All the world’s a stage...In four and a half years the world’s biggest stage will be in London’s East End at Stratford when it hosts the 2012 Games. Tonight’s stage was also in Stratford, but in the less obvious location of the concourse of Stratford Station.
Right amongst the tube lines, the overgound trains and the Docklands Light Railway – with waves of commuters weaving their way home, ant-like - a most remarkable piece of live drama takes place.
A couple of hundred of us are perched on a generous balcony overlooking the modern concourse and we’re wired for sound with a track of ambient music in our headphones. Fragments of a conversation break through the music. Soon we realise that the protagonists are below us. Gary and Steve are hardly your standard theatrical heroes. Some kind of misfit street traders with a rich array of personal issues, they encounter a couple of potential punters out to score a major deal. The two city slickers are from the other end of town – polar opposites – high pressure, high value corporate lives. They start with every polished boardroom tactic to score the deal – subtle and silky smooth at first, but rapidly descending into desperation, abuse and total contempt for the non-compliant traders. Engrossing though this mini drama about the meeting of social strata is, the real theatre is all around them.
It’s hugely exciting to be joining the Culture, Ceremonies and Education Team at London 2012. The team will play a key role in making the whole Olympiad a celebration of London’s rich diversity, and I’m thrilled to be a part of that.
I’ve spent over 5 years as Chief Executive of Shape, the UK’s leading disability arts organisation. So I know just how important it is that all sections of our society gain access and play an active role in our culture. The cultural programme is our opportunity to send out a very clear message that the Games belong to everyone.
On Sunday the Amercian NFL brought their first ever league match outside the United States to London - a clash between the Miami Dolphins and the New York Giants at the new Wembley Stadium. I was lucky enough to attend the game with London 2012 colleagues, not only to enjoy the US-style party but also to think about lessons for 2012 - Wembley is, of course, a Football venue for the Games.
I’m not sure all the US-style trimmings will make it to 2012 but there were certainly great lessons for our Venues and Sports teams. It was interesting for the Sports team to see how well the NFL presented their sport to new observers like me: we’re always looking for new ways to get sport to a wider audience too and the match offered lots of interesting ideas on how to do it.
Our Venues team were also able to look at the ‘overlay’- the additional facilities needed for an existing venue to get it ready for Games-time. This is something we’re doing a lot of work on for 2012 where we will ‘dress’ venues like Wimbledon, Wembley and Lords for Olympic sports.
I recently caught up with Tim Cagney, Head of UK Partnerships at the UK Film Council to ask him a few questions about Film and Video Nation…
What is your opinion of film making in the UK and why is it important that it features in the Cultural Olympiad?
Film can inspire, move, create, entertain, and educate. It reaches out to people of all ages, from all backgrounds and all cultures. It brings people together, creates understanding, transcends cultural boundaries. Film has universal appeal and it can tell personal stories.
Since film began, the UK has had a history of producing a rich stream of talented and creative filmmakers and today’s generation of British filmmakers are working at the top of the game. Directors such as Paul Greengrass (United 93 and The Bourne Supremacy), David Yates (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix), Joe Wright (Atonement), Shane Meadows (This is England) to name just a few are making films that audiences in the UK and around the world want to see and which also win international awards.
However, there are young people who face barriers when engaging with film. A range of initiatives supported by the UK Film Council, its regional and national partners and a number of education partners are working to combat this. The Film and Video Nation programme featuring in the Cultural Olympiad will help young people make their own films. By providing inspiration and creative opportunities for tens of thousands of young people, this programme will support and nurture emerging filmmaking talent by helping those who want to pursue careers in the industry to gain practical, hands-on filmmaking skills so they can tell their stories in their own way.
I should warn you from the outset that writing a blog during my time here at London 2012 will only exacerbate my Carrie Bradshaw fantasies. Even now you find me typing cross legged on my bed wearing, well, let's call just call it a creation, gazing through the window upon, not Manhattan but London's glamorous Herne Hill. However, I will endeavour to leave the similarities at that and suppress further Carrieisms - but no promises.
So, to Manor House with the best friend and the Castle Climbing Centre. First of all it really is a castle, albeit a faux one that used to house a power station. Now, walk through the doors and a labyrinth of sheer indoor climbing walls, caves and boulders await. The walls themselves are marvels of engineering, rising and reclining terrifyingly, pock marked with multi coloured pebble shaped foot, finger, knee and whatever-you-can-stick-in-it-to-stop-falling holds. Swarming up, down, upside-down and across the structures are dozens of sinewy male and female fanatics (Peter Parkers sans costume) who as ever to a novice, make it look as if they have hands of glue upon walls of velcro.
The annual awards season has started. On Saturday I attended the British Athletics Writers’ Association (BAWA) awards dinner where journalists who have spent all year following and reporting on athletics recognised their 'Athletes of the Year' and celebrated their achievements. This year there was a lot to celebrate.
Back in March, Birmingham hosted a very successful European Indoor Championships where Great Britain topped the medal table. It’s a great example of how well we Brits can stage major sporting events and the huge positive effect of a home crowd.
The awards for 'Junior Athletes of the Year' suggest the future of British sprinting is in good hands with the male award going to European Junior 200 metres champion, Alex Nelson. The female award went to Asha Philip who, at the age of 16, became the first British woman to win a global 100 metres title when she won the World Youth Games. Asha has already run faster over 100 metres than I did in my entire career!
Talking transport technology at Beijing
Paul, ODA Transport team, 26 October 2007
I was invited to present a paper at the 14th World Congress on ITS (Intelligent Transportation Systems) held in Beijing from 9 -13 October.
The ITS Congress is an annual event where transport authorities, system developers, and academics meet to discuss new technology and how it can be best used in the world’s major cities. Last year the congress was held in London and there was a lot of interest in the technologies supporting London’s Congestion Charge and the city’s Urban Traffic Control system (UTC).
This world-class expertise means that Transport for London (TfL) – responsible for the coordination and management of London’s traffic – is ideally placed to work closely with London 2012 to develop the Olympic Route Network (ORN). The ORN will be an essential network of roads and highways linking the venues with accommodation used by athletes and officials during the Games.
The congress was an ideal opportunity for both TfL and me to get acquainted with the traffic management measures that will be adopted by the next Games Host City.
Beijing is in the final stages of its preparations for the Games next summer. Our LOCOG colleagues have observed sports test events this summer and have also seen some trials of Beijing’s ORN. Together, we are gaining useful insights that will assist our transport plans.
Providing accessible and reliable transport for some 800,000 spectators on the busiest day of competition during the Games and ensuring that athletes, the stars of the show, get to their event quickly is a huge challenge.
On Tuesday we took a major step towards meeting this challenge and realising our goal of hosting a ‘public transport’ Games by releasing the first formal edition of the Transport Plan for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
To shape this plan, the ODA Transport team, led by director Hugh Sumner, consulted widely on the Consultation Draft it released one year ago – nearly six years out from the Games. As part of this consultation, the ODA collected more than 2,500 individual comments. This discussion is vital, as delivering successful Games transport will be a joint effort with our transport delivery partners and stakeholders.
Being relatively new to London 2012 – but not to the industry - the launch gave me a great chance to talk with our key transport partners about the Games and the feedback was very positive.
Me (right) with London Underground Managing Director Tim O’Toole (left) and TfL Commissioner Peter Hendy (middle):
It’s amazing to think that in 2012, people will make the same journey as I did this morning, from the north of England into Kings Cross, and be able to reach the Games in minutes via the Javelin. I was travelling to London to be part of the announcement of the London 2012 Transport Plan. I joined John Armitt, Tessa Jowell, the Mayor and others to launch the plan with stakeholders.
Me at the launch:
The launch took place at 'The Gymnasium' next to St Pancras station. And it has it’s own part in Olympic tradition. Originally the home of the German Gymnastics Society from 1961, it also became the home for the embryonic national governing bodies for gymnastics, wrestling, weightlifting and fencing. In the first National Olympic Games in 1866 – inspired by William Penney-Brookes – it hosted events in the gymnastics, wrestling, boxing and fencing competitions. So it was a fitting setting for today’s event.
Getting the transport right for the Games for athletes is a huge issue. It’s one of those things that I’m pleased London 2012 is thinking about carefully so early. Other host cities have tried to get it right in the past but sometimes it’s not gone as well as it might. At one Games I competed in, unfortunately the bus driver wasn’t quite sure where the venue was. After going in the wrong direction for 45 minutes, I had to get them to stop the bus and call for help to get us there. I wasn’t competing but some fellow athletes missed their event entirely – years and years of preparation wasted.
Accessing new ideas at Disability Capital
Mark, ODA Transport team, 23 October 2007
Earlier this month, I attended the fourth annual Disability Capital conference, which focuses on the civil rights of disabled and deaf people living and working in London.
The conference was held at ExCeL, which will be the venue for several Paralympic sports, including Boccia, Paralympic Table Tennis, Paralympic Powerlifting and Wheelchair Basketball.
During the Paralympic Games alone, we need to ensure that transport is available to all venues for up to 160,000 spectators each day. Approximately 15-20 per cent (24,000 – 32,000) of these spectators are expected to have specific access needs.
The ODA Transport team has already engaged with organisations of disabled people during our planning and we maintain regular contact with these organisations. However, with more than 800 delegates, most of whom were disabled people, this conference was a great chance for us to connect with a large number of individual disabled Londoners.
Last Friday we announced the winners of the design for the Central Park Bridge - the main pedestrian footbridge in the Park. The process actually started back in May this year, with interviews with the shortlisted candidates taking place in September.
The Central Park Bridge sits at the centre of the Olympic Park. The brief was to design two short span bridges that would carry the large flow of visitors to the Olympic park. After the Games temporary structures need to be removed to expose Carpenters Lock a 1930’s lock on the river Lea.
The day of a presentation for a high profile design competition is one of the few moments when design takes centre stage and sweeps aside any doubt that design has the ability to transform, elevate and lift the human spirit.
We had a large high profile jury, and six design teams to see in a day. Each team with rigour had combined structural and architectural design to make a structure of beauty in their submitted proposals. Teams presented at hourly intervals during the day each making inspiring presentations of their proposals which were exacting and innovative. With skill they all described new opportunities describing in word and image an imagined place, that had not existed before. These new visions and approaches were all very different and very compelling in its own way.
Next Stratford works in sight
Richard, Stratford Programme Director, 22 October 2007
After successfully completing our initial upgrade to Stratford Regional Station (SRS) last month, we are now gearing up for our next major set of works that will help prepare SRS to be the gateway to the Games.
As part of these works, which will occur over Christmas, we will demolish several old buildings in and around the station. This will help clear the station for future enhancement work and facilitate the construction of the major pedestrian bridge to the Olympic Park.
One of the old buildings that will be demolished in order to improve the station:
The 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be more than just the largest sporting occasion on the planet – they’ll the largest event on the planet full stop. Having only just joined LOCOG little over a month ago I can already see the scale of the challenge ahead of us to make this a really memorable Games.
With such a task ahead of us and with such a keen interest from the public it is little wonder that from time to time the politicians wish to check that we keep progressing on the achievements already made. This is why myself along with others working for the 2012 Games took a trip down to City Hall last week.
The last time I visited City Hall, it was to have a tour and learn about the people that work there. This time it was to see the Assembly going about its business.
The occasion was a Plenary session of the London Assembly, where Seb and Paul were appearing, along with John Armitt and David Higgins from the ODA, and representatives from the LDA. They faced two hours of questions from the members of the Assembly, who represent different political parties and different parts of London.
Trying to angle park a 15m long and 2.5m wide bus is no easy feat, as I discovered after getting behind the wheel and trying to out-manoeuvre the best in the business at the Bus & Coach Live expo in Birmingham. But for many of the 5,500 delegates, getting thousands of passengers swiftly around one of the busiest cities in the world is simply all in a day’s work.
Held last week, the Bus & Coach Live is the biggest event of its kind for the industry. Over two days, bus and coach operators, manufacturers and suppliers ply their wares, which can include anything from the latest design of urban bus, through to vehicle brake technology, or bullet proof window glaze!
This year, ODA Transport director Hugh Sumner opened the show and was a keynote speaker. The audience fired away questions after his presentation and it was great to see so much interest about the Games from an industry that will provide a crucial transport service. Hearing Hugh respond to the questions re-affirmed that we are steadily progressing with our bus and coach transport plans.
At the expo:
Are you one of those people who knows exactly where you were when something significant happened? Or maybe it's a piece of music that reminds you of a concert or a picture about an event? Whatever it is, many of us enjoy being with others, part of a group or crowd in all sorts of circumstances.
It's that sense of engagement which we're trying to build on for London 2012 and to bring it to places across the whole UK through the Live Sites programme for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and in the past few days I've had some really great experiences which remind me just how potent group activities can be, especially being together in city centres.
Last week, I was helping to organise an international conference of artists, producers and people who operate big screens in urban centres all over the world. They had all come to Manchester for the second conference of this type because the UK has some of the pioneering big screens in the world run by partnerships involving the cities, education bodies, the BBC and other agencies. Manchester was first in the UK so was the natural choice to showcase the UK's leading digital artists who were joined by similar performers from all over the globe.
Example of a Live Site screen:
Culture and sport collide at the Great North Run
Bill, Culture, Events and Education chief, 11 October 2007
The marriage of sport and art is a regular topic in our part of the 2012 Team. Perhaps that is why the Director of Culture, Ceremonies and Education found himself entered for the recent “Great North Run”. That’ll be me then!
There was the odd moment along the 13 mile course when this didn’t feel like such a good idea. At the eight miles point a man dressed as a 12ft tall daffodil overtook me with ease. At eleven miles, as the course winds its way from Gateshead to South Shields, the crafty race planners throw in a hill – not just any hill – the kind of hill that goes on for ever and has false brows. Like the mirage of a spa bath in the middle of the desert, each summit simply dissolves as a higher one appears over the horizon. Some people might be a tad embarrassed that a man in his late 70s finished half an hour before me. But then it was the amazing Christopher Chattaway (who broke the four minute mile in 1955).
Indeed as I gasped over the finishing line (in a gentlemanly two hours, six minutes) it might not have been the perfect moment to celebrate this as participation in a great cultural event – but after a hot shower, a rub down with the Radio Times and few days of achy calf muscles, I can now contemplate whether that is what it is.
Read more of “Culture and sport collide at the Great North Run”
Thomas is nineteen and he lives in a rural village in South Africa, not far from the border with Mozambique. He’s quietly spoken, a little shy at first and one of those will-o-the-wisp kind of lads who used all his growing in an upwards direction. But don’t underestimate this rather earnest young man – he’s a ground-breaker. That’s not just my view – it’s official – indeed it’s his job description.
As part of a leadership programme in South Africa and Mozambique I walk around his village – a rural township near the Mozambique boarder. There’s very little work here, and poverty is profound. The spectacular views towards the Kruger National Park probably don’t make up for the lack of electricity or basic sanitation. Most pressing of all, somewhere between twenty and thirty per cent of the community probably has HIV or AIDs. This isn’t uncommon in many areas of Southern Africa. It has been estimated that unless something dramatic can be done, half of South Africa’s current fifteen year olds will contract HIV or AIDS during their lifetime. Thomas is probably the village’s best hope.
Video: adidas and London 2012
The 2012 Editor, 5 October 2007
Progress on the site of the Olympic Stadium accelerated this week with nearly half the buildings now demolished, temporary bridges being installed and a programme of work beginning to remove thousands of tonnes of soil to create the correct ground levels.
Demolition started in July with 16 of the existing buildings already knocked down and the rest due to be demolished by the end of the year. You can watch the progress in our time-lapse video.
Inspired by adidas and 2012
The 2012 Editor, 4 October 2007
At the recent adidas sponsorship launch, 20 twelve-year-olds were invited to take part. As part of the day they each wrote a summary of their experiences - the best summary to be published on this website.
So here's our winner: a poem by Adebisi Alakan, Hackney Free & Parochial C of E Secondary School...
Last week I was so privileged
We tripped our way to Millennium Bridge
To meet a load of Olympic trainers
And grab a free pair of Adidas trainers.
They’re the ones funding the Olympic Games
And they introduced us to sports stars of fame.
We sprinted our way to the finish line
Our feet were light and our hearts were fine.
Allyson Felix and Tyson Gay –
They made it into a happy day,
We met the chairman, Sebastian Coe,
And our feet started pounding when they shouted “GO!”
Adidas are popular so they drew in the crowds,
Deservedly for 100 million pounds…
That’s the amount they’re sponsoring
Those ancient Games with those five great rings!
Thank you Adidas for the best day ever…
It’s a memory that forever I’ll treasure…
Good luck Britain in the Olympic Games
Put all the rest of the Universe to shame!!
An education in Namibia
Erin, Education Officer, 3 October 2007
I am ashamed to admit that three weeks ago I probably couldn’t have pointed to Namibia on a map. I certainly couldn’t have named the capital city (Windhoek) and I had never even considered the role that sport play’s in Namibian society – but what a difference a few days at a conference can make!
The Next Step Conference (hosted by UK Sport, Worldwide Impact and Supreme Council for Sport in Africa Zone VI) had two parts, a Youth Conference and a Main Conference, both of which brought together a range of partners and participants from the international sport and development community to look at sport’s contribution to the building of a peaceful and better world by empowering young sports leaders to champion the Olympic values of friendship, respect and excellence and become the leaders of tomorrow.
Last week was another busy week for the ODA Planning Decisions Team (PDT). After our marathon effort in August to get our 1000 page committee report written, finalised and printed and then successfully steered through the Planning Committee we have been concentrating on all the stuff that had to be done afterwards.
First was the formal letters referring the applications back to the Mayor for London and to the Secretary of State via the Government Office for London. Then we needed to concentrate on getting the legal agreements finalised and signed and the final decision notices drafted.
Most people would be unaware of the amount of hours that are spent in discussing the details of every word of every clause and every condition. There have been times during the last few weeks when I have definately seen far more of the lawyers and advisors than I have my own family!! My son has been convinced that I am more of a mirage than a real person and I am now becoming an expert in the quality of the coffee and biscuits at various lawyers offices.
The VeloDream competition was launched this month for school pupils aged up to 16 from across the United Kingdom to get inspired and get involved with the design process for the VeloPark. We have set the challenge for young people to work in groups to come up with their most imaginative and even fantastical ideas for designing a VeloPark - a collection of facilities for different cycling disciplines for the future. The winning team of pupils will work with the actual designers of the 2012 Cycling venue in the northern end of the park.
My job, along with Gemma Rapson in ODA Communications, has been to set up and run the VeloDream competition. This is a really varied role; this week I am learning all about translation of a document in to Easy-read, Braille and other formats for pupils with special educational needs but a few weeks ago I was neck deep in sticky-backed plastic and silver corrugated cardboard!
Unfortunately, I wasn’t making myself a fancy dress costume as a Cyberman, I had in fact organised a workshop here in these offices for a group of young people to test-run the competition question for us. We invited a group made up of kids from Waltham Forest and some young cyclists who used to use the Eastway circuit who came up to an office in Canary Wharf transformed into a child-friendly arts and crafts workshop space! 
A challenging day for the Venues team
Emma, Venues team, 2 October 2007
The London 2012 Venues & Infrastructure Team took part in an exhausting day of blood, sweat and tears at the Property Challenge in aid of the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme, on 21 September. The scheme currently has over 250,000 young people across the UK doing an Award, learning new skills, playing sport, helping in the community and taking part in outdoor expeditions. The experience gives them self-confidence, leadership and communications skills and helps them understand and work with other people from different backgrounds.
The Challenge was a day full of competitive activities including negotiating a high ropes course, 15Km of orienteering, dragon boat racing, bike riding and a rafting course with points awarded for each activity. Competing together against 24 other teams, the London 2012 team had a good idea of how the day would unravel upon arriving and spotting the competition. With an average age of 25, most of the teams looked like competitors from the Oxford/Cambridge boat race, and then there was us. The enthusiastic, but aging, London 2012 crew ranged from 27–62 years old. It would be fair to say that it was not the fittest of teams, in fact it would also be fair to say that they hadn’t anticipated how demanding, both mentally and physically, the day would prove to be.
Starting with the high rope challenge, the team were all very much enjoying taking photos of each other dressed in the flattering harnesses and hard hats. 
On Monday I was pleased to attend an event organised by LOCOG to help Older Londoners understand our role in delivering a successful Olympic Games and Paralympic Games in 2012.
I used to run competitively and I was never satisfied with silver or bronze when I competed achieving success at the British, European and World Championships, so I can understand a little of what the modern Games will bring to London and the inspiration it can provide to young Londoners as well. I was also a member of Haringey Athletics Club where commentator Ron Pickering was President and inspired me to keep running successfully into later life.
So I was really pleased when Seb Coe, speaking at the start of the event, recognised me and my achievements in his speech. He even challenged me to get back involved in athletics and inspire older and younger Londoners alike to benefit from my experience and get into athletics.
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