the funding calculations show the Village could accommodate 2,065 beds, and the Athlete Centre another 360 beds, for a total of 2,425. That's still not enough, and there are negotiations underway to figure out who's going to pay for the extra. (The difference between beds and people is due to the fact that not all athletes and officials will be in the Village at the same time, they'll come and go as various Olympic competitions are held. The Athletes Training Centre. A pro forma for the Village was done this summer: total revenue, assuming C$85.6 million generated by sales, was expected to be C$132.1 million. Total expenses were expected to come in at C$131.2 million, leaving a surplus of C$880,000. But, note, this is still subject to a lot of assumptions that won't be nailed down for a couple of years yet.

One of those assumptions is whether Whistler can accommodate that much resident housing. Historically, the area absorbs about 80 units over two years, compared with 251 units opened up by the Village after the Games over two years. The thinking is that the 40 units per year figure is somewhat low because demand usually exceeds supply. But, just in case, Whistler 2020 commissioned a consultant to interview six major area employers to see if there was a potential demand by mid-level managers that could pay somewhat higher prices. These included the ski resort of Whistler/Blackcomb, the Fairmont Chateau Hotel, Westin Resort, the Four Seasons Hotel, the Pan Pacific Hotel and the Hilton Whistler. The total estimated interest was about 130 people from those sources alone. Wider surveys are expected to take place to work out additional interest.

After the 2010 Games are complete and VANOC winds itself down, it will transfer the ownership of the Whistler Athlete Centre to the Whistler Legacy Society, which will operate it under a long-term lease and manage its day-to-day operations. The Legacy Society will also end up with ownership and operational control of the Whistler Nordic Centre and the Whistler Sliding Centre. The Society itself is expected to have a board consisting of representatives from Whistler municipality, the BC and federal government, and the two aboriginal bands, the Squamish and Lil'wat.

Part of VANOC's capital grant goes to set up a third component: moveable housing units that are destined to be turned over to local aboriginal bands if they want them after they've been used by VANOC for temporary housing of Olympic family members. The arrangement is actually that the bands have the first right of refusal. The arrangement is part of the overall set of promises VANOC made to the bands in exchange for their support in staging the Games and written up in a document called the Shared Legacies Agreement. The money is expected to be spent on 50 pre-fabricated, moveable houses that are expected to become the property of the Lil'wat and Squamish bands after the Games, to be moved or disposed of by them, with any proceeds going to the them to support their own housing requirements. It's expected, but not yet confirmed, that this concept will be modified a bit to incorporate the value of the C$6.5 million into the development of the Village as an interest-free loan, with a payment of those funds to the bands to support their housing needs, a process that envisions the housing units will be sold after the Games.

There hasn't been any architectural work done yet, he says. "That'll start early next year... probably we'll begin construction next summer, probably August or September. We want to get the foundations done next summer and into the fall." Martin says that because of the approach the Whistler 2020 Development Corporation is taking on the development of the Village, there may be more than one architect. VANOC is in the early stage of shortlisting architects for the Athlete Centre. In addition, says Martin, "There are a number of individual residential parcels which could be built by us, Whistle 2020, or else could be done by private developers or private builders. We'll go through a kind of RFP process through the next few months to try to identify potential builders -- small and medium builders in Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton. We think there would be a lot of interest by potential builders for that phase."

Martin says that, essentially, Whistler 2020 would provide the property "partially serviced, ready to go, ready to build." In that case, the private developers would provide their own architects. However, "If we build it, we'll have our own architects and our own design."

Right now, says Martin, design guidelines that are specific to each parcel of Whistler Village land are being prepared. "That'll be done, probably by the end of the year, so by the time we start talking to potential builders and developers, we'll be able to tell them what they can do within the zoning, what it needs to look like, and what the level of finish for the affordable component will be. It's quite a program we're doing."

Just how it goes about doing the development will be codified in a contracting strategy document that will be completed as part of the design process, and how the aboriginal housing will be built will also be part of the contracting strategy document.

The title to the Whistler Village land is currently vested with Whistler in trust for the Whistler 2020 Development Corporation.

The first phase of development on the land is housing for athletes that satisfies the requirements of the International Olympic Committee and VANOC. Martin says there will be between seven and 10 parcels of land established for that component, "depending on how you cut it up." Post-2010, there will be quite a bit of remaining land for eventual development into housing. Planning for that will occur after the Games, and will be slowly developed until it's about twice the size of the first phase, with the expectation it will be completed by about 2020.

The core housing plan is based on a walk-about model. All the housing is to be generally arranged so that it's in walking distance to the Athlete Centre that VANOC is building, for the Olympics. "As we go on in time, we'll build out further and further," adds Martin. "The idea is for the core to be compact, so that even Paralympians can get to the Centre from their housing, even with wheelchairs."

Martin, who has often walked the area over the previous two years, spoke with us while standing on a parking lot so newly paved in the middle of the development that the smell of the paving oil is still redolent. Much of of the land on which the development will sit was, only a year ago, an operating Whistler landfill that has now been capped with plastic and dirt. He says the planning process has taken into account the irregular topography of the land and the spectacular views -- particularly in winter -- of the surrounding mountains. "It's really the best of locations," he says, genuinely proudly. The cost of decommissioning the landfill are being covered by Whistler municipality, but specific spending to make the reclaimed landfill site structurally suitable to accommodate temporary facilities during the Games time will be covered by VANOC's Olympic Overlay budget, when it gets the Village ready for athlete use. VANOC has an exclusive-use agreement set up to run, for the most part, from November 2009 until June 7, 2010, which gives it time to take down its overlay materials. The Village opens up to athletes arriving for the Games on February 5, 2010, a week before the Games start. The Village will close on March 3 for the Olympics, so VANOC can ready it for the Paralympic Games athletes, who arrive on March 6. The Paralympic Village closes on March 24, three days after the closing Paralympic Ceremonies. During the entire time, it'll be operational 24 hours a day.

Completion of the residential buildings is scheduled for hand-over to VANOC at the beginning of November, 2009, so it can start construction of the Olympic overlay of furnishings and equipment. However, the Whistler Athlete Centre is expected to be needed to accommodate athletes during the test events currently planned for the 2008/09 winter season, which is why it's supposed to be ready by late 2008. The timeline for the entire project, however, has to take into consideration that because of heavy snowfalls, Whistler really has only seven or eight months of construction time per year. Since clearing work didn't begin until July, there's only about 25 months to do all the work and it's been underway for about four of those months. This means a fast-track design and construction process: construction of some known elements, such as off-site servicing, site clearing, and site preparation, will take place at the same time as elements of the project are being designed. Contracting and procurement began about the middle of this year and will likely go through to the middle or the end of 2008.

The access to the Village is the Cheakamus Lake Road. A new, permanent two-lane bridge will be built over the Cheakamus River that will be used for Games time and for the legacy neighbourhood. There's an existing bridge over the Cheakamus River; it is expected to be twinned for Games time, but the twin will be removed after the Games. At that point, the existing bridge to be used only for pedestrian bridge in the legacy neighbourhood. A loop road is to be built for Games time to provide access to the transportation mall and to the technical compounds, separate from the access to the residential areas. Telecommunications throughout the Village will be handled by Bell, VANOC's largest corporate sponsor, during the Games.

RESOURCES

The key contacts:
At Whistler 2020 Development Corporation:

Eric Martin, Chair

Neil Godfrey, Development Manager

At the Resort Municipality of Whistler:

Bill Barratt, Administrator

Jim Godfrey, Executive Director, 2010 Winter Games, Whistler

Mike Vance, General Manager of Community Initiatives

At VANOC:

Terry Wright, Executive Vice President, Service Operations and Ceremonies

Nejat Sarp, Vice-president of Accommodation & Villages

Mark Cutler, Director Villages Development

George McKay, Director, Environmental Approvals

At the Squamish & Lil’wat aboriginal bands:

Chief Gibby Jacob, Squamish Band

Lyle Leo, Lil’wat Band

At the provincial government:

Jeff Garrad, Olympic Secretariat, Chief Financial Officer

Val Lowther, Coordinator 2010 Olympics

===

WHAT GOES INTO THE OLYMPICS OVERLAY:

The type of works that constitute overlay include the following:

• Placement of modular space / trailers that will be used to provide the office, meeting and massage spaces for each national team

• Tents that will be used for warehousing, covering athletes waiting at the transport mall, retail spaces to be fitted out by contracted service providers, and for other athlete services, including the medical clinic (known as the polyclinic and recreational functions

• Perimeter fencing and barricading

• Staging and stage lighting for the team welcome ceremonies -- there will be a small ceremony for each national team

• Provision of temporary services and lighting, including external lighting

• Provision of huts and checkpoints for security services

• Road-type surfaces and structural upgrades of the landfill to transport-mall loading zones and for maneuvering

• Door-locking systems including a master keyed, bedroom-specific system

• Wayfinding signage and Games 'look' materials

The furniture for use by the athletes during Games time will be provided by VANOC, and the provision will be contracted; the current VANOC budget for Olympics Overlay in Whistler is about C$10 million, with some of that devoted to decommissioning the site after the Games are finished.

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

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1896

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

CANADIAN GOVERNMENT PLANNING MORE AUDITS OF 2010 ORGANIZATIONS

The federal government's Heritage Department, which looks after Ottawa's responsibilities in partly paying for and hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics, says the audit the new Conservative government intends to conduct on the financial flows between the Department and VANOC for Ottawa's last three fiscal years is the first in a series of audits it intends to conduct involving VANOC. According to a Department representative, "This is a first of a number of recipient [VANOC] audits to be carried out on a major joint undertaking between the federal and B.C. Govts and VANOC, in accordance with the Multiparty Agreement." In fact, says another Department representative, "a review of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Federal Secretariat... is on our departmental internal audit plan for next year." The Multiparty Agreement signed before the 2010 bid was awarded to Vancouver by the IOC. The signatories are the federal, provincial and municipal governments -- Vancouver and Whistler -- hosting the Games, plus the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Committees, and it defines what each will, and won't do, and what each expects to give and get out of the experience. It allows for any of the signatories to conduct audits, at that their expense, but it also says that all the parties will do their best to set up a process to avoid "a multiplicity of audits." The requirement for the audit is silent about the processes the Multiparty Agreement puts in place to ensure things are running smoothly. For instance, it requires what ultimately became VANOC to provide annual audited financial statements to all the parties; VANOC hired one of Canada's major auditing firms, Ernst & Young, to comply with the requirement. In addition, VANOC's Board of Directors set up an Audit Committee, chaired by Michael Phelps and includes Ken Dobell. Phelps is the chairman of Dornoch Capital, a private investment company and who was for many years the chairman and CEO of Westcoast Energy, one of BC's largest public companies. Dobell was the deputy minister to BC's premier, Gordon Campbell, and cabinet secretary for the Government of British Columbia from June 2001 to until last year, but he's still listed as a special advisor to the premier as a consultant. Dobell is also chair of the VANOC Board's Finance Committee. The signatures of both Phelps and Dobell are on the two audited financial statements for VANOC, the latest of which was published last December, taking responsibility for the statements on behalf of the Board. A Heritage Department representative, however, maintains the "main focus" of the audit it intends to request in November is to ensure "that the basic management and governance processes are in place, and that the recipient (VANOC) is complying with the terms and conditions of the contribution agreement signed between VANOC and the [Government of Canada]. This is a basic, preliminary, due-dilligence step for an initiative of this magnitude, and is about ensuring that the wherewithal to adequately manage and deliver the 2010 Games is in place, and to make timely improvements to address any weaknesses identified in the audit." VANOC also has a Governance Committee, chaired by Rusty Goepel, senior vice president of investment firm Raymond James.

FOUR COMPANIES ON NORDIC CENTRE MODULAR BUILDING SHORTLIST

Several companies in BC are in the running to supply modular buildings for electrical rooms at VANOC's Whistler Nordic Centre, but a choice has not yet been made. They include: Surround Technologies of Langley; Alum-Tek of Aldergrove; Sonic Barrier Sound Products of Delta and United Electrical Engineering of Okanagan Falls. Meanwhile, one of the major sections of the Nordic Centre construction, the ski jumps in-run structures, which are now in the Request for Proposals stage, has been pushed back a week by VANOC to give companies bidding on the job enough time to arrange bid bonds. The delay in part has been because of the number of changes and clarifications of the specifications for various aspects of the project, the design of which is still under active development by Sandwell Engineering. The letter of intent now has to be in by next Tuesday. The contract execution date for the winner of the bid is set for November 1.

VANOC BLAMED FOR COMPETING FOR SKILLED TRADES WORKERS

From our What's Good for the Goose Department: VANOC managers and their construction contractors often lament about the difficulty in finding good tradespeople these days because of compettion for that type of labour during the current construction boom in western Canada. The capital construction program of the 2010 Winter Olympics is dwarfed by size and spending power of the various huge petroleum-development projects underway in northern Canada, but that doesn't stop a spokesman from one of those projects from blaming VANOC for labour shortages among key trades required by the proposed natural gas pipeline for the Mackenzie Valley. David MacInnis, president of the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, says the 20,000 workers needed will be hard to find given the competition from other projects such as the Alberta oilsands. "We've got the Vancouver 2010 Olympics which a lot of folks don't think impacts on building and construction in the oil-and-gas industry, but in actual fact it does, because a lot of the same tradespeople are being sought."

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 4, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1895

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

GEORGE THIRD & SON WINS C$8.9 MILLION OVAL STEEL CONTRACT

A company called George Third & Son has signed an C$8.9 million, labour-intensive contract to supply and install structural steel over the next nine months for the Richmond sports complex that will house the 2010 Winter speed skating oval. Guy Nelson, CEO of Empire Industries, says, "This is a prestigious landmark project and one that our team is looking forward to building. George Third and Son will be celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2010 coincident with the Vancouver Winter Olympics so we are especially excited to be contributing to the building of this dramatic Olympic facility." The work involves 55,000 man hours for only 1,300 tons of steel. The unusual design calls for sixteen, 328-foot arched trusses made of a steel and wood composite. The intricate steel components will be fabricated in the company's plant in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby, with its computer-control machinery and a team of steel craftsmen. The steel then will be connected to Glulam wood beams in an assembly facility close to the job site. "This style of project is right up our alley. George Third & Son have previous experience marrying wood and steel together on several BC Transit Skytrain Stations that used similar features," says Rob Third, vice president of Operations. The company is wholly owned by Empire Industries (TSX VENTURE:EIL) of Toronto, which acquired the company on September 1. Empire, with revenues of C$77.3 million in 2005, also owns and operates Empire Iron Works, Ward Industrial Equipment, Hopkins Steel Works and EIW Construction Services.

VANOC WORKS WORKOPOLIS

VANOC has immediately begun using its arrangements under Workopolis, the on-line job-opportunities web site, to make potential jobs at the Olympic Organizing Committee better known. The Workopolis sponsorship, which was formally announced yesterday morning at its headquarters in Toronto, tin the late afternoon began distributing four of what are eventually expected to be thousands of job and volunteer opportunities at the 2010 Games. The four that appeared a few hours after the 2010 announcement were for administrative assistants, a sport and venue management position, jobs involving transportation and logistics and a call for a manager of National Olympic Committee Relations for European countries. NOCs as they're called in the Olympics industry, are organizations in each country expected to attend the 2010 Winter Games that have the same role as the Canadian or US Olympic Committees.

2010 LEGACIES NOW HANDS OUT GRANTS TO VANCOUVER ISLAND ARTS

2010 Legacies Now, the non-profit society formed by the BC government for a number of purposes related to the 2010 Winter Games, has awarded C$98,000 to various arts organizations on Vancouver Island. For instance, the Belfry Theatre of Victoria was awarded $15,000 to stage a new musical called Ninstints, based on a 1957 expedition by well-known BC aboriginal artist Bill Reid to the Queen Charlotte Islands, also known as Haida Gwaii. Roy Surette, the Belfry's artistic director, hopes to co-produce the production with the Vancouver Playhouse and tour it around B.C. The Cowichan Aboriginal Film Festival will receive C$13,000 for development, the Kwakiutl Arts and Cultural Festival in Port Hardy will receive C$15,000 and the Victoria Conservatory of Music will receive C$6,000. The Conservatory funding is for a study about launching an independent private arts school on the Island similar to the Langley Fine Arts School in the Fraser Valley east of Vancouver. "Our mandate is to look at arts culture and heritage organizations around the province ... and to help make them more sustainable," Lori Baxter, director of ArtsNow, the arts component of Legacies Now, told the Victoria Times Colonist. Arts Now also funds sports, recreation, literacy and volunteerism. "The projects don't have to be Olympics-related, but touch on how people want their communities to look in four or five years," she said. "The arts is an integral part of a healthy community. We were definitely looking at those under-served, culturally diverse and smaller communities." So far, C$230,000 in project funding has gone to 52 organizations around the province from about 150 applications.

RESOURCES

George Third & Son website:
www.geothird.com

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 4, 2006

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1894

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

CANADA TO SOLE-SOURCE MORE OF 2010 WEATHER RADAR SYSTEM TO US COMPANY

The Canadian federal government is again sole-sourcing in the United States key components of the sophisticated and expensive weather radar system it intends to build along critical areas of the Sea-to-Sky Corridor near Whistler as part of the government's commitments to the 2010 Winter Olympics. A Doppler weather radar system is to be used for Olympic weather surveillance, forecasts and to detect severe weather. The Meteorological Service of Canada's National Radar Program (NRP) is expected to build the system next summer. A cavity magnetron is a high-powered tube that generates coherent microwaves, and it's the major component of the radar system. Although it sounds like it's something out of science fiction, they've been in use since the British government began to use them during World War II in 1940 to improve radar's efficiency. The federal government needs three of them for the Olympics system, and it's buying them from Communications & Power Industries of Palo Alto, California. The reason: there might be other ones that'll work, but it knows the specifications of these ones, since they'll be the same as other cavity magnetrons already in use, the Service won't have to spend the several years the testing protocol will take to calibrate them -- a protocol that would take the testing past the time the Games are due to be running. "Time is of the essence for the 2010 radar project. "Any delay could sharply increase the risk that an operational radar system would not be ready for the test event in 2009 or the 2010 Games," says a source. This isn't the first time the Service has sole-sourced components of the system to an American firm. Last June it awarded a C$360,000 contract to the American office of a Finnish company for some need-to-have-now parts. Ottawa hasn't offered a cost of this magnetron contract because it's still negotiating with the company. After the Games, the weather system is expected to be integrated into the standard Canadian weather office forecasting system.

VANOC DIRECTOR TO TAKE ON CHAIR OF WESTERNONE EQUITY

One of the BC government's appointments on VANOC's board, Richard Turner, has been appointed chairman of WesternOne Equity GP Inc. of Vancouver (TSXV: WEQ.UN and WEQ.DB). WesternOne buys private companies located usually in western Canada to generate money for its unit holders and to capture the firms' capital appreciation. Turner, who is president and CEO of TitanStar Investment Group -- a firm that provides private equity capital to medium-sized businesses as well as capital for real estate developments and acquisitions, has several other board positions. He's Board chair and director of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, which is owned by the BC government; trustee of Sunrise Senior Living Real Estate Investment Trust; trustee of Sun Gro Horticultural Income Fund as well as the Board chair and director of its operating subsidiary Sun Gro Horticultural Canada; and a director of Sora Group Wealth Advisors.

NEW CANADIAN SKI RACING MAGAZINE TO LAUNCH THIS MONTH

A new magazine that will focus on the Canadian ski-racing industry is due to launch its first monthly issue October 12. SRC Magazine is published by BK Media Inc (the initials stand for ski racing Canada). It's to be mailed to "nearly 20,000" Canadian subscribers with an additional 5,000 magazines sent to specific snowsports competitions, ski shops and industry shows. The magazine is sponsored by the Canadian Snowsports Association. The magazine says it intends to publish 10 issues during the 2006-07 ski season. It published two test issues last season under the title "Ski Racing Canadian Edition." Dave Pym, managing director of Canadian Snowsports Association says, "Our nine disciplines have an endless number of stories that we need to bring to a larger audience. With the Vancouver 2010 Games on the horizon these stories need to come to the forefront." BK Media is run by Gordie Bowles and Mark Kristofic; Bowles is to be editor.

RESOURCES

A photo of a cavity magnetron:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetron#Radar

Our much more detailed story about the proposed radar system:
'Canadian weather department to buy C$350,000 wind, temperature equipment to help 2010 forecasting'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:1726; Published on Friday, June 9, 2006]

--

WesternOne's website:
www.weq.ca/

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 3, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Government, VANOC| #1893
OTTAWA TO CONDUCT FULL AUDIT OF VANOC BACK TO ITS INCEPTION

The Canadian federal government intends to conduct a full financial audit of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) this fall, starting from VANOC's inception in 2003 and going through to last March 31.

The time periods covered follow the federal government's fiscal years, which end March 31. The audit is to start with April 1, 2004 and cover the money flows to the end of the 2006 fiscal year.

In the Multi-Party Agreement that was set up with VANOC, the Governments of Canada and BC both agreed to provide C$365 million each in funding to cover infrastructure and legacy costs of the 2010 Games. Canada also agreed to provide an additional C$187 million, primarily to pay for essential federal services such as security and immigration matters, as well as the bureaucratic costs of federal coordination of its responsibilities, for a total federal budget of C$552 million.

Documents suggest the "primary focus" of the audit is the C$552 million federal investment to the 2010 Winter Games is the C$290 million contribution to the 2010 capital plan that's paying for the federal share of the venues. But the documents do not say the venue-construction aspects will be the sole focus of the audit. The Department of Canadian Heritage is providing the funding that is matched by BC's contribution, and it's the section of the federal government that will supervise and pay for the audit, budgeted at C$76,000.

Federal documents say the audit is intended to provide the Department's senior management with assurance that:

VANOC's management controls, risk management work and "overall governance structure" are "adequate and effective;"

Funds provided through the contribution agreements were used "for the purpose intended"; and to

Make recommendations to the Heritage Department and VANOC that can be used to "improve management and develop risk-management frameworks where appropriate."

The federal government earlier hired a construction management consultant team supervised by Henry H. Wakabayashi, the chairman of Pacific Liaicon & Associates to do a review of VANOC's venue construction practices last April and May. The consultant issued a report that was made public last month. It had some recommendations but essentially gave VANOC a clean bill of health.

Ottawa is hoping to start the audit November 6 and expects it would take until next March 31 to complete it, however the auditor has not yet been selected. To ensure independence, Ottawa says it will not hire VANOC's own auditor, nor will it hire any other firm connected with overseeing venue construction projects.

In addition, the auditor in charge of the project will require government security clearance at the Secret level -- that's an official standard -- and each of the project team members must have security clearance at the "Enhanced Reliability" level.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 3, 2006

Monday, October 02, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #1892
PORTION OF RICHMOND OLYMPIC OVAL COMPLEX MAY BE TANKED IF EXTRA C$95,000 CAN'T BE FOUND

A portion of Richmond's sports complex that is to hold the 2010 Olympic long track speedskating oval is in jeopardy of being deleted from the plans because staff have strict orders not to exceed the C$178 million budget for the complex, and they want to protect the contingency that's built into that budget.

The portion of the project, known as a rowing tank, has nothing to do with the 2010 Olympic Game requirements, but the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) contributed C$20,000 of its own tight capital-expense budget to design drawings for the two tanks that comprise it so that it could be analyzed by engineers to see if there were any "threats to the structure and overall design of the Oval" complex. There weren't.

The rowing tanks totalling 6.4 x 15.2 metres (21 feet x 50 feet) in size had been suggested by the University of British Columbia train high-peformance athletes for canoeing, rowing, dragon-boating and kayaking. There's one such facility in eastern Canada; this would be the only one in western Canada. Staff later determined there would be a lot of community interest -- about nine times more than the high-performance demand -- and because speed skating and rowing are two major Olympic sports, it was incorporated into the complex's plans.

The problem is this: the main concrete slab that forms the base of the sports complex, known as the raft slab, is to be poured starting next week, and the tanks have to be build into the slab. The rest of the tank project, expected to cost about C$355,000 to complete, can be built later, but it will cost $95,000 now to incorporate the tanks into the slab, and that's the money that's not in the budget.

Staff don't want to touch the contingency because only 54% of the complex has been tendered so far, and they feel it's too early in the project to start committing the contingency, particularly in light of construction cost inflation. Staff also had a look at the overall scope of the complex, and there's no padding to cut to free up C$95,000. VANOC has suggested that putting the tanks in will help the legacy aspects -- the implication being that the BC government might be persuaded to use some of its Olympic contingency on the project, but VANOC made no promises to that concept.

Staff say they're currently chasing down possibilities for somebody to come up with the funds for the tanks to be included in the slab pour, but Richmond City Council may have to kill the tanks if money hasn't been found by the next city council meeting, scheduled for next Monday evening.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 2, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1891

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

VANOC TO BUY TWO SNOWMOBILES AND ATTACHMENTS

VANOC has issued a snap Invitation to Quote for two specific snowmobiles and some snow-trail grooming attachments for its Whistler Nordic Centre, which is in the midst of construction. VANOC wants a response by October 11, and the equipment is to be delivered before December 1. The machines are to be Skandic Super Wide snowmobiles, with 24” x 156” tracks, a 4-stroke engine and equipped with a J-hook for a trailer. It also needs two trailer sled attachments with skis, a 60" Ginzu classic cross-country trail groomer, a 66" Ginzu roller and compactor and a Ginzu track setter with an electric actuator and 1 1/4” track moulds. These type of snowmobiles have been around for better than a decade, and the equipment is seen as standard.

RICHMOND PONDERS VANOC OFFICE

Richmond City staff are asking today for city council's permission to set up a permanent office at VANOC headquarters for the city's Director of Olympic Business, Lani Schultz. It will cost C$14,000 in capital expenses, plus about C$3,600 per year in rent for an enclosed office and a cubicle just outside of it. Staff are suggesting it's "critical" that they have a presence at the Gravely St. headquarters. They put it this way, "It is becoming increasingly apparent that by not being fully immersed at VANOC, the flow of important information to Richmond staff is often delayed. As the Oval construction phase and the start of the 2010 Winter Games draw closer, it is crucial to continue building the relationship between the City of Richmond and VANOC. As a Venue City, it is vital that the City of Richmond be aware of and fully involved in the day-to-day happenings at VANOC. Though Richmond staff have good communication with VANOC through scheduled meetings and phone conversations, the current situation is less than optimal and Richmond would be better served if the Director of the Olympic Business Office spent considerably more time being directly involved in important discussions and negotiations that occur at the VANOC offices. Richmond staff are handling critical issues around legacy trust, pre-Games operations, sponsorship and event planning. Using office space at VANOC is integral to achieving Richmond's desired outcomes around the Oval and the Olympics." The City of Vancouver, the Resort Municipality of Whistler, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police -- which is overseeing security at the Games -- as well as the Provincial Secretariat -- which is overseeing the BC government's responsibilities for the Games and, so far, two corporate sponsors, General Electric and Bell Communications, already have offices in the building. The federal government doesn't yet have an office there for its oversight.

WADA, INTERPOL TO CO-OPERATE ON ANTI-DOPING "CRIME"

The World Anti-Doping Agency and Interpol have agreed to draw up a Memorandum of Understanding on how the two agencies can combat cheating in sport by performance-enhancing drugs. The need for stronger and more unified action in tackling the problem of doping was underlined as a key point during a meeting between Interpol secretary general Ron Noble and WADA director general David Howman at the General Secretariat today in Lyon, France. A global congress on combating doping in sport was among the proposals discussed during the meeting, which would bring together experts from the policing and sporting worlds to develop best practices and inter-agency co-operation at all levels. Secretary General Noble says that, "Doping in sport is not only a crime in the conventional sense of the word, but it is also morally dishonest and harmful at so many levels. From the trainer who convinces a young, impressionable athlete that taking drugs is the only way to win, to record breaking performances which are now questioned by the general public. The deception associated with doping is now spread so far and so wide, that there are some sports where every single individual who breaks a record falls under suspicion. The enormous profits associated with major sporting events for individuals, companies and even countries have made it easy for those who should be acting to turn a blind eye.” WADA's Howman added that "While much has been done during recent years to raise awareness in the sporting world of the damage doping can do, with support from the law enforcement community in identifying and prosecuting the suppliers, I am sure that far more progress can be made. It is important that we take action now, to protect young sportsmen and women from harm, and to protect the integrity of sport itself." It's not the first time that WADA and Interpol have been involved with the topic. In 2004, Interpol hosted the first International Working Group on doping agents, which was attended by delegates from 16 countries in addition to WADA, the International Olympic Committee and the Council of Europe. The group recognized as "essential" the need for stronger legislation to deter criminals from what they view as a high-profit low-risk crime.

RESOURCES

A picture of a Skandic Super Wide snowmobile; this one's made by Ski-Doo:
tinyurl.com/z32ss

--

The website of Richmond's Olympic Business Office:
cms.city.richmond.bc.ca/Page343.aspx

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 2, 2006

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1890

Here are three moguls we ran into today:

CANADIAN NAVY CONTEMPLATES PUBLIC DISPLAYS IN VICTORIA DURING 2010 GAMES

The Canadian Navy, at least on the west coast, says it is hoping to hold Navy Days, a type of open house for the public run by the Navy's community-relations department, at its Esquimalt yards near Victoria during the 2010 Winter Olympics. The year 2010 will also be the Navy's 100th anniversary in Canada. The event is expected to feature several ships, a range of displays, and vistors are expected to have an opportunity to speak to members of the navy and learn about their jobs. As well, there will be Army and Air Force personnel, who are normally based at Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt who hope to be on hand to provide information and displays about their positions. The Navy holds its first Navy Days at Ogden Point this coming weekend.

COLUMNIST CALLS OLYMPIC CRUISE SHIP FOR 2010 REPORTERS "A BONEHEAD IDEA"

Mark Hume, a columnist for one of Canada's national newspapers, the Globe & Mail, suggested in his column today that VANOC's proposal to the International Olympic Committee that it house thousands of media who come to cover the 2010 Games in a cruise ship "a bonehead idea." The Globe & Mail has an average weekday circulation of about 320,000. Hume suggests the optics are what makes the concept so bad, in his opinion. "First, when you are so far over budget that B.C. taxpayers are starting to fret, maybe bringing in cruise ships isn't a smart move. Second, we can imagine the difficulty journalists would face doing live hits: 'I'm not actually reporting to you from Whistler, Lloyd, but am close by -- on a boat.' There is also the problem of removing the media from the glimmering after-hours ambience of Whistler, and leaving them stuck in downtown Squamish. This is probably not the best way to sell B.C. to the world. All things considered, mixing cruise ships with the Winter Games is such a bonehead idea you have to wonder what might be suggested next. Igloos maybe?"

STREETERS SUGGEST OFF-CUFF CONCEPTS FOR 2010 MASCOT

From our We'll Be at Starbucks if You Need Us Department: Upon hearing that VANOC has asked professionals to contact it if they're interested in being part of the process to pick a mascot designer, the Calgary Sun newspaper decided to ask some people on the street what they thought the mascot of the 2010 Winter Olympics should be. the results: Dave Littke, 35: "A gas pump. Isn't the gas tax paying for most of those Olympics?"; Helen Gilchrist, 25: "A moose -- that's pretty Canadian. I like the moose. A moose dressed as a Mountie."; Angela Marinelli, 29: "A duck holding an umbrella, because it always rains there."; Wendy Germain, 23: "The mascot should represent all of Canada, something universal. I'll say the loon, because it's on our money. Or, a brown or black bear."; Harp Arora, 38: "The killer whale [orca] because of the Vancouver aquarium."; Clay Betker, 43: "A marmot. Local to B.C. A cute little character. Plus, there's environmental issues because they're trying to save the marmot."; John Manzo, 42: "I tell you it'll be a cafe latte with beautiful latte art on top. Or, a sushi roll, because Vancouver is known for some outstanding sushi."

RESOURCES

Esquimalt is pronounced "Ehsk-WHY-mahlt"

A link to a map of the Canadian Naval Base is below. Ogden Point is the name of the extension of land that forms the eastern mouth of the entrance to Esquimalt Harbour. The base occupies the point. If you turn on the satellite view and zoom in to the base, you can see several war ships at dock.
tinyurl.com/k3nan

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 2, 2006

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