Blog archive

It is, therefore, fortunate that the London 2012 Culture, Ceremonies and Education team have just returned from our group conference. With an almost perverse determination to consummate the marriage of sport and art (and education) we tend to locate our awaydays at Olympic and Paralympic sporting venues. The first was at Eton Dorney (the spectacular site for London 2012 Rowing). Next we went to the National Sailing Academy in Portland where, after an energetic mental workout we all had a drenching as we tried out a spot of extremely amateur sailing around the 2012 course.

This time we gathered at Stoke Mandeville. The spiritual home of the Paralympic movement – the Olympia of the Paralympic Games. It was here in 1948 that Ludwig Guttmann, launched the first Paralympic Games. Guttmann was a pioneering neurologist who saw sport as an inspirational tool in rehabilitation for wounded ex-servicemen.

Now, next to the modern hospital, the “Stoke Mandeville Stadium” is a state of the art elite training centre for a number of UK Paralympic teams. More of that to come….

The top of our conference agenda was a session to imagine London and the rest of the UK at games-time. In our dreams, what kind of city, what kind of nation, what kind of Olympic Park would we create to welcome the world in the summer of 2012? Charles Landry got our discussions off to a flying start. Charles is the founder of an agency called “Comedia”. He advises cities all around the world about the best way to exploit their creative and cultural sectors to build fantastic places to live and work. One person described Charles presentation as “urban planning on an acid trip”. His library of provocative architectural images shows how, with very modest investment, concrete urban jungles can be humanised, how public spaces can thrive and what a festival city might do to welcome the world.

Next up was Helen Marriage presenting the work she’s been doing for us about how to enhance the experience for visitors to the Olympic Park at games-time. Helen has unrivalled experience of running public festivals and major street spectacles. Most recently she produced the arrival of “The Sultan’s Elephant” to central London.

The starting point for Helen’s work is to find out how culture, entertainment and education can complement the great sports festival to ensure that a day in the Olympic Park will be simply fantastic. The first phase of this project is intensely practical, aimed at influencing the park planners so that simple changes in design and infrastructure can be incorporated early and cheaply to help us later. She’s looking at ways to provide entertainment to those waiting for security checks and ideas for late night performances to help ease the pressure on public transport as big venues all spill out their crowds. The next phase will be more creative as we start to consider the kinds of cultural, educational and sporting activities that visitors might want to experience in the park.

We couldn’t be at Stoke Mandeville without focusing on disability issues. Michelle Taylor from “Shape” – the UK’s leading disability arts organisation - led a training session on disability equality. Michelle has the enviable ability to train with a potent mixture of challenge and compassion. If any of us started the session with hopes of simple answers to straightforward issues, we were to be disappointed. But for thought provocation, a forensic examination of one’s inner moral compass and some really practical guidelines to deal with disability issues this was outstanding. Shape’s Chief Exective, Steve Mannix, was there too – not least because next month he leaves Shape to join our team as a Cultural Programme Advisor, and a very welcome new member of the team he will be!

We looked back, of course, to a frantically busy and productive year, but we spent more time looking forward to 2008 – a defining year for us. It starts in April when the Beijing Olympic Torch visits London and our team is supporting the visit – another vital step towards our own games. Then we move to China itself and in August – under the searching eyes of the world - we produce the London 2012 Olympic Handover Ceremony – the very start of London’s stewardship of the 2012 games. Three weeks later we have the Paralympic Handover Ceremony, and later that autumn we launch our Education and Culture Programmes.

With such a huge programme ahead of us it was reassuring to see such a really strong Culture, Ceremonies and Education team coming together. In twelve months time I’ll be delighted if I can sit back watching them pick up all the awards….

Our conference ended with an invitation from the Great British Paralympic Wheelchair Rugby Team to join them for a training session. In the past this sport was known as “Murderball”, so some of us put on our sports kit with a degree of trepidation. In the light of our earlier sessions it also prompted a healthy debate about whether it was appropriate for able bodied people to “simulate” a disability to join in with activities of this sort. We searched our consciences and eventually were persuaded by the warmth of the invitation that we simply wanted to experience a new sport and admire the skills of those who are amongst the best in the world.

What did we discover? Top level Wheelchair Rugby is not only great fun but demands huge upper body strength, speed, agility, spacial awareness and tactical guile – I have none of these. But I now have huge admiration for the athletes who do. We hope to meet the team again as they compete for Team GB in Beijing, and we’d love them to bring home a clutch of medals. Now that would be an award to cheer…..