Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #2581

ATOS ORIGIN SETTING UP TECHNOLOGY HELP DESK FOR VANOC

VANOC's international networking sponsor and supplier, Atos Origin, is expected to start operating in the next few weeks the technology Help Desk it's setting up for VANOC. It's a traditional set-up. The basic help-desk level will work off a central call-management system, and is expected to handle support over the phone for Atos's technology infrastructure, which includes both systems and the network. This covers such things as all of the personal computers, peripherals, basic servers and systems, as well as network support. The first level will also handle some basic telecommunications support, for both standard and cellular phones and its cabling, and there is also some basic expertise available in programs such as Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Exchange and Norton Ghost. As expected, the strategic focus here is on resolution on first contact. If that's not possible to achieve, particularly if the issue is complex, the main Help Desk kicks the question to a second level. The trouble ticket goes to the second level of the Help Desk, or shunted to the experts in the particular subject. The goal of the help desk itself, according to Atos Origin documents: Provide the "highest level of service to the user, within the service level."

THE BEST LAID PLANS OF VANOC EXECUTIVE FOR PRESENTATION FOILED BY COMPUTERS

Dennis Kim, VANOC's director of Licensing & Merchandising, could have used a help-desk phone call yesterday. No less than four technicians, two of them carrying lap-top Windows computer, worked for about 20 minutes at the start -- and for a time, during -- a presentation he was making to a conference in a ritzy downtown Vancouver hotel as they struggled to figure out why they couldn't get sound out of a third laptop that was supposed to play a stirring VANOC scene-setting video on a big screen. Kim wasn't involved in any of this; he simply sat quietly and watched. The techs -- none of them from Atos Origin, by the way, nor were any of the computers from VANOC -- finally got the cue from Kim during his speech, only to have the five-minute colour video stop dead after about 30 seconds, never to move again. Unperturbed, Kim carried on with his presentation.

ALPINE CANADA EXTENDS ATHLETICS EXECUTIVE CONTRACT WITH GARTNER THROUGH 2010

Max Gartner, the chief athletics officer of Alpine Canada, has agreed to an extension of his contract, so he can continuie to work with the Canadian Alpine Ski Team and Alpine Canada's participation in"Own The Podium 2010" right through the 2010 Winter Olympics. The Canadian Alpine Ski Team had their best World Cup season ever. Last winter's teams had a record-setting performance of 14 World Cup podium finishes, and one World Championship medal. Gartner, from Austria, has coached in Canada for 20 years.

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Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 16, 2007

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Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #2580

ALL QUIET IN OTTAWA TODAY

There were 4,126 words in the Canadian government's Speech from the Throne, the national government's traditional method of outlining what Prime Minster Harper and his Conservative cabinet wants to achieve during the new session of Parliament they are opening today in Ottawa. None of the words were about the 2010 Olympics or Paralympics.

NEW BC LEGISLATURE SESSION STARTS WITH SOME POKES ABOUT 2010

The BC government opposition party wanted the BC Legislature, dominated by the Liberal Party, to do immediately a couple of things connected with the 2010 Games as the new session gets underway in Victoria. The New Democratic Party's MLA for the Vancouver-Mount Pleasant riding, Jenny Kwan, wanted the BC Auditor General "to monitor the rate of single-room accommodation loss as a part of the Auditor General's Office's evaluation of the Olympics." Such accommodation has to do with the controversial topic of homelessness in Vancouver. And there was a call by North Island MLA Claire Trevena for the House to "urge VANOC and other sports organizations to ensure that women's ski jumping be recognized as an official sport in the 2010 Olympics." Both are expected to get short shrift.

NEW AUDITOR GENERAL REPORT ON BC GOVERNMENT 2010 COMMITMENTS DUE NEXT YEAR

The new BC Auditor General, Errol Price, is expected to issue his organization's next report on the BC government's commitments to the 2010 Games at the end of January or in early February. Price is in Europe this week; he's attending the European Court of Auditors at the International University Institute of Luxembourg, to speak at a three-day seminar on performance auditing. The seminar is a first step toward the development of an MBA program for performance auditing at the institute. He'll be talking about, among other things, the BC government involvement with the 2010 Olympics.

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Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 16, 2007

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Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #2579

VANCOUVER TO PAY FOR 2010 VENUE OVER-RUN WITH LEGACY CONVERSION MONEY

Vancouver City Council today agreed to follow the lead of the Vancouver Park Board and turn over C$2.86 million from what remains of the city's C$10 million Hillcrest curling rink legacy conversion fund, donated by VANOC earlier this year, to pay for a cost over-run on another Olympic's venue, the Trout Lake Arena. The original proposal by staff at both the Park Board level and the City was to only use about half the funds from the conversion fund, while the other half would come from a drawn down on capital funds for a project that can't be built before the current capital plan expires about a year from now. That project, which had become too expensive for the money originally budgeted, would have renovated the washrooms for a city swimming pool so they could be accessible for people with physical handicaps. The City council, like the Park Board before it, decided the optics of making it more difficult to build handicapped washrooms in one part of the City so a venue of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games could be completed in another part wouldn't wash. The engineer in charge of the 2010 venues the City has agreed to provide, Rudy Roelofsen, and the Trout Lake Arena architect, Walter Frankl, told council that it was also dropping C$250,000 worth of expenditures, primarily due to be spent on storm-water management, in order to fit the revamped budget for the building.

VANCOUVER CITY STAFF LOOK FOR TRUCK PARKING DISRUPTED BY 2010 LIVE SITES

Vancouver City staff say they have begun looking for expanses of "fallow industrial lands" in the downtown core to help offset the loss of temporary surface parking for large trucks that will occur when the city developments one of its block-sized 2010 Live Sites. The Live Site adjacent to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre is currently one of those surface parking lots, which are used "almost daily" by movie-industry support trucks. Staff point out that these trucks are generally too large to fit in covered parking lots and while they can be accommodated on streets, there's too much traffic, parking restrictions and logistics involved for them to use streets on a regular basis. Staff also say they one of the locations they're now investigating could be a "win-win" situation because it could also be used for temporary 2010 parking when the Games are underway. As one city advisor put it: "We're not talking about fancy parking lots. We're talking about grading raw ground, and dropping a power line and some water lines into it, so it can be used temporarily by the film industry, to keep them off the streets."

JOB FAIRS SCHEDULED THIS MONTH TO RECRUIT STAFF FOR WHISTLER NORDIC, SLIDING CENTRES

VANOC is expected to hold job fairs this month in the Whistler area as it recruits staff for the 2010 Nordic centre in the Callaghan Valley and the Whistler Sliding Centre. About 10 of the Nordic positions are expected to be full time, another 10 part time, with most of them working outside. The Nordic centre is expected to open to the public in December, with tickets expected to be priced around C$15 for the day to ski on its 30 kilometre trail system. About half a dozen organized events in total are scheduled for January, February and March. The Sliding Centre is not expected to open to the public until March, in part because Canadian athlete training will be taking place during the winter, and in part because staff training is expected to be more extensive than for most facilities because the track is unique. The Callaghan day lodge won't be constructed until later.

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Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 16, 2007

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Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #2578

VANOC'S FINAL VENUE SEATING ARRANGEMENTS WON'T BE FINALIZED UNTIL 2009

Caley Denton, VANOC's vice-president of ticketing and consumer marketing, says VANOC won't have finalized the seating plans for its venues until mid-2009. "At that time, we'll have a really good idea of what our broadcast requirements will be in the seating bowl [at each venue], and what our media requirements will be in the seating bowl." This goes for the outdoor venues, too, he says, particularly since at a number of the venues, inside and outside, VANOC intends to add temporary seating, decisions which affect the ticket numbers available, just as how the locations and numbers of people involved in reporting on the competitions, which also won't be confirmed until the summer of '09, will do. Denton says that because the full amount of seating won't be known until then, VANOC, which by then will have acquired applications for tickets to specific venues as part of their ticketing phases, will halt the ticket intake for a few weeks that summer while it assigns tickets and seats to those who've applied. When ticket applicants are notified what tickets they were successful in obtaining, they'll have a second chance to apply for additional competitions for which seats remain unsold. Only after that round, expected to be completed in the third calendar quarter of 2009, will the ticket intake resume, and remaining tickets will be sold and assigned seats at the same time right through to the end of the Games. That means, notes Denton, that being involved in the first phase, the application phase, when it starts a year from now is the most important for people to obtain tickets that they want.

SEVERAL VANOC TICKETING PROGRAMS STILL TO COME

Now that VANOC has released its core Olympics ticketing plan, it still has a considerable amount of ticket-related work to do. Denton says the Paralympic ticketing plan will likely be released next, in a few weeks. It's also working on the ticketing plan for the Cultural Olympiad, which starts with the first performances and productions to occur next February throughout Greater Vancouver, the Vancouver-Whistler corridor and in Whistler. It will also have a separate ticketing program for the nightly Victory ceremonies in both Vancouver and Whistler. VANOC's marketing executive vice-president, Dave Cobb, says he expects that between 600,000 and 700,000 will attend those ceremonies, which will be coupled with entertainment, at BC Place during the course of the Games. And, says Denton, the ticketing function is working with VANOC's accommodation function to help put together ticket packages, so that information about accommodation can be included when tickets are ordered. Denton also says the final work of the function will be a ticket redistribution plan to ensure that legitimate ticket-trading or resales can take place as demand for specific events fluctuate as teams or athletes succeed or fail during the competition preliminaries.

CANADIAN CURLING TEAMS TO START MARCH TO 2010 NOVEMBER 28 IN QUEBEC

The first of nine hurdles that Canadian curlers must clear if they want to represent Canada in the 2010 Winter Olympics is the BDO Classic Canadian Open, the first leg of the men's so-called Grand Slam of Curling, which is scheduled to be held at the new Pavillon de la Jeunesse in Quebec City from November 28 to December 2. Fifteen rinks are scheduled to take part. The Grand Slam of Curling is a series of eight high-profile men's and women's events that are the main part of the Canadian Curling Association's qualifying process for the 2010 Games. Through their performance in the Grand Slam events, rinks can earn a significant amount of points towards securing a berth in the final leg, the 2009 Canadian Trials.

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Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 16, 2007

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Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #2577

PARKS BOARD URGES VANCOUVER TO USE HILLCREST CONVERSION FUND TO COVER TROUT LAKE VENUE OVER-RUN

The Parks Board, which is semi-autonomous in Vancouver, last night rejected one part of its own staff's report that recommended about half the money to cover another C$2.86 million budget over-run on the Trout Lake arena the Board is building as part of the City's commitments to VANOC. Staff had suggested the overage be covered in part by using C$1.2 million of orphaned capital funds from an unrelated project, then replacing it when the City's next bi-annual capital plan goes to the voters just over a year from now. Park Board Commissioner Marty Zlotnik, who voted against the idea, said, "With respect to taking money from one pot and putting it in another, I think it's a very bad habit. It seems to be something we've been doing with quite a bit of regularity. Even though I think it's sometimes a desperate measure, it puts communities in an awkward position." The Board instead urged the City of Vancouver, which is to vote on the issue this afternoon, cover all C$3 million of the overage by taking funds from an advance of C$10 million given to the City by VANOC last spring to be used as a sinking fund to pay for the conversion in 2010 of the new Hillcrest curling rink venue to its legacy configuration once VANOC has finished with it for the 2010 Games. However, if the City did that, the fund wouldn't have enough money in it to generate its growth to the necessary amount in time to complete the conversion. Board and City staff both recommend Council use this method of financing, however, so the new arena, now expected to cost C$15.9 million instead of its original C$10.5 million, can be built in time. The Trout Lake arena is expected to be used as a practice surface for athletes training during the Games.

QUOTE WITHOUT COMMENT - HOCKEY CANADA CONSIDERS 2010 COACHES

"Whenever he peers across the Niagara River at his native Canada, [the NHL's] Buffalo Sabres coach Lindy Ruff can almost sense the swelling anticipation for the upcoming Vancouver Olympics. A native of Warburg, Alta., Ruff knows the hockey competition of 2010 will have millions of people north of the 49th parallel glued to their televisions with expectations of gold medals dancing in their heads. And he would like nothing better than to be part of the Canadian contingent that is seeking to repeat the championship effort turned in by Joe Sakic and company back in 2002 in Salt Lake City. 'It actually crossed my mind when I was watching Team Canada at the 2006 Games in [Torino],' Ruff said yesterday. 'I just thought to myself that it would be nice to be involved. It's a tremendous honour just to be considered in any capacity.' Ruff's name already has been discussed by Hockey Canada officials, joining a list of candidates that includes New Jersey Devils coach Brent Sutter, St. Louis Blues coach Andy Murray, the Detroit Red Wings' Mike Babcock, Stanley Cup-winning coach Randy Carlyle of the Anaheim Ducks and the Phoenix Coyotes' Wayne Gretzky." -- Sun Media reporter Mike Zeisberger of Buffalo, New York, Tuesday, October 16, 2007.

QUOTE WITHOUT COMMENT - AT LEAST THE SUBLET WILL BE WORTH IT

"When you read [VANOC's] schedule of event prices it becomes obvious that, for anything anyone would want to watch, the prices are for the wealthy. The guy in charge, John Furlong, says that these prices meet his promise that the Olympics would be affordable, and goes on to bring a tear to the flintiest of eyes saying, 'It's about being there for moments of greatness, Olympic records, the singing of Oh Canada with your fellow Canadians. It's about having a ticket, your ticket, this ticket to say that you were there in 2010... [so you can] say that you got to experience this yourself.' Not for me, John old son... The Olympics has brought one blessing to the Mair family. You see, we live right above the highway to Whistler, and I'm told we could rent our pad [during the Games] for at least C$10,000, which will finance a nice trip to New Zealand, where we can watch on TV whatever the hell they do with a luge - which is where we would watch it at home." -- Columnist Rafe Mair, blog, Opinion250.com, Prince George, BC, Tuesday, October 16, 2007.

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Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 16, 2007

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Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #2576

2010 ORGANIZERS ISSUE SNAP CALL FOR COMPANIES TO PRINT THOUSANDS OF PLASTIC SECURITY BADGES AND CARDS FOR ACCREDITATION DEPARTMENT

The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) has issued a formal request for companies to contact it if they are interested in being shortlisted for the job of providing the secure 220,000 badges and 50,000 cards that it figures it needs for its Accreditiation function -- and the 60 machines it feels that will be necessary to do the printing of them.

The badges and cards are to be made of a type of plastic called polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, for short. The badges are expected to be 10.5 cm wide and 16.5 cm long (about 4 by 6.5 inches), while the cards are to be about the same width but a little shorter, 12 cm long (about 4.5 inches).

The printers are expected to apply a photo, personal information and venue-access entitlement information from a computer database, much of it in light-coloured inks, on both sides of the card or badge, as well as various security features which are usually used for identification documents like passports, such as ultra-violet inks, embedded features and holograms.

VANOC also wants the company to provide on-site technical support from November, 2009 to the end of the Paralympics in March, 2010.

VANOC is also offering, in this relatively rare case, to consider official supplier status, with marketing rights attached, as opposed to paying cash, or all cash, for the category, if a company is interested in doing that.

The organization's RFEOI document is also heavily pushing the concept that potential proponents should be ready to take sustainability and its several other social programs into serious account when considering if they want to do the work.

It's a snap call: companies have only just over a week to get their qualifications into VANOC's procurement department, by October 23.

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Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 15, 2007

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Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #2575

NEXT MONTH STILL TARGET LAUNCH FOR VANOC ONLINE RETAIL STORE

VANOC's online retail store is still on track to launch next month, according to Dennis Kim, the organization's director of Licensing & Merchandising. Besides the online store, which will carry VANOC's full list of products from the current batch of 25 companies scattered across Canada and authorized by VANOC to sell their products designed to help produce royalties for the Games, VANOC products also now retail through about 500 "doors", according to Kim, 400 of them belong to the VANOC national retail sponsor, Hudson's Bay Company. Kim told the Licensing Executives Society, in a presentation this afternoon in downtown Vancouver that VANOC, for the first time of any Olympics, it is requiring its licensees and their factories to go through a stringent social-compliance audit, and, he says, it hopes it will become a legacy of the 2010 Games. Kim says that VANOC still expects to open Olympic-brand "superstores" in Vancouver, Whistler and several cities across Canada in 2009, and there will be opportunities for those attending the Games to purchase Olympic-branded merchandise to "enhance their experience with the Games" at the Vancouver International Airport, every competition venue, and some of the non-competition venues, such as the Olympic Villages.

WHITE ROCK HOTELIER PLEASED TO BE A PART OF VANOC ACCOMMODATION SUPPORT

The Peace Arch News, a community newspaper covering the southern part of the Greater Vancouver area, has a nice feature in this week's issue about the arrangements the Ocean Promenade Hotel -- in the town of White Rock, near the Canada - US border -- has made with VANOC. It's one of hundreds of hotels and motels in the Vancouver and Whistler area that have come to a formal arrangement to supply accommodation to the 2010 Olympics and Paralympics people helping to put on the Games. The general manager, Gordy Sangha, told the paper that 70% of the hotel's rooms are under contract. He explained to the reporter Alan Campbell that he did some homework before completing the deal, talking to hotelier counterparts in Australia and Europe who were also involved in other Olympics. "The most important aspect is for guests to have an unforgettable experience and to have them return in the future," he's quoted as saying. "We've had several meetings in Vancouver and the hotel has provided a commitment to VANOC to give them a percentage of our hotel space," Sangha told the paper, adding, "But we also have in mind our regular customers and we didn't want to commit the entire hotel to the Games." Sangha told Campbell: "We are committed to having fair pricing on our deluxe accommodations, and will continue to be good corporate citizens as well as ambassadors for White Rock and Canada... This is our chance to shine and showcase White Rock. Our goal is to create a quality experience for 2010, and lay the foundations for repeat business for the years following."

2012 BRITISH OLYMPICS ADD CLOTHING & HOMEWARE AS NEW NATIONAL SPONSOR CATEGORY

The 2012 Summer Olympics in London, England, today added a new category to its existing seven categories of national corporate sponsors: Clothing & Homeware. That's in addition to sportswear, airline, automotive, banking, telecoms, utilities, and petroleum products. Paul Deighton, chief executive of the London 2012 organizing committee, said: "The addition of a new category demonstrates that there is a huge appetite from commercial companies to be part of 2012." Besides the national marketing rights that go along with such sponsorships, such firms also have exclusive access and marketing rights connected with the Great Britain Olympic and Paralympic teams travelling to the Vancouver 2010 Games.

RESOURCES

The Peace Arch News's article about the Ocean Promenade Hotel is here:
www.peacearchnews.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=44&cat=43&id=1082840&more=0

A previous story we wrote that goes into more detail about the on-line store and other VANOC retail concepts:

'On-line store to start selling 2010 branded products by the end of this year'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:2272; Published on Tuesday, April 24, 2007]

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Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 15, 2007

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Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #2574

EASTMAN KODAK WON'T BE SPONSORING THE 2010 WINTER OLYMPICS

Eastman Kodak will not be providing X-ray film technology and related equipment to the 2010 Winter Olympics, after the photography company over the weekend quietly withdrew its sponsorship through the International Olympic Committee's The Olympic Partner's program. Kodak has been the Official Imaging Sponsor of the games since 1986, has been an Olympics sponsor since the first modern games in Athens in 1896, when it ran ads in the scoring program. The company says it will complete its sponsorshp with the end of the 2008 Beijing Summer Games a year from now. The issue is not the cost, roughly C$50 million for a set of one winter and one summer Games plus activate costs of about twice that. Kodak's changing direction in marketing was the reaason, according to company spokesman David Lanzillo. It sponsored the Games, on the one hand, to gain marketing rights to the concept of consumers taking pictures at the Games, but the film market has large been overtaken now by digital cameras. On the other hand, it provide health technology to replace the cash outlay an organizing committee would otherwise pay with hard-earned cash. For the Chinese Olympics, Kodak expects to operate a 1,850-square metre (20,000-square-foot) pavilion for photojournalists to process and upload images, and help provide the accreditation badges used by thousands of athletes, families, volunteers, media and others. It and Carestream Health, a company based in Kodak's headquarters town of Rochester, New York, also are planning to jointly run a clinic for diagnostic imaging and treatment of athletes' injuries. It's the second major corporate sponsor to call it quits this year. Earlier Manulife, the Canadian-based life insurance company also said it would move away from TOP after the 2008 Games. Others still thinking about renewing their sponsorship include Lenovo, the personal-computer maker which was supposed to have renewed early this year, and personal health-products supplier Johnson & Johnson. VANOC has said it's now critical that Lenovo make a decision quickly, while they are not yet under pressure to decide what to do if Johnson & Johnson fails to renew. General Electric, McDonald's, Visa, Coca-Cola, Atos Origin, Panasonic, Samsung and Omega are confirmed to support VANOC so far. The IOC "is grateful for the support the Eastman Kodak company has provided the Olympic movement over the years, and wishes them every success for the future," Gerhard Heiberg, chairman of the IOC Marketing Commission, said in a statement.

AUSTRALIA'S NINE NETWORK AND FOXTEL SPENT C$98 MILLION FOR 2010, 2012 BROADCAST RIGHTS

The latest information from Australia indicates that Nine Network TV, working with the Foxtel cable and mobile device broadcaster, bid about C$98 million to win the right, over competitor the Seven Network to broadcast the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and the 2012 London Olympics. The deal was announced last week by the International Olympic Committee, which negotiates international rights. Seven, the Olympic broadcaster in Australia since 1992, will televise next year's Games in Beijing, the last Olympics for which it has rights. The last time Nine showed the Olympics was the Montreal Summer Games in 1976, when it shared broadcasting rights with Seven and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. According to our calculations, the IOC is getting C$4.92 per capita for the country's 19.8 million people from the deal, compared with C$5.99 per capita from the CTV/Rogers consortium in Canada with its 32 million people. The US equivalent is a bit more difficult to decipher, but that country has about 293 million people and the per capita paid by the NBC network, we think, was about C$9.05.

IPC'S PARALYMPIC AWARDS FOCUS ON CANADIAN WINTER PARALYMPIANS

The International Paralympic Committee today announced the winners of the 2007 Paralympic Awards, which honour those who contribute directly to the Paralympic Games and the Paralympic Movement. In the the athletic categories, they include two individual Canadians winter Paralympians -- cross-country skier Brian McKeever as Best Male Athlete, and Lauren Woolstencroft, an alpine skier, as best female athlete. The Best Team Performance award was given to the Canadian Ice Sledge Hockey Team. The award for Best Games Debut went to Swiss alpine skier Thomas Pfyl, while the title of Exemplary Games Official was awarded to Germany's Dr. Karl Quade. The awards also honour members of the media "who presented the highest quality and most dynamic coverage" of the Torino 2006 Paralympic Winter Games, in three categories:
-- Broadcast: Australian Broadcasting Corporation
-- Written Online: BBC Sport Website
-- Photography: Mikael Helsing, Spain

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Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 15, 2007

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Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #2573
CITY OF VANCOUVER'S TROUT LAKE OLYMPIC ARENA GOING FURTHER OVER-BUDGET

One of the two ice arenas the City of Vancouver agreed to provide for the 2010 Winter Olympics has gone up in cost, again, this time by C$2.86 million, to a budget now estimated to be C$15.9 million from its original forecast of C$10.5 million, and the project has not yet been tendered for construction.

In addition, the City is no longer aiming to build the Trout Lake Replacement Project, as it's now known, to LEED Gold standards, which exceeded the pledge by the the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC). City planners say they can save C$250,000 by dropping the development down to LEED Silver, VANOC's baseline pledge to the International Olympic Committee for venues.

During early planning between the City and the 2010 Olympic organization, the City agreed to take on delivery of the Trout Lake project -- which meant demolishing an existing elderly rink and accompanying community centre on the east side of mid-Vancouver -- and building a new arena complex and community centre.

VANOC, which had only considered spending C$2.5 million to refurbish the original rink so it could be used as a practice surface for athletes training during the Games, agreed to turn over those funds to the City, which added C7.5 million from a capital-budget referendum approved by taxpayers in a referendum in 2005, plus, when it first began going over budget, adding some creative financing that essentially meant borrowing C$2.5 million from freed-up cash flow that would become available in 2011, plus some miscellaneous funding from local taxation levies.

Now, however, staff report that Walter Francl Architects and the construction manager, Bird Construction, report that "site design challenges" continue to drive up the cost. They can't stop working toward the 2010 deadline for delivery of the project by doing major redesign, such as on the "iconic" roof, since it would take too long and that "compromises the City's legal obligations to VANOC to deliver this building in time for the Olympics." On the other hand, only the rink will be ready by 2010; the new community centre is to be built later.

So, forced with finding more money, staff are recommending that still more funds -- C$1.66 million -- be taken from the C$10 million VANOC provided to the City last spring that was intended as a sinking fund to finance the C$12.35 million conversion in 2011 and 2012 of the new Hillcrest Curling Rink VANOC venue to its legacy configuration. It's the second drawdown on that fund: city staff last April took C$1.9 million from it to shore up the financing of a new swimming pool being built by VANOC on behalf of the City as part of the curling rink project. And the balance of C$1.2 million, they suggest, be pulled from the capital funding originally destined for another city pool that can't proceed because of rising costs due to the hot construction market.

Staff figure the shortfall for both projects can be incorporated into the next capital budget, due to be presented to voters just over a year from now. The negotiations for that, which are always bitter, are likely to be even tougher because of the commitments already made to cover escalating construction costs at all of the projects the city has agreed to deliver for the Games.

Staff say they're hoping to save some money by using windfall lumber from the damage to trees caused by a storm last winter in Stanley Park for the glu-lam beams designed into the Trout Lake arena, and, on the revenue side, they say they are pursuing "an opportunity with one of the Olympic partners", which they decline to name or further discuss. But they can't wait for either of those things to conclude because of the clock and "the tendering process for the building needs to proceed to ensure construction is completed before the 2010 Games."

Because of the increasing demand on the next City capital plan, City Finance Director Ken Bayne is warning city departments and council "that these requirements may limit the flexibility to approve desirable project and program funding in the 2009 to 2011 period."

The other arena, the Killarney rink, is also over budget, but it has now been funded, and work to replace it is underway.

RESOURCES
=========

The architects painting of the completed arena at Trout Lake:
www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/parks/info/2010olympics/images/trout3_big.jpg

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A Google satellite map of the area where the Trout Lake project is to take place. The building immediately right of the green arrow marker is the existing community centre, and the building to its right is the existing arena. Both are to be taken down and eventually replaced.

tinyurl.com/2nbwb2

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Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 12, 2007

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Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #2572

VANCOUVER EXPECTED TO SIGN-OFF ON TWO MORE OLYMPIC VILLAGE BUILDINGS NEXT WEEK

Vancouver City Council is expected to approve next week the development application for the building that will first act as the main public entrance to the Vancouver Whistler Athlete's village, and later as a community centre and waterfront restaurant. The complex, estimated last June to cost about C$29 million, was designed by team composed of Walter Francl Architecture, Nick Milkovich Architects and Arthur Erickson Architects. The building has a long sloping roof that, from the side, appears like a wedge, with long horizontal lines below it marking the three floors. Council is also expected to approve another of the condo developments in the Village that will first be used as athlete and official housing for the Games, and later, the two-part building, one with 10 floors, will be used for market housing, while an eight-floor complex is slated for controlled-rent housing. The address of the complex is 1677 Manitoba Street, in the area known as Parcel 5, just to the west of the signature Salt Building, a heritage structure being kept for feature purposes.

VANCOUVER, WHISTLER REACH "PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT" TO HELP DELIVER 2010 GAMES

The City of Vancouver and the Resort Municipality of Whistler have agreed to the wording of a memorandum of agreement in how they'll work together to help mount the 2010 Winter Olympics. The two page deal, called the "2010 Partnership Agreement", commends the governments to "delivering an extraordinary Games experience for their residents, visitors, Olympic and Paralympic families and for the athletes." Vancouver's Olympics manager, Dave Rudberg, notes, "The 2010 Partnership Agreement is one in a series of agreement and MOU's with our 2010 partners to establish cooperation protocols on area of mutual interest, and to develop a framework to achieve mutual benefits." This is the fourth MOU related to the 2010 Games for Vancouver. The City has similar working agreements with Tourism Vancouver, the Four Host First Nations representing the aboriginal groups working with VANOC, and the Canadian Olympic Committee. Rudberg says he expects, "There will be further agreements with Olympic and Paralympic partners and stakeholders." The MOU aims to coordinate delivery of municipal services during the Games, cooperate delivery of the programming for each other's Live Sites, "advancing our interests in improved accessibility and the Measuring Up Program", and "ensuring the Paralympic Games experience is integrated and profiled."

# AUSTRALIA TO GET NEW CABLE CHANNELS OUT OF DEAL TO BROADCAST 2010 GAMES

A bit more on that deal with the IOC to award the broadcast rights of the 2010 Games to the Nine Network and Foxtel cable and mobile in Australia. The two companies say it will be the most comprehensive coverage of the winter Olympics ever seen on free-to-air and subscription television in the country. Foxtel's chief executive, Kim Williams, says his company promised to provide dedicated additional cable channels for the coverage, it expects to also broadcast many elements of the coverage in high definition, the format of the Games themselves.

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Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 12, 2007

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Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #2571
BC OLYMPICS MINISTER OK WITH VANOC TICKET PRICING, BUT LESS IMPRESSED WITH WHISTLER'S REQUEST FOR PRICE CONTROLS


The minister in charge of the BC government's responsibilities to the Olympics says the 2010 organizing committee has done well in achieving a balance with its ticket-pricing structure, but he is less impressed with a request by Whistler for price controls in its area during the lead-up to the Games.

Colin Hansen spoke today in Vancouver of the pricing plans announced yesterday by the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC), "I think VANOC has actually done a great job in trying to come up with ticket pricing that means most British Columbian families are going to be able to particpate in the Games by taking in at least one of the events. I know that tickets are going to be hard to get, because they're going to be in huge demand, but I know that VANOC is coming up with system that will allow for at least fair access for everybody."

Hansen says he's already heard speculation that scalpers could command huge prices for those tickets, because of the VANOC pricing system. "When you hear people saying that scalpers are going to get ticket prices in the thousands of dollars, it underscores, for me, how great it is that VANOC is putting systems in place to discourage scalping, but it also tells me that there is just huge demand and huge interest that people have to experience the Games."

The Olympic critic for the provincial opposition New Democratic Party, Harry Bains, says the only thing that satisfied him about the ticket pricing was VANOC's decision to offer up to 50,000 tickets for free to those who can't otherwise afford them. "The only good thing I see in these Games is that one part, and I wonder what kind of method is used and who will be entitled to these, and what kind of events are they going to attend? I think the details will be what would show whether they'll be really seriously attempted to bring some folks in who otherwise wouldn't be able to go."

However, minister Hansen noted that the highest price for a VANOC event ticket, C$1,100 for the best seat at the Opening Ceremonies, meant to him that, "if VANOC simply charged what the market would bear, the prices [for all the events] would be much, much higher. It's a balance that VANOC had to look at."

VANOC obtained approval for its pricing structure from the government before publishing it. Hansen notes that VANOC needs the estimated C$231.9 million it expects to get from its pricing structure. "The operations of the Games are not funded by the taxpayer; they're funded by the revenues that VANOC gets from its sponsors, its international broadcast rights, and from the sales of tickets. VANOC Needs that revenue in order to fund the Games."

Meanwhile, Hansen told Morgan:News:2010 the request by Whistler earlier this year of his cabinet colleague, Ida Chong, Minister of Community Services, for some form of authority to impose price controls within the community going into the 2010 Games, primarily within the tourism sector, has some hurdles within government to overcome. "Quite frankly, I don't think price controls work," he says, adding, "They haven't worked in the past, and they won't work in the future. But we have to make sure that we get the message out to the business community that there's a far bigger upside to us showing the world a great expereince when they come to British Columbia in 2010, than there is if they try to capitalize, in an unfair way, during that particular period of time.

The minister notes municipalities or companies have got to look at the Games as an opportunity to build their companies, governments and reputation of British Columbia. "It is not, in itself, the goose that lays the golden eggs," he says. "The golden egg is going to come post-Olympics, when we benefit from the reputation this great province gets from the Olympics. That's why VANOC is working carefully with providers of accommodation, for example, to ensure that [British Columbians] provide fair pricing for products and services. We should resist any temptation to put prices in place that would be overly onerous, and give us a bad reputation in the long-term."

BACKGROUND

Our previous story about Whistler's request for controls:
'Whistler asks BC government for "extraordinary powers" to regulate business during the 2010 Winter Games'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:2484; Published on Tuesday, August 21, 2007]

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Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 12, 2007

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Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #2570

IOC AWARDS NINE NETWORK, FOXTEL, BROADCAST RIGHTS IN AUSTRALIA TO 2010 GAMES

The International Olympic Committee today awarded Nine Network TV broadcaster and Foxtel, a cable and cell-phone operation, the broadcast rights within Australia for the Vancouver 2010 and London 2012 Olympic Games. Nine is owned by PBL Media of Sydney, Australia; Foxtel is a joint venture of Telstra Media (50%), News Corporation (25%) and PBL (25%). Details of the agreement weren't released. The IOC said it assessed the bids it received, including one from the current Olympic rights holder to the end of the 2008 Sumer Games, Seven Network, and selected Nine and Foxtel "on their capacity to reach the broadest possible audience on a variety of broadcast platforms and their commitment to promoting the Olympic Games and the values of the Olympic Movement." Nine's first high-definition channel -- the 2010 Games are to be broadcast entirely in high-definition -- is due to be launched next month. Its average share of audience is 27.3% this year. Foxtel transmits its cable service via Telstra HFC cable into the Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth metropolitan areas. Foxtel also transmits its satellite service into these cities as well as most regional areas of Western Australia and the cities of Newcastle, Central Coast and Canberra. Other areas are served by Telstra cable. Foxtel on Mobile, launched on Telstra's Next G network in late 2006, is available within Telstra coverage areas, which covers 98% of the population. Foxtel is believed to be Australia's largest pay TV operator. Its programming is currently delivered to about 1.2 million Australian homes either directly or by Foxtel's wholesale customers. IOC President Jacques Rogge says, "This is an excellent deal. Our aim is to ensure that as many people as possible are able to enjoy the Olympic Games across the world, and we look forward to working closely with both Nine Network and Foxtel to make this possible in Australia." IOC Executive Board member Richard Carrión, as usual, lead the negotiations. Nine Network Australia chief executive officer-elect David Gyngell said: "The bid for the Olympic rights underscores the longer term commitment to the Network and the preparedness to invest in content." Foxtel chief executive Kim Williams added: "Foxtel will compliment Nine's comprehensive free-to air coverage of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games and 2012 Summer Games by delivering our subscribers an expanded coverage that will provide an unparalleled choice of whole live strands of Olympic competition and an entirely new viewing experience fitting for the finest of all international sports events." Negotiations for the IOC's auction began several years ago, but were forced to halt as the Aussie government revamped its broadcasting policy. The auction resumed earlier this year.

VANOC PEOPLE IN BEIJING TO PREPARE FOR ITS OWN WORLD PRESS BRIEFING NEXT YEAR

Representatives of VANOC are in Beijing today, observing how the 2008 Summer Olympic organizing committee hosts the the second World Press Briefing, and meeting some of the people with which it will be working. VANOC expects to host similar briefings, with the first of two to take place in Vancouver about a year from now, when about 300 people are expected for the conference. During the three-day meeting, which ended today, BOCOG gave an overview of the planning process for the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2008, including presentations about transportation, accommodation, venue services, the news centre, press operations, competition schedule, venue-media services, rate card, accreditation, security and technology. It also gave them tours of the Olympic and Paralympic venues, some of which are still under construction. VANOC is expected to do the same.

NEWS COVERAGE OF VANOC PRICING WIDE SPREAD, GENERALLY POSITIVE

VANOC's release yesterday of its pricing and ticketing plans received immediate, widespread coverage around the world yesterday and today by news media -- 133 reports and counting -- and the bulk of the coverage appeared to range from neutral to positive. Reports appeared in China, throughout North America, and Europe among the traditional news media, and there were even some blog discussions about it, though they, because of the particular points of view of their writers, tended to range from neutral to negative, focusing on the maximum ticket prices and railing against them, and ignoring the low and free ticket volumes. The only major business publication to run a report so far was Forbes.com.

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Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 12, 2007

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Morgan:News:2010 |International| #2569
A LOOK INSIDE THE FIRST YEAR OF OLYMPIC BROADCAST SERVICES VANCOUVER, AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR BUSINESS AND THE GAMES

The major private funding of the revenue for the 2010 Games comes from sales of broadcasting rights and, if there's a weak link in the delivery chain of the Games at the moment, it's the fledging Olympic Broadcast Services Vancouver (OBSV).

It's an organization that's completely --physically, legally and organically -- separate from the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC), yet, as the eyes and ears for the world on the 2010 Games, what it does is essential and, touch wood, should be seamless.

Let's put its situation briefly in context: For the past four years, the 2010 Olympic organizing committee, with expert, experienced management, some of which was picked up from the Bid Committee before it and giving it management continuity, has been working on meticulously planning virtually every aspect of the 2010 Games, and it's now about 300 strong and in its implementation phase.

OBSV today is where VANOC was in 2004, but without the prior on-site expertise, and without much time remaining to do a great deal of technical work as it prepares for the arrival of the world's broadcast crews.

OBSV's first staff were hired a year ago, and much of the time since has been occupied by the physical and managerial requirements of set-up for what is expected to be, by Games time, one of the largest broadcasting operations on earth.

OBSV's JOB - APPEAR, BROADCAST, DISAPPEAR
It's mandate is simple: move into an Olympics host city, provide what it calls "unbiased" TV and radio coverage of the 2010 Games, and move out. OBSV is expected to provide 10,416 hours of dedicated coverage in multiple feeds, 23% in television's evening prime time, when the Olympics and Paralympics are running. Stretched out, that's an equivalent of 434 days or more than 14 months compressed over two months of Games-time and test events.

"There's a lot of money, millions and millions, at stake," says an OBSV manager. "We have to make sure that our signal never, ever, stops. For the past year, there have been negotiations going on about that signal, about making sure that every single issue with that signal is addressed. Everything, ranging from the interference from the float planes and helicopters that land in the Vancouver harbour, to what happens if somebody pulls the wrong plug -- everything."

Vancouver is known among communications specialists as the worst Canadian city for radio-frequency interference in the main satellite transmission wavelengths, known as the C-band. The city also has plenty of expertise in dealing with it.

OBSV's primary focus in delivering that mandate is the Vancouver International Broadcasting Centre (IBC), the first lessee of the new Vancouver Trade & Convention Centre expansion project, a signature structure being built on the foreshore of Vancouver's inner harbour, in the heart of the business district. It's currently forecast to cost C$850 million and be completed in March, 2009, but that's over budget and late. The completion date, though, is not a moment too soon for OBSV. It's where the thousands of broadcast media accredited to the Games will be working and they'll be arriving to set up in the summer of '09. But there are also arrangements for a secondary broadcast centre in Whistler, and broadcast locations at every major VANOC venue, including the two Olympic villages.

VANOC notionally pays for OBS's cost out of its privately raised operations budget, and it has a working contract with OBSV, so it does have some say in what the organization does on a day-to-day basis. The payment is notional because the funds come from a deduction of C$178 million from the C$579.7 million the International Olympic Committee agreed earlier this year to send to the 2010 Games from all of its broadcast revenues (meaning the IOC's net broadcasting revenue contribution to VANOC is C$401.7 million). Although the IOC continues to negotiate with countries over the sale of rights -- we estimate the IOC, though relatively secretive about its deals, has likely raised about half its 2010 pledge so far -- VANOC doesn't get any more if the IOC exceeds its revenue targets.

Implementing the OBSV's simple mandate is a huge amount of complex work, and the organization has a series of significant challenges it must overcome over the next two years or so to accomplish it. For one thing, it has to work hand-in-glove with VANOC, and VANOC's support structure, which is becoming increasingly bureaucratic and insular as it grows bigger, imposes its own hurry-up-paperwork-and-wait issues these days with OBSV's operations which are small, mostly management and nimble.

As one OBSV staffer put it, with understatement, "There's a fair bit of protocol for us to work together. It's structured. You can't just phone up who you want to talk to at VANOC. You have to go through channels -- and that can be a little stressful at times." The same goes for when OBS organizes tours for broadcast crews of venues, as it did last February; it has to work within VANOC's extensive approvals and protocols -- which often means planning the itinerary of visiting rights-holders well in advance, and sometimes down to 15-minute blocks.

OBSV is the 2010 subsidiary of Olympic Broadcast Services SA, a privately held management company headquartered in Spain and run by a long-time Olympics broadcast executive Manolo Romero, to whom Lee reports, which has its own bylaws and board of directors. SA is itself a subsidiary of the International Olympic Committee, and was formed in 2001, slowly building up its operations at each Olympics held since.

It's OBSV's job, done for the first time fully for the 2010 Games, to provide the pool broadcast television and radio feeds used by all of the broadcasters -- known as accredited rights-holders -- in nations around the world that have bought rights from the IOC to transmit the 2010 Games to their home population. An estimated 12,000 representatives of those rights holders are expected to be in Vancouver during the Games.

In Canada, for instance, the broadcasting-rights holder is a consortium of CTV and Rogers Cable, which reportedly offered three times more than its rival CBC for the 2010 Games; in the US, it's NBC, which has its own Olympics broadcasting division. Other broadcast rights holders represent 51 European nations including the British Isles, the Arabic-speaking nations, South Korea, Hong Kong, South Africa and Brazil. Negotiations have yet to be finalized for 2010 for coverage in Australia, China and the rest of south Asia, and Spanish-speaking countries, but by the time the Opening Ceremonies begin, the audience is expected to be roughly three billion people.

Yes, the parent OBS operation did quite a bit of the work in broadcasting the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino 18 months ago, but Italy's broadcast environment is much different than Canada's. A simple example: hockey broadcasting in Canada and the US is to an audience whose standards are sophisticated, and its competitions, particularly the medal rounds, are expected to draw huge audiences and commensurate advertising; not so in Italy. A second example: all of the 2010 broadcasting is being done in high-definition, a digital format that has prodigious technical support requirements, and it will be interlinked using Internet protocols, which is also new for 2010. There was some work done by OBV in Italy in high-def, but not much.

OBSV STAFFING AND START-UP - SLOW BUT SURE
OBSV is just coming up to its first anniversary, and it's been a start-up year in just about every sense of the word; it had little support infrastructure when it began operations and even now processes that should be there to smooth the work load are still being invented as they go and, as an organization, it's unique by nature. "It's cumbersome," comments one of the staffers affected by the issue.

It has been hard to obtain management personnel, partly for the reason it's a start-up, and partly because the pool of talent, even world wide, of people who are capable of commanding the paid, skilled technical staff of about 190 and volunteers of 2,200 broadcast production people the organization will need by the time the Games start, is small to begin with, and then they have to be willing to give up their prime industry jobs to do the work. "There's a lot of glory coming in," says an OBSV executive, "but at the end of the day, it's a job that has to get done."

Another of those challenges this start-up year: Simply to look for or advertise for OBSV positions is harder than usual, we understand; virtually no job descriptions of most of the main people existed. Each job description has to be researched by OBSV staff and created before going to the marketplace to look for the people to fill the described role. Most of the senior managers have now all been hired, though, beginning with former CBC Sports executive director Nancy Lee, who was hired in August, 2006, and began work last November as OBSV's chief operating officer, and Brian Douglas, an American who was head of production at the Torino and 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games, who is to fulfil the same role at Vancouver. They're all at OBSV's headquarters, which is located over five separate buildings that are part of a movie studio lot owned by Lions Gate Studios in North Vancouver. "It sounds glamourous," says an OBSV employee, "but if you want to have a meeting with somebody, you have to put your coat on and go out in the rain each time, and I'm sure there must be no insulation in those walls."

Heads have now been found for most of OBSV's main divisions: Planning, Broadcast Services, Engineering, Information, Technical Operations, Logistics, Human Resources and Finance (a search began just a few weeks ago to fill the Finance Director's position; they're still hunting for a head of Planning). Work has started now to find people for the next level down in the structure. For instance, it's currently looking for a Director of Construction, part of the Engineering group, who will be responsible for the internal design, construction and fit out of IBC's 39,000 square meters (420,000 square feet) of space, and working with the general contractor to do that work.

Engineering is expected to become the biggest department, and senior people for it are said to be the most difficult to find. The Planning department is the main group working directly with VANOC staff. [For more detail on the main responsibilities for each department, see BACKGROUND, below.] In addition, there has to be a strong connection between personalities at this stage, because connections are important and, notes an observer, "They've already had some personnel issues."

Although it's taking three to four months to confirm senior staff because they are being approved by OBS in Madrid, it's a similar process to what VANOC's senior management went through years ago, and it's expected to speed up as middle-management and the balance of the employees are hired. There are also other ways to get sufficient expert staff onboard, and that's to tap local resources.

For instance, CTV/Rogers and OBSV have reached agreement for the host broadcasting consortium to help provide OBSV with production teams and equipment for VANOC's competitions in figure skating, short-track speed skating, hockey at General Motors Place and the UBC venues, and curling. It will also be able to rely on some broadcasting expertise from the OBSV equivalent, the Beijing Olympic Broadcaster, nicknamed "BOB", now preparing for the Beijing Olympic Summer Games, set to begin next August and wrap up by next September. A number of the staff now in Beijing are expected to move to Vancouver after those Games close a year from now. There is also a fairly large cluster of 'nomads' as OBSV refers to the freelancers that move from Games to Games to help with the broadcasting; they are tracked by the managers who use them.

But there are still all the snow sports at Cypress in West Vancouver and around Whistler to be covered by OBSV, as well as the long-track skating at the new sports complex under construction in Richmond. It will also be involved in the broadcasting requirements for all of the celebration areas: BC Place Stadium for the Opening, Closing and nightly Victory ceremonies and entertainment, which will also be featured at three major locations in Vancouver, at least one in Richmond and Celebration Plaza in Whistler. It will also have what it calls "spotters", many of them volunteers, on the courses and at the venues to help the broadcasting crew keep track of the key favourites of each competition.

THE WORK HAS BEGUN
There's lots of work already underway at OBSV, despite the relative paucity of staff: initial schematics for the layout of broadcast facilities began this summer, and detailed planning on the logistics involved in housing the OBSV personnel, is set to begin in November; that's necessary since a lot of the staff and most of the volunteers don't live in Greater Vancouver or Whistler. The accommodations requirement -- expected to be total about 1,600 beds -- has already been secured by VANOC, but the OBSV's Logistics Department looks after catering, uniforms, checking the quality of the accommodations, accreditations, air travel, ground transportation and warehouse operations to support all those people.

OBSV is responsible for ensuring all of the rights-holders' executives and their technicians know -- and approve -- of where every camera, light and microphone is going to be placed throughout the field of play at every major venue of the 2010 Games, as well as all the "beauty shots", the cameras that provide the postcard-like scenes of the cities hosting the Games. More than 400 cameras are expected to be in operation to provide the feeds 24 hours a day, seven days a week while the Games are underway. "Everything we do is aimed at meeting the expectations of our rights holders," says a senior OBSV staffer. [See BACKGROUND, below, for examples of where a few Vancouver-area beauty cams are expected to be located.] VANOC was involved in roughing in where a lot of the main cameras would go during construction of the venues, since wiring conduits had to be built into buildings and designs. As well, OBS supervisors from Switzerland have arrived to "walk" each venue, looking at where cameras should be placed for each sport and event.

Those venue feeds are to be transmitted to commentator areas at each venue and, from there via Bell Canada's optical, digital links, to the two international news centres, one in Whistler and the other in Vancouver, where they are edited, compiled, discussed, narrated and transmitted to broadcast operations for television, radio, Internet and mobile devices around the world. More than 700 on-air commentators and announcers are expected to be working the Games.

OBSV officials also begun reaching out to some of the governments involved. Last July, the heads of TV Production and Planning for OBSV met with tourism officials of Vancouver, Whistler, Richmond and West Vancouver about where each jurisdiction and OBSV include in its planning ways to enhance their area's exposure to the millions watching. Those representatives from each organization are all working on following up some of the ideas from that meeting, and that includes making recommendation on the placement and numbers of 'beauty cams', which will emphasize the attractiveness of their area as they are being used as backdrops for announcers and the like, and on story ideas for video vignettes to be shot in the jurisdictions in the next year or so, for use by broadcast-rights holders as filler between competitions during the Games and for broadcast of the Olympic test events at all the venues.

OBSV is responsible for assigning space and technical connections, including the communications network being built by VANOC sponsor Bell Canada, for the satellite-dish farm that is expected to spring up around the Trade & Convention Centre, where broadcasters are even now jockeying for space. Discussions are currently underway for the western side walkway of the building, the last unclaimed area on the building's apron, where CTV/Rogers and NBC are in negotiations with OBSV for commentator space. An issue currently worrying OBSV staffers is the main back-up power generators in the Centre, which are in the building's basement and which will be below the harbour-side building's waterline. What, they're asking themselves, will we do if there's a power failure and a flood in that basement?

From their point of view, that's not such a far-fetched concern, because of a situation that has already happened to them. Last July, they had asked BC Hydro, the province's electrical utility about back-up plans Hydro has for the failure of power supplies in the business core of downtown Vancouver, the grid on which the Broadcast Centre runs. They were told not to worry about it, as Hydro has two major transformers in the Cathedral substation servicing the area, and each one served as full back-up for the other, and failures in such facilities were exceedingly rare. Two days later, one of those two transformers coincidentally broke down, and it took several weeks before Hydro could get it back to full operation again, while appealing to its customers to reduce power consumption. "Our reaction wasn't in the newspapers," says an OBSV staffer, "But we all freaked. There were a lot of phones ringing when that transformer went down. It was a huge issue. We're still talking about it."

THE STAKEHOLDERS: IT'S PAY AS YOU GO
For all the millions of dollars spent, the rights holders have bought only the rights, and they must buy, lease or rent everything else, from the tables on which to pile their equipment to chairs, phones, staplers and every other amenity normally found in a technical office. If a broadcaster wants a booth, it pays for every aspect of it; if it wants space on the walkways around the Trade & Convention Centre, it pays for it on a square-footage basis. If it wants transportation supplied by OBS or VANOC or a Games sponsor, it pays for it.

The same goes, for that matter, with OBSV. It currently has an RFP out for televisions it intends to use, and all of its furniture is rented, standard for an OBSV operation.

For much of the purchasing, the arriving broadcasters will be going through the official Rate Card. Like the one in the process of being compiled by VANOC for its uses, the OBSV Rate Card is a thick binder catalogue, printed from an intranet database, that details the costs of every possible piece of equipment the broadcasters (and every other sponsor, corporate and government alike, of the 2010 Games) is expected to want that OBSV and corporate sponsors are interested in providing. Millions of dollars of purchasing are expected to occur through the Rate Card, which is still in its preparation phase.

Everything that OBSV does is temporary; it's all dismantled and pulled out when the Games are over. "When we leave," says a staffer, "there will be some legacy things, but there otherwise won't be a trace of us." [See RESOURCES, below, for info regarding the legacy training program of OBSV.] Tapes of every second of broadcast produced will be archived, removed and transferred at the end of the Games to vault storage by yet another IOC contractor under the control of the IOC in Switzerland.

How temporary? Consider the IBC. Everything in it that is expected to be seen or touched by the 5,500 broadcasters destined to work in the building during the 2010 Games will be there only for the duration, including temporary wall and ceiling covers in what will later become the building's ballroom; the temporary barriers will be up so the structure won't be damaged when the space is returned to the Convention Centre when OBS is finished with it. The same goes for all of the other venues, competition or not, where OBSV facilities are due to be placed, although in a number of cases in the venues, OBSV will also have back-of-the-house space in compounds that are themselves temporary.

BACKGROUND

Beauty cams -- the jargon for the television cameras that take picturesque backdrop shots used by broadcasters as fill when there are no competitions underway at any given moment -- are going to be scattered around all of the venues. A few example locations being considered by OBSV just in downtown Vancouver:
-- Atop the Broadcast Centres, to capture Vancouver's waterfront, North Shore mountains and, in particular, the city's signature double-peaked mountain, known as The Lions -- OBSV hasn't yet received permission to do so as its still under construction and the roof is expected to be covered in plants;
-- On the two Sea Buses, which are the city's transit ferries that move people across Vancouver's inner harbour, although that poses a risk of fouling by corrosive salt water -- and seagulls;
-- Atop the huge pillars of the Lion's Gate Bridge suspension bridge that crosses a narrowing of the Vancouver harbour and which connects Vancouver with North and West Vancouver;
-- Atop the Granville bridge and possibly the Burrard Street bridge. Although the Cambie Street Bridge, in particular, would afford a spectacular shot of the Vancouver Olympic Village as well exteriors of the venues for the major ceremonies, BC Place, and the main hockey games, General Motors Place, its flat and low construction may not afford sufficient security for a camera.

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Here are the main responsibilities for some of the main OBSV departments:

-- PLANNING: manages and tracks all venue and project planning; main VANOC interface
-- BROADCAST SERVICES: One of the two main departments that works with the broadcast rights holders; tracks and invoices all Rate Card purchases;
-- INFORMATION: Organizes tours of venues by rights-holding broadcasters; extensive advance work on broadcaster requirements, is planning for the 2010 Olympics & Paralympics World Broadcasters conference in Vancouver in February, provides rest of OBSV with issues and concerns of various rights holders
-- FINANCE: Besides accounting and collecting payments and processing, coordinates procurement for equipment and construction, issues Requests for Proposals, Expressions of Interest and so on (it's general policy is to look for Canadian suppliers first, and then go aboard if necessary), deals with payroll for 2,200, including freelancers.
-- LOGISTICS: Primary focus is on accommodations [see also RESOURCES, below], accreditations -- workers don't have unlimited access to the venues, any more than anybody else dealing with the Games -- and transportation, finding additional rooms if necessary, coordinating with VANOC for room reservations and stocking, obtaining and supplying all uniforms required, as well as looking after the feeding of the crews.
-- HUMAN RESOURCES: Hires all the staff and freelancers; all immigration issues of getting staffers and their spouses or other family members from primarily from the United States and Europe into Canada -- there have already been issues with Canada Customs -- and, later, out of the country; deals with the same retention issues that affect VANOC, to prevent staff from leaving before the Games are finished; sets up and operates OBSV's major legacy: the Broadcast Training Program for 600 university and college students [see also RESOURCES, below] who will also be paid to help produce the Games's broadcasting, including vignettes that can be used by the broadcasters; planning for the program is due to start about a year from now.

Graeme White is director of Broadcasting Integration for VANOC, and works daily with OBSV. There is a written agreement between the two organizations outlining which is responsible for doing what.

RESOURCES

A story we wrote earlier this year about a legacy aspect of OBSV:

'2010 Olympic broadcaster to train 600 BC students for Games jobs starting next year'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:2387; Published on Thursday, June 21, 2007]

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A story we wrote earlier this year about logistics work to be done by OBSV:

'Detailed logisitics for 2,200 OBSV personnel to beging planning soon'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:2541; Published on Friday, September 21, 2007]

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A live webcam look at the Vancouver Trade & Convention Centre construction:
live8.truelook.com/vancouver/vccep

An artist's vision of the finished building:
www.vccep.bc.ca/images/View%20B.jpg

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A Google satellite map showing the location of OBSV's headquarters at Lions Gate Studios
tinyurl.com/yoaabp

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Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 12, 2007

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Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #2568 (FEATURE)
VANOC DETAILS PROGRAM TO SELL OR GIVE AWAY 1.6 MILLION TICKETS TO OLYMPIC EVENTS

The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) today moved itself further into the public spotlight with what VANOC's vice-president of Communications, Renee Smith-Valade, said was announcement that was, "Our first of many on how to truly experience the Games."

VANOC CEO John Furlong and his senior marketing and ticketing officials, as part of a well-orchestrated marketing campaign, this morning released detailed information on how the organization expects its modestly priced Olympic ticketing program will work (the program for selling the 250,000 tickets to the Paralympic Games will be released later this year). The information was placed on VANOC's website as part of the launch along with some public-relations features, and marketing e-mail messages to those who had earlier signed up requesting ticketing information. Ticketing and volunteer issues are the two topics that generate the most queries to VANOC.

In essence, VANOC says that it is using higher-than-expected sponsorship revenues and high prices on a portion of the tickets available to subsidize lowered prices for tens of thousands of venue seats. The forecast higher sponsorship revenues, though not yet reached, has reduced VANOC's risk that it would have to delve into its contingency funds, set at C$100 million, to carry out its ticketing policies, or that it would have to raise revenues for the Games through a larger ticket-revenue plan.

About 1.6 million Olympic event tickets will be on offer, but a block of about 30% of those will be sold by VANOC directly to corporate sponsors, national Olympic committees, volunteers, people working on producing the Games, athletes and their families, the media and other members of what VANOC calls, "The Olympic Family." Negotiations with corporate sponsors about their requirements are expected to begin in January, and any unrequested tickets that result from those talks will be added to the public's block. About half of the tickets in the public block will be priced at C$100 or lower.

Lotteries, with random draws, are to be used for events that have more demand than tickets. These are expected to be at least the Opening Ceremonies, as well as the medal hockey and curling events.

The most expensive ticket, to the Opening Ceremony, the event VANOC expects to be in the highest demand, is expected to cost C$1,100, the cheapest seats in the Games where a price is charged, such as events with relatively low demand, are C$25. VANOC says the Opening Ceremonies tickets, which bottom out at C$175 each, have a lower price range than the equivalent charge at either the 2006 or 2002 Winter Olympics.

Dave Cobb, VANOC's executive vice president of Revenue, Marketing and Communications said VANOC ignored advice given to it by others, whom he didn't name, that it charge only top dollar for the ceremonial pageants, such as the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, and what VANOC calls the "Victory Ceremonies", the nightly medal-and-entertainment events, and focus its subsidization policies on the competitive events.

And, in some cases, he said VANOC will even offer 50,000 tickets free, including some for the pageants, through non-profit community groups, charities and other social organizations that can give VANOC sufficient assurances that those who receive the tickets "truly desire" to attend the Games, and won't immediately resell the tickets and pocket the cash. Deals with these groups have yet to be negotiated.

On the other hand, he notes, VANOC still expects to make its target revenue figure of C$231.9 million, 14.2% of total operational revenues, and may slightly exceed it, just with the pricing structure it's established.

Also still to be finalized is the choice of the firm that will actually be handling the ticketing platform. An international call for veteran companies interested in providing the sales strategies, computer systems, software, call centre and employee training needed for the ticketing program went out last January. Cobb says he expects the negotiations with the proponent firm selected will be completed "in a couple of weeks".

Cobb estimates that about 90% of the tickets will be sold over the Internet by VANOC itself, and that it's too early yet to decide if national corporate sponsors, such as the Royal Bank, would be involved in hosting ticket-sales locations, as was done by financial institutions sponsoring the Torino Games. Cobb said, however, that he expected there would be locations in various parts of British Columbia and the major cities of Canada where those who, for one reason or another, couldn't buy their tickets through the Internet.

Caley Denton, VANOC's vice-president of ticketing and consumer marketing, said the first phase of the three-phase ticketing program, which will work in a similar way to that of the program at Torino's Winter Olympics, begins exactly one year from now when the application phase begins. "That'll be the first and best opportunity to get tickets," he said. The application phase involves electronic forms on the 2010 website that people use to request tickets for specific events or event packages.

When that phase opens next October, tickets will be available for request for the public throughout the world as well as Canada, although actual purchases of tickets by international buyers will be made through their national Olympic committee or the firms they have designated to sell tickets for them, as per International Olympic Committee rules. No ticket sales will be made during this phase.

When it closes, Phase 2 begins and runs from early to mid 2009: VANOC will assign seats on a first-come, first-service basis. By that point, it should have much better information on the actual seating layout in venues, and it will inform applicants what tickets they were awarded -- the earlier applications will get the better seats -- and the cost, and payments will begin to be received. In the third phase, ticket sales will reopen, with any remaining seats made available; tickets bought during this phase will be sold directly into any available seats.

VANOC expects to set up a wide range of measures to reduce scalping, ticket theft, counterfeiting and other unsavory aspects of modern event ticketing. For instance, tickets will have extensive anti-counterfeiting features [for details, see RESOURCES, below], and the tickets themselves won't be released until late in 2009, to reduce the time counterfeiters have access to them. And Cobb emphasized that the public should only buy their tickets through VANOC and its "approved" distributors, which have yet to be contracted, or run the risk their tickets won't be honoured because they had cancelled because of theft.

Cobb also expects to have in place an extensive series of measures to deal with last-minute ticket trades. This category includes tickets that can't or won't be used, such as situations where the evolution of a national Olympic team's success (or lack of it) changes the demand for the subsequent competitions. In such cases, sometimes substantial numbers of people want to give up their tickets to an event, while others are suddenly interested in the same event but don't have tickets.

Also included in this category are tickets of national sponsors where, say, weather, changed the timing of event, interfering with the plans of, say, its employees to attend because of other events taking place at the same time. In such cases, one of VANOC's plans is to have schools or other agencies ready to take blocks of tickets for students on quick notice; another is to set up a trading system within VANOC's ticketing software.

The rationale for timing the discussion of the tickets, when none are actually available, has several branches:

VANOC needed to have the pricing information available for corporate sponsors when negotiations begin in January on how many they want, and for what events; since it had the information anyway, this seemed to be a good time to release it.

By IOC rules, VANOC can't market tickets until after the 2008 Summer Olympic Games are over, which will be a year from now.

Overseas tourism companies and national Olympic committees around the world, as well as international sports federations, also need to have the information available so they can start to do planning or package marketing, as the case may be.

It gives the public a chance to start thinking about what they feel they'll be able to afford to see in connection with their holiday planning, or, perhaps, to give some a chance for the public to begin saving for the purchases and the costs that accompany them, such as hotels and travel expenses, or to apply for passports.

RESOURCES
=========

Our earlier story about what the VANOC ticket selling firm will be expected to provide:

'The process of assembling 2010's ticketing system has been launched'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:2075; Published on Monday, January 8, 2007]

A story we wrote earlier this year on a survey VANOC commissioned about the kind of public demand for its events it expected as of this summer:

'VANOC survey indicates millions of Canadians interested in attending Games, and buying tickets'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:2220; Published on Friday, March 23, 2007]

VANOC's website portal on the details of ticket sales to the public:
tinyurl.com/3bfuz4

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Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 11, 2007

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Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #2567

VANOC TO RELEASE TICKETING INFO TOMORROW

VANOC is expected to release some of the main details of its ticketing program to the public tomorrow. VANOC is expected to include the on-sale date for tickets to the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, how and where the public can access tickets, the pricing for each event and what one spokesman called "a flavour of what the public can expect to experience when they attend Vancouver 2010 events."

ANNIVERSARIES GROUP REVIVES CALL FOR PROMOTER'S REMOVAL FROM VANOC COMMITTEE

An ad-hoc organization called Anniversaries formed by Henry Yu, a University of B.C. associate professor in history, early this year to mark a number of key anniversaries in the life of Vancouver and racism has decided to increase its profile by joining a call by a few people that music promoter Bruce Allen of North Vancouver be removed from VANOC's Ceremonies advisory committee. Allen, who also voices a daily, plain-spoken, one-minute editorial about a wide range of subjects for Vancouver radio station CKNW, did one early this month about his frustration with immigrant groups who lobby for changes in Canadian laws; coincidentally it was about the same time Allen and a number of other people were identified as being a part of the ceremonies group. The controversy was dying down when Anniversaries held a news conference about the topics. Yu, who owns the Anniversaries website, is one of 15 people on the organization's "steering committee" that includes Vancouver City councillor George Chow. The BC Federation of Labour, and the Vancouver Labour Council also appear to be key supporters of the organization. Most of the group's main activities took place with little visibility in September.

QUOTE WITHOUT COMMENT -- PROFESSIONAL SPORTS SHOULD DITCH THE OLYMPICS

"...Straightaway, the NBA and the US Basketball Federation should tell the International Olympic Committee that this is it: After Beijing, we will not be playing basketball at the summer Olympics anymore. At the same time, the National Hockey League and the ice hockey federations of the United States and Canada should advise the IOC that after the 2010 Games in Vancouver, the US and Canada will no longer compete in hockey in the Winter Olympics. It is perfectly ridiculous for major-league team sports to kowtow to the Olympics. The best thing that happened to baseball was to have the pompous Europeans who run the Olympics kick baseball out. The World Baseball Classic, first held last spring with real major-league players, was a terrific success. Moreover, everybody on Earth, except for a few apostate countries like the US, knows that the World Cup of soccer has become much more compelling and important than the Olympics. The Games are unwieldy, a smorgasbord from the past. And enough already with all the sappy ceremonies, the pagan religious stuff with the flags and flames and hymns and liturgy... The Olympics is fine for what it has become -- a nice showcase for second-tier individual spectator sports. And I'm sorry, but track, swimming, gymnastics, boxing, skiing and figure skating are all junior-varsity box-office now. It's lovely that their stars enjoy a day in the sun, but the more popular team sports, like soccer and baseball, deserve their own showcase... Instead of being Olympic lounge acts, we [should] have the quadrennial world championships of the two premier indoor team sports together at the right time of the year. It would be fabulous and what basketball and hockey deserve. It would also be, if you will excuse me, very 21st century." -- Columnist Frank Deford, US National Public Radio, October 10, 2007.

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Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 10, 2007

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Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #2566


OTTAWA'S OLYMPIC BRAND-PROTECTION LEGISLATION TO STAY ON BOOKS AFTER 2012

The federal government has published the brief set of regulations necessary to make its Olympic and Paralympic Marks Act, which was approved by Parliament earlier this year, ready to implement. We've also learned that the Act won't die on December 31, which has been the line taken by various politicians; instead, comments made by regulatory officials indicate the Act's regulations are set up to keep the law on the books until a future set of Olympics, when all the government of the day will need to do to breathe life into it is to reset the key regulatory date, thus bypassing a need for new legislation -- and bothersome debate -- by the government at the time. Essentially, the regulations simply say that the various time periods and actions of the Act, which allows VANOC to take swift legal action against companies it perceives as violating its brands through ambush marketing, are all keyed to take effect on the date subsection 12 (1) the Act itself is implemented, which is a government cabinet decision that has yet to be made, and they'll all expire on December 31, 2010. The periods in the Act determine how long certain parts of the law are in force, such as the waiver of the irreparable-harm test that normally occurs when an organization asks for an interim or interlocutory injunction to stop brand transgressions, and the prohibition against ambush marketing. The public has until October 27 to comment, so the cabinet's decision won't take place before then. Susan Bincoletto, the director general of Industry Canada's Marketplace Framework Policy Branch, notes, "The benefit of prescribing the effective period by way of regulation is that it imparts an evergreen quality to the legislation. Once the regulatory period expires, these aspects of the Act will lie dormant in the eventuality that another Canadian city is awarded the Games. Should that happen, the legislation will permit new Games-specific time periods to be set by regulation, thus avoiding the need to burden Parliament with another Games-related bill."

VANOC SPONSOR PETRO-CANADA TO PROVIDE CREEKSIDE LAND PARCEL FOR 2010 USE

Petro-Canada says it intends to offer a parcel of its land near the Creekside 2010 venue for use by VANOC or other 2010-related activities instead of building a temporary gas station on it that would have to be dismantled by late 2009 to make room for the venue's activities. Petro-Canada, a Canadian corporate sponsor of the 2010 Games, had investigated the concept of the gas station at the location to help offset a shortage of stations in the Whistler area, but decided against the idea following discussions with Whistler's municipal administration. "Our focus now is on making that site ready for VANOC to use," according to a spokesman for Petro-Canada.

WHISTLER-AREA SCHOOL BOARD TO DECIDE NOV 14 WHETHER TO CLOSE SCHOOLS FOR 2010 GAMES

The Howe Sound School Board will decide during its November 14 meeting whether to close Whistler-area schools while the 2010 Winter Olympic Games are on. One proposal for that year's calendar would involve the regular spring break moving from March to February 22-26, the last week of the two-week Olympic Games. They would be open during the Paralympics in March. As well, Whistler's elementary schools and the secondary schools in Pemberton and Squamish would be closed from February 15 to 19, the first week of the Olympics. Whistler's secondary school would be closed for an additional week starting February 8.

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Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 9, 2007

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Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #2565

SKI GROUPS TO HELP RAISE MONEY FOR 2010-BOUND CANADIAN ATHLETES

Several major Canadian skiing organizations have joined in a program to raise money for Canadian athletes planning to compete at the 2010 Winter Olympics. The Canadian Ski Council, the Canadian Snowsports Association, the Canada West Ski Areas Association, the Ontario Snow Resorts Association and the Quebec Ski Areas Association have worked to create a joint marketing and fundraising program called "Making Winter Winners." They say they are now asking for the help of the entire industry that benefits from Canadian snow to take part. Their plan is to have ski areas across Canada ask their season's-pass subscribers to make a voluntary C$5 donation, or larger, when they buy their season's pass. Under the program, donors are eligible to win back the cost of their pass, contingent on ski area participation. Donors will also be entered into a drawing for a trip for two to Whistler for the opening of the new Peak to Peak gondola, which will link Whistler Mountain to Blackcomb Mountain. In addition, with the help of the program's partners, a trip for two to the 2010 Olympic Winter Games will be drawn each year for the next two years. Proceeds are to be administered by the Canadian Ski Council, which will work with the CSA to distribute the money. A minimum of 90% of the money raised is planned go directly to the athletes, with the remainder covering program expenses (under Canadian tax law, up to 20% of charitable fundraising is allowed for expenses). The CSC and the CSA say they are hoping to increase the level of participation in the "Making Winter Winners" program by including other Canadian snow-industry organizations and the retail sector in the scheme. The national fundraising program will help athletes at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games from now until the beginning of the Games.

VANOC'S CHARMAINE CROOKS ELECTED VICE-PRESIDENT OF WORLD OLYMPIANS ASSOCIATION

One of 20 members of VANOC's Board of Directors, Charmaine Crooks of Vancouver, an appointee of the Canadian Olympic Committee and a five-time Olympian, was elected to a four-year term as vice-president of the World Olympians Association on the weekend. Crooks is also president of Olympians Canada, the Canadian branch of the organization that works with about 100,000 athletes connected with the Olympics around the world. Crooks is also a member of the Canadian Olympic Committee's Executive Committee. The election took place Saturday at the Fourth General Assembly of the WOA, which is held every four years, this time at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland. Former 1968 Olympic gold medallist Dick Fosbury was elected president of the WOA, while Stefka Kostadinova of Bulgaria, a two-time Olympic medallist in the high jump, will serve as a vice-president along with Crooks. About 130 Olympians from 112 countries took part.

ALPINE SKI TEAM PLEASED WITH FARNHAM GLACIER TRAINING FACILITY

The Canadian Alpine Ski Team is training on home snow at Farnham Glacier, near Invermere in eastern British Columbia, for the first time since the organization began, because, in the final analysis, of things people connected with the development of the 2010 Winter Olympics have done over the last couple of years. The new downhill training course built by the Calgary Olympic Development Association(CODA), reinvigorated by the structural improvements done to it as a result of the advent of the 2010 Games, and funded by Own the Podium 2010, an organization half-funded by VANOC fund-raising, is set to open on Camp Green on Farnham Glacier. Alpine Canada said all its teams, training for the 2010 Olympics, are there instead of training in Europe. "It has always been my dream that we would have our own facility and we would be able to actually train on a challenging downhill course right here in Canada before the start of the ski racing season," said Alpine director Dusan Grasic, whose teams are there until October 26. "Unlike in Europe, we will have this whole place to ourselves. I don't think any nation in the world has that option or advantage," he added. The Glacier's training area was established two years ago thanks in part to a donation from Don and Shirley Green, though connections made in the VANOC executive suite. CODA, which operates the facility, subsidizes more than C$1-million in operating costs to go along with a significant financial contribution made when the site was launched.

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Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 9, 2007

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Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #2564

WHISTLER 2010 LIVE SITE PROGRAMMING EXTENDING TO SEVERAL PLAZAS

A spokesman for the Resort Municipality of Whistler says the 2010 Olympic Whistler Live Sites project in the town "is envisioned as bringing the entire village alive during Games time. Village Square, Mountain Square, Town Plaza, Village Commons and Skiers' Plaza, as well as the pedestrian strolls between, are being programmed with a range of activities." These areas, according to the spokesman, "will also have large-screen monitors to view events, and to link with other Live Sites in Whistler, Vancouver and across Canada, as well as provide viewer-generated, multi-media shows." Those shows, it's suggested, are to include, "Concerts, street performances, dance, aboriginal performances and other art and cultural events." The program is being developed by the Whistler Arts Council, the municipality and VANOC. Council has approved a staff application for Live Sites funding to the federal government department of Canadian Heritage for C$10 million in total, half of it for capital expenses, and the other half for cultural programming. Celebration Plaza, as it's now known, will be what the spokesman calls "the crown jewel of Whistler Live Sites", which will hold the Olympic Medal ceremonies nightly, as well as live concerts, live broadcasts and other entertainment, as well as the closing ceremony of the Paralympic Games. Whistler is to hold a public workshop about the development of Celebration Plaza on October 18 from 5 to 8 pm at the Whistler Conference Centre.

WHISTLER TO FOREGO C$77,805 IN TAXES ON WHISTLER SLIDING CENTRE OVER NEXT TWO YEARS

A Whistler financial report projects that the municipality will forego C$25,423 in property taxes this fiscal year alone because of an exemption council has granted to VANOC's Whistler Sliding Centre, which is nearing completion but is not expected to be generally open until next March. And, according to the same report, it will forego collecting C$52,382 in its next fiscal year, for a total of C$77,805 during the two-year period. Whistler's fiscal year ends March 31. The report was prepared by Whistler municipality's Anna Armistead, who is the manager of Financial Services. Whistler says it's waiting, somewhat impatiently, for a business plan for the Sliding Centre from Whistler Legacy Society, which is in charge of a trust fund to help the centre, and other VANOC legacy facilities, to operate before and after the 2010 Games.

VANOC'S WILSON OUTLINES VOLUNTEER PLANS FOR CHRISTIAN GROUP FORMED FOR GAMES

VANOC's executive vice-president of Human Resources, Donna Wilson, generally stuck to her usual message about how the general call for the 25,000 volunteers that are expected to be needed to host the 2010 Games is expected to begin in February when she addressed the newly formed Vancouver Whistler Games Network, a Christian organization, in a Vancouver church. But, she told about 275 people who attended the organization's meeting, the entire Olympic operation is "truly spiritual." VWGN bills itself as a network of Christian leaders from various denominations, organizations, businesses, and backgrounds "united together for the common purpose of being a reflection of Christ before, during, and after the 2010 Olympic & Paralympic Games in Vancouver." VWGN director of operations Jack O'Halloran, looking at the crowd, suggested "It's all God's work... You've got [people from] Surrey over there, you got Delta over there, you got Langley there. Then you got Catholics sitting next to Baptists sitting next to Pentecostals. That's what it's all about. It's not about sport. It's not about the Games. It's about coming together as the body of Christ." One of those who was at the meeting for the Christian Info Society's Canadian Christianity, Frank Stirk, says VANOC reportedly has asked VWGN to "assist them in four official capacities -- chaplaincy, organizing home-stay billets for athletes, the use of church parking lots and car-pooling to and from events, and sustainability or helping build a lasting legacy." David Wells, superintendent of the BC and Yukon district of the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada and who notes that he's VWGN's liaison with VANOC, says the organization under VANOC has to be circumspect in how it deals with people. "All those things that are viewed as being out of the free will of the athletes or the officials or even the volunteers -- if they express an openness, a willingness, a desire -- no problem. If people come and say, 'We want to be part of this and we're very big into Christian witness and street evangelism,' we'll just make sure it's done in a non-offensive way -- not a soapbox way -- to make sure everybody's kind of on the same page."

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Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 5, 2007

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Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #2563

BELL CANADA GETS STRATEGIC WITH US'S BELDEN TO HELP DELIVER 2010 GAMES

Bell Canada, VANOC's telecommunications sponsor, and Belden Inc. (NYSE:BDC) of St. Louis, Missouri, have set up a "strategic partnership" deal that would see Bell use Belden to help it provide as much of the key materials as possible for hooking up the telecommunications of the 2010 Winter Games. Belden is one of the largest US-based makers of high-speed electronic cables. It also sells products for specialty-electronics and data-networking markets. Belden's product lines -- various types of cables, connectors, patching facilities, racks and cabinets -- will be tapped by Bell and shipped to VANOC's venues as needed, however, if Bell needs specialized connectors that Belden doesn't supply, or can't supply in time, it'll buy them from other companies, particularly if outlets are located in the venue markets. Belden had 2006 revenues of US$1.5 billion and has about 4,600 employees internationally.

BELL WARNS ITS PEOPLE AWAY FROM "UNSOLICITED INTERACTION" WITH 2010 ATHLETES, OFFICIALS

Bell Canada has instituted a policy of telling those involved in working for it or with it on the 2010 Winter Games that it won't tolerate some behaviours while its people are on the 2010 job sites. Activities that are "not considered acceptable", according to a Bell Canada document, include "Unsolicited interaction with athletes or Games officials unless required as part of a job function" and "Photographing, requesting autographs, and pin-trading with athletes or officials." Bell Canada says only that such activity -- as well as obvious things such as theft, "disorderly conduct", disregard of security or site safety, criminal conduct, possession of "weapons or firearms", and getting into unauthorized areas of venues -- "may lead to permanent revocation of venue credentials." Bell also points out that its people should consider their venue-access credentials as "a work permit, and not a spectator ticket."

NON-RESIDENTIAL BC CONSTRUCTION INVESTMENT FORECAST AT LOWERED 6% FOR NEXT YEAR

Two senior economists for BC Central Credit Union forecast today that investment spending on non-residential construction in British Columbia, the area of the economy where VANOC continues to work in constructing venues, will end the calendar year up 9.6%, compared with 9.2% last year. However, Helmut Pastrick, chief economist, and David Hobden, economist, suggest it will only rise 6%, net of inflation, next year. Next year's forecast, they suggest, is a "moderate" growth rate, compared with the torrid rate of the past few years.

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Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 5, 2007

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Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #2562
RECOMMENDATIONS TO END VANCOUVER CIVIC STRIKE INCLUDE APPENDIX ON HOW THE DEAL WORKS DURING THE 2010 OLYMPICS

The mediator appointed to help the City of Vancouver resolve a civic strike now about 75 days old has attached a six-page set of recommendations covering working arrangements during the 2010 Winter Olympics to his broader non-binding proposals for a five-year collective agreement.

Brian Foley's recommendations, turned over this morning to the three striking locals of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, essentially gives the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) and the City shared authority over civic workers during the extent of the Games and the test events and practice operations leading up to them, including, "other sponsored events and celebrations" connected to the Games, as well as "the shut down process" of the Games.

Here's our summary of Foley's recommendations. The City council and the locals are to vote on the actual proposal by Tuesday:

The working plan, entitled Partnership Agreement - 2010 Olympics (City And Parks), would come into effect as soon as a new collective agreement is reached and ratified -- even though VANOC's exclusive-use period doesn't take effect until November 1, 2009 -- and expires April 9, 2010, the same date as the exclusive-used period ends, which is shortly after the Olympics and Paralympics finish, in order to give time to VANOC to clean up the city venues used by the Games for competitions and support operations. The PA, from a legal point of view, effectively disappears from the larger contract at midnight April 9, 2010.

The City and union locals would set up a discussion group to work out which facilities -- even which portions of specific facilities -- are covered by the Olympic arrangement, and when. The City is to set up a manager at each of the venues to implement the arrangements, and the civic employees working there take direction from that person, but Foley's proposal says.

Regular full-time, temporary full-time and regular part-time employees who normally work at the facilities may or may not work there, depending on whether they're needed by VANOC and the City during the Games. But if they are expected to do so, they have to pass an RCMP security check. The City is only to give the names of the employees involved with their permission to the RCMP, and the police will only tell VANOC whether a particular potential employee passed, and VANOC will only provide that limited amount of information to the City. The staff that don't want to work during the Games, don't want to have their names given to the police, who don't end up on the RCMP's pass list, or aren't needed, are to either be reassigned, or take paid time off in one form or another, depending on the circumstances.

During the Games, the City would have the right to change employee hours of work and allow shifts to go up to 12 hours at a time if the operations of the Games requires it, and overtime pay would kick in after eight hours, with shift premiums also paid if the time worked is overnight. The staffers, however, have to be off work for at least eight hours before they can be called back in.

VANOC is allowed to bring in its own workers, contractors, consultants and volunteers, and even civic managers, to run the Games as needed, unionized or not, as it sees fit, but it's supposed to give "priority consideration" to using the City's staff that normally work at a venue, "and to perform work in those facilities and sites that is unique to the Games or new to the facilities." VANOC, as a result, is to give civic staff whatever specialized training they need, along with 2010 uniforms -- and a C$50 payment to maintain the uniforms -- during the Games. The City also has the ability to ask VANOC if specific employees, as volunteers, can observe specialty operations at the venues during the Games, such as "the skill of ice-making for curling, ice hockey, speed and/or figure skating." This issue arose because VANOC has hired some of the best ice-makers in the world to produce ice at various city venues, and ice-making staff at them wanted to see what they do.

The City, during the Games, is to have the right to move any of its employees to or from the designated facilites "to adjust staffing levels, meet operational or program requirements, facilitate alternate uses, provide back-up capability related to the Games and/or to enhance the opportunities for staff to participate in the work related to the Olympic experience."

There's a multiple-step process proposed for resolving quickly employer-employee disputes that might arise as part of the working agreement for the Olympics.

Oh, yes, one last thing: Olympic rules require a venue to be clean of unrelated logos, but Foley recommends that CUPE Local 15 employees be allowed to wear "a discrete CUPE Local 15 pin, provided VANOC agrees."

RESOURCES
=========

A Word file of Brian Foley's recommendations for ending the civic strike:
1004.cupe.ca/updir/1004/VancouverStrikeRecommendations.doc

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Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 5, 2007

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Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #2561

SUN'S BLACKBOX CONTAINER COMPUTERS MAY BE AT 2010 GAMES

It's possible there may be a Sun Microsystems BlackBox in the back-of-house operations at one or more of VANOC's venues. Cheryl Martin, senior director of business development for Project BlackBox, says "some companies have expressed interest in using Blackbox in the Beijing 2008 Olympics, as well as the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics." Blackbox, developed last year and due to be officially offered for sale in November, is essentially a supercomputer in a standard commercial container, but it can be configured by Sun for whatever use customers willing to pay C$750,000 and up want. Martin added that it can be fitted with "half-storage or half-servers", or fitted only with servers, or some other configuration. It's guranteed to arrive all ready to be plugged into a power grid and network, and working. Sun's portable system is said to be between eight and 10 times smaller, but providing the same computing power as a traditional corporate data center. "What fits into a 160 square foot in [Project Blackbox] is equivalent to what would fit into a 1,500-square-foot data center," Martin said. "A typical Blackbox configuration can support performance of 146 teraflops (trillions of calculations per second), hold two petabytes of storage and seven terabytes of memory." She added that Blackbox is also about 40% more efficient in terms of power consumption, compared to a traditional data center. [There's a short video that gives you a look at the Blackbox, inside and outside. See RESOURCES, below, for the link.]

PETRO-CANADA LAUNCHES FELINE MASCOT TO FLAG PARALYMPIC EDUCATIONAL ACTIVATION

VANOC won't be launching its mascots until late November, we're told, but that hasn't stopped Petro-Canada, one of VANOC's corporate sponsors, from launching a mascot -- a cat--for one of its on-going Paralympic activation programs. Podi, the Petro-Canada Paralympic Schools Program mascot, was marketed today at General Gordon Elementary School in Vancouver, in a little ceremony with some Paralympic athletes, supported by the Canadian Paralympic Committee. The athletes showed the kids how to play sledge hockey and some summer Olympic sports. The mascot promotes the third year of a free online schools program sponsored by Petro-Canada called It's The Real Deal, which includes downloadable kid's activities, athlete interviews and photos for students in grades 4 to 7. The aim is to publicize Paralympic sport, and athletes with a physical disability.

VANOC CMO WATCHES GE HEALTHCARE'S LIVE ULTRASOUND OF OLYMPIANS AT US FORUM

Vancouver 2010 Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jack Taunton received a live demonstration yesterday of General Electric's ultrasound technology during a healthcare forum in Aspen, Colorado, where he was taking part in a panel discussion. Two American Olympic athletes underwent the scans during the discussion, which was about using advanced sports-medicine equipment in diagnosing and treating diseases outside of the sports world.

RESOURCES

A direct link to Sun's Blackbox project page; there are videos on the page, just scroll down:
www.sun.com/emrkt/blackbox/index.jsp

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Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 4, 2007

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Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #2560

VANOC WORKS THE PHONE LINES TO BOLSTER OVERLAY PROCUREMENT

Interesting: VANOC has taken the unusual move -- for it -- of phoning potential proponents for its detailed Overlay request for expressions of interest document that it published in late July, and reminding them of the fact that it closes October 12. The call also encourages them to have another look at the information about it on VANOC's website, if they haven't yet submitted their response. When asked how the response has been, the answer from the VANOC rep, however, was a non-committal, "Oh, pretty good." VANOC is getting its phone list from those who registered for attendance at 2010 Commerce Now seminars that featured VANOC procurement officials discussing the Overlay requirements and the response process in detail, another unusual move for VANOC's procurement department. The Overlay document, which is on the 2010 website, covers all of the great quantity of materials and equipment VANOC needs to make its locations look and work as venues, and includes such things as temporary seating for spectators, banners, even flagpoles. VANOC expects to shortlist the companies who respond, and provide more detailed requests for proposals to them early next year. [See RESOURCES, below, for the most recent of the 22 stories we've written about VANOC overlays this year.]

CROSS COUNTRY 2010 TEST EVENT CALENDAR FOR DISCUSSION NEXT MONTH

The executive council of FIS, the international skiing federation, expects to discuss next month the recommendations from its cross-country section for the timing of a Olympic and Paralympic test events at VANOC's Whistler Nordic Centre. The events are expected to be part of the federation's 2008/2009 calendar. Meanwhile, the Snowboard Coordination Group met in Zurich, Switzerland a few days ago to work on its draft 2008/2009 calendar. The Group also reviewed a proposal prepared in conjunction with FIS Freestyle to design a common start gate for snowboard cross and freestyle ski cross. These two disciplines expect to be sharing the same venue at the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games. The Coordination Group received a report on a joint FIS Snowboard/Freestyle visit at the Cypress Mountain Resort a few weeks ago, and it was told that preparations are" progressing well and the venue is already close to completion." Along with the first freestyle Olympic test events, Cypress will host the Canadian Snowboard national championships this winter, whilst the official snowboard test events are scheduled for mid-February, 2009. Technical advisors Jeff Ihaksi and Steve Petrie, who are the FIS representatives in charge of working with VANOC on the construction of the Olympic snowboard cross and half-pipe courses, reported that "the work on the structures is on schedule."

THREE VANOC SPONSORS STIRRING THEIR CORPORATE ORGANIZATION

Some corporate reworking involving three of VANOC's major corporate sponsors. The first item is that RBC Financial, VANOC's banking sponsor, "expects to record a gain in the fourth quarter ending October 31" as it swaps its membership position in Visa Canada Association for shares of Visa Inc, which is an international sponsor of the 2010 Games, and which is expected to be the only credit card accepted throughout the 2010 Games. RBC didn't say, in its formal statement to exchanges, what it expects the size of the gain to be. However, it added that, "The amount of RBC's gain will be calculated following completion of an independent valuation and the determination of the number of shares to be allocated to RBC and to other former members of Visa Canada Association as at the restructuring date" before the end of October. The other item is that Nortel Networks, which is one of VANOC's corporate suppliers in connecting its computer networks to the thousands of devices that will work on the network, has hired yet another chief financial officer in its quest to stabilize its long-troubled financial situation and competitive situation. Pavi Binning, 47, has served in the CFO capacity in two other firms: building-materials company Hanson PLC and telecommunications group Marconi PLC. Nortel last CFO, Peter Currie, left last April. Acting chief financial officer David Drinkwater will return to his post as the company's chief legal officer.

RESOURCES

The two most recent and detailed stories we've written about VANOC's requirements for Overlays:

'Overlay department nears halfway mark of its major planning phase, as it tests the marketplace waters'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:2525; Published on Friday, September 14, 2007]


'The 2010 Games runs requirements up 1,675 flagpoles to see who wants to supply overlay'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:2448; Published on Friday, July 27, 2007]

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Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 3, 2007

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Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #2559

VANCOUVER COUNCIL TOPS UP CULTURAL PLANNING SCHEME

Vancouver City council has rescued one of its extensive planning projects, a reworking of its cultural planning to incorporate impending influences of the 2010 Cultural Olympiad and Olympic ceremonies. Council today approved an additional C$50,000 after the Creative City Task Force had spent its budget of C$95,000 from the City and 2010 Legacies Now without handing in a final report on the directions the city should take in supporting culture over the next decade. In addition, the City's civic strike had brought its work to a halt, putting it more than two months behind schedule. Council said the additional funds would help it conduct a final public consultation process to get reaction to its draft report, and publish its final document by the end of the calendar year. By that time, VANOC will have announced in November its programming for the first of its three-part Cultural Olympiad, the smallest section of which begins throughout Vancouver, Richmond and Whistler next February. [For a previous, detailed story, see RESOURCES, below.]

WHISTLER CONSIDERS LASER, FIREWORKS SHOWS, OVERNIGHTERS AS PART OF 2010 PLAZA PROGRAM

Here's a bit more information on a couple of the possible finale programs we noted late last week that are under consideration for Whistler's 2010 Celebration plaza, assuming sponsors can be found to help pay for them: The Snow and Glow concepts are seen as a laser light show, fireworks or something similar. The Late Night Live the equivalent to the Torino 2006 Olympics' popular "White Nights" events: further entertainment after the main show is over, perhaps a disk-jockey playing music, and dancing, while stores remain open either late into the night, or all night. The Late Night Live concept is said to be "still under consideration, so only a possibility" at this point.

AD-HOC HOUSING GROUPS SET OCTOBER 14 FOR PROTEST AT VANCOUVER'S 2010 CLOCK

There's a call that's just gone out among Vancouver's social groups that are trying to tie the Vancouver 2010 Olympics into their own housing-the-homeless agenda to set up a peaceful sit-in demonstration on Sunday, October 14, on the public area next to the VANOC Olympic countdown clock in downtown Vancouver. According to one of the organizers, they intend to rename it the "countdown-to-end homelessness clock," adding, "We want to fill the square with hundreds of people... to show our elected officials in the three levels of government, and the Vancouver Olympic Committee [VANOC] that we are holding them accountable to their promise of leaving a legacy of affordable housing in the wake of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics."

RESOURCES

Our previous, more detailed report on the cultural plans of the city and VANOC:
'Vancouver cultural planning task force floundering as VANOC finalizes the start of its Cultural Olympiad'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:2552; Published on Thursday, September 27, 2007]

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Our story that goes into more detail about Whistler's plans for its 2010 Celebration Plaza:
'Whistler budgeting C$18.5 million on programming Celebration Plaza, plus C$14.2 million on building and converting it'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:2556; Published on Monday, October 1, 2007]

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Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 2, 2007

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Morgan:News:2010 |Government, VANOC| #2558

OWN THE PODIUM ADDS TWO NEW PROGRAMS AS MEETINGS CONFIRM SPENDING DIRECTIONS OF C$23 MILLION BUDGET

The Own the Podium program today confirmed its C$23 million budget for the 2007/2008 fiscal year would support two new programs that would focus on coaching and performance-technology training as part of its effort to bolster the number of medals won by Canadians during the 2010 Olympics. "While we are pleased with the progress our winter sports are making to get ready for 2010, the upcoming competition season is critical. This is the year where many Canadian athletes must learn how to medal at world events, building the confidence required to perform at the highest level in 2010," said Roger Jackson, CEO of Own the Podium 2010 (OTP). "The funding as well as the coaching and video technology sport programs announced today will significantly build on what is becoming a much stronger Canadian winter sport system that will result in even greater medal performances by our Canadian winter athletes."

He spoke during a two-day session in Calgary, Alberta, with all 13 winter national sport organizations that expect to be providing athletes to the 2010 Winter Games, government funding agencies, corporate sponsors and representatives of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) meeting to discuss preparations for Canadian athletic competition at the 2010 Winter Games.

The two new programs:

Coach Professional Development Program - This was developed, according to OTP staff, "to ensure that coaches have the training required to successfully prepare their athletes for medal performances" at the 2010 Games. About 20 projects were supported initially during the launch of the program, which was developed in partnership with the Coaching Association of Canada and the national sport organizations.

National Performance Technology Clinics - These were set up at several Canadian sport centres, as staff note, "to create a Canadian network of certified video-technology specialists who will work with national coaches and teams to provide video analysis services wherever athletes are training and competing." The first clinics were quietly held in Vancouver in September. The next ones will be in Montreal October 16-17, in Toronto November 3-4, and in Calgary November 27-28.

In addition, alpine skiing, ski cross, curling, figure skating, freestyle skiing, speedskating, luge and Paralympic sports will all receive increases in funding due in part to decreases in money aimed at support biathlon and cross-country skiing. Snowboarding, bobsleigh, skeleton and men's and women's hockey continue with their exisiting funding level. saw a decrease in funding.

Ski jumping and Nordic combined, although they're on the VANOC list of sports, aren't in the OTP planning. "The reason simply being they don't have medal potential athletes," Jackson said, who noted the sports receive funding from other organizations.

Sport Canada, the federal agency, still has to approve the recommendations for funding changes coming from the meeting, since it's still paying the largest share of the budget after legislative changes earlier this year released it from being tied to fund-matching with the money provided so far by VANOC.

There was no estimate of the cost of the two new programs released but staff said that OTP was spending C$18 million of its C$23-million budget directly on supporting the 13 winter sports and disciplines it's previously chosen on the basis they are showing medal potential for 2010. The money is mostly to support training and competition, coaching and support staff salaries, sport medicine and sport science. The remaining C$5 million goes to support services for athletes from specific Canadian Sport Centres, as well as to OTP's "Top Secret" research program, and a range of other projects.

During the Calgary sessions this week, the Canadian Olympic Committee gave reports on its view of Games-time preparations, and VANOC briefed the group on pre-Games venue operations. Sport Canada reps spoke about federal government initiatives that support high-performance sport in Canada.

One-half of the total C$110 million in funding for the OTP program, which began in 2005, comes from the Canadian government through its Sport Canada section. VANOC pledged to raise up to the remaining C$55 million through corporate and provincial support. Some of VANOC's corporate sponsors are providing resources through VANOC's pldge, including Bell Canada, General Motors of Canada, Hudson's Bay Company, McDonald's Canada, Petro-Canada, Royal Bank of Canada Financial Group and renovations retailer Rona. Administrative and financial support come from the Canadian and Paralympic Committees.

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Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 2, 2007

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Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #2557

GE'S C$1.6 MILLION FOR NAMING RIGHTS TO HELP REFURBISH 2010-RELATED ICE RINK

Another piece to the puzzle of building a business-oriented pavillion for the 2010 Games in the centre of Vancouver's business district has been confirmed by General Electric, 2010 Commerce Now and the BC government's Olympic Secretariat. GE Canada says it has signed a rights agreement and pledged to pay the BC government a total of C$1.6 million over the next three years for the naming rights to the covered plaza next to the 2010 Commerce Centre's offices at Robson Square in downtown Vancouver near the corner of Robson and Hornby. The area was an ice rink between 1982 and 2000, when maintenance for the ice-making system became too costly. Since then, it's primarily been used by skateboarders, with occasional dance performances. However, 2010 Commerce Now intends to use the area as part of the government's business pavilion for the 2010 Games, and locate nearby a number of the big broadcasting companies intending to cover the 2010 Games but who don't have rights to broadcast the Games directly, such as Fox, CBS, ABC and others. GE Canada, which is a corporate sponsor of the 2010 Games through its American-based parent corporation and its international sponsorship, expects to locate its own temporary business offices next to those of 2010 Commerce Centre. And GE's money, according to the government, will "help" repair the plaza's ice system so it can be used in the year leading up to the Games and during the Games themselves. When there's no ice, the area is to be called GE Plaza; when the ice is installed, it'll be called the GE Ice Plaza. GE sponsored a similar plaza in Torino, during the 2006 Winter Olympic Games. There were quite a few activities for fans of the Olympic Games of all ages at that facility. GE Plaza is expected to open late next February for public events -- the same time when 2010 Commerce Now expects to roll out its expanded business meeting space and multi-media centre. The GE Ice Plaza is due to begin operation in the winter of 2008/2009. [For a satellite map of the location, see RESOURCES, below.]


VANCOUVER FILM TASK FORCE URGES CITY TO STAY OPEN TO MOVIE COMPANIES DURING 2010

The task force report on movie filming in Vancouver, commissioned by the city's mayor, Sam Sullivan, includes a brief comment about the 2010 Winter Olympics amongst its 10 recommendations. The members of the task force -- which include representatives from Canadian and American production industry associations, Vancouver residential organizations, a business-improvement association representative, the Vancouver Police Department, the Vancouver Park Board, the City's Engineering Services, the Vancouver Real Estate Services, a location manager and an independent film producer. although the City is expected to be heavily focused on the 2010 Games, particularly in the first quarter of 2010, the task force's chairman, Shawn Williamson, CEO of Brightlight Pictures, recommends that, "Vancouver... remain open to filming during the 2010 Olympic & Paralympic Games – although scheduling may be limited." Williamson recommends that it's important the City, "inform productions how this event may impact their work." And, he adds that, "It will be important to continue a dialogue between the City and the film industry in order for the industry to understand what to expect and to be able to respond to changing conditions as a result of this major event." The report, which was originally envisioned as being completed early this year, is expected to be further discussed at the City council meeting tomorrow afternoon.

WCSN REFINANCED, TO WORK ON BROADCASTING 2010-RELATED TEST EVENTS

A Los Angeles-based Internet broadcaster, World Championship Sports Network (WCSN), says it has secured "significant" financing with InterMedia Partners, a private equity firm that invests in media content providers. That, said WCSN chairman Claude Ruibal, has implications for 2010-related test events. "We are now well positioned to leverage the unique sports opportunities available to us during the countdown to the... 2010 Vancouver Olympics, and to broaden the audience for Olympic and lifestyle sports beyond two weeks every two years." Peter Kern, the managing partner of InterMedia Partners, says, "We believe that WCSN is a very valuable media property, with an ability to tap into an advertiser-friendly audience that has been previously underserved by traditional broadcast media," said "WCSN controls a powerful set of rights and some of the best-produced sports content featuring the greatest athletes from around the world. Millions of sports enthusiasts have waited... for these events to be consistently available on all platforms." WCSN holds exclusive rights and strategic relationships with several international sports federations, including the International Ski Federation (FIS).

RESOURCES

Below is a link to a satellite map showing the location of the new GE Plaza and ice rink. The plaza itself is right below the Robson Street overpass shown in the middle of the view, between the two large, dark-glass gazebos. The offices of 2010 Commerce Now, GE Canada and the unaccredited media are all to be located in the expansive area beneath that overpass.

If you back out one click, you can see the whole area adjacent to the Plaza that is expected to be one of the hot spots in downtown Vancouver during the 2010 Games, connected with exhibits at the Vancouver Art Gallery, which is just in the upper-right section of image. Back out one click further, and you can see the front side of the Art Gallery, which is bordered by West Georgia Street (the area shown is in the shadow of a nearby building when this picture was taken). Olympic programming is expected to take place on the front part of the Gallery, too, adjacent to the 2010 countdown clock. These areas are expected to be marked with Olympic street signage connecting them to the downtown core's two Live Sites, and two of the 2010 venues: BC Place and GM Place, all about 10 minutes walk away.

tinyurl.com/394zwv

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World Championship Sports Network (WCSN)
web.wcsn.com/sport/index.jsp?id=34000

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Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on October 1, 2007

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