We've had a great response for the ballot for the
Visa London 2012 party, happening on The Mall on 24 August to celebrate the moment the Olympic Flag is handed over from Beijing to London and we start welcoming the world for our Games.
We will, of course, be celebrating in style, with top acts, Olympians and lots of special guests. It will all be broadcast live on the BBC One and Radio 2.
If you haven't applied yet do it now! The ballot closes this Wednesday, 2 July, at noon.
Register for ticketsRead more of “Party ticket ballot deadline: noon, Wednesday 2 July”
On my recent visit to Weymouth and Portland Sailing Academy, I was encouraged by the huge progress that has been made on the enhanced sailing facilities. As soon as you arrive on site, you can see the transformation that has taken place since we marked the start of construction in Spring 2008:
Read more of “Work is quickly progressing on Sailing venue”
Today I was down at East Marsh next to the Olympic Park, to see a replicated archaeology dig. This is part of our three-week programme with local schools to get them involved in the history of their local area by sharing what we have discovered and found on the Olympic Park site as we develop it.
Students started with a 'blanket dig' where archaeologists set up artefacts from different periods of history on different blankets. The blankets are removed layer-by-layer to uncover each period – starting with a deflated football, orange peel and a tin can from the current period...
Read more of “Discovering local history at East Marsh”
So I find myself on a beautiful sunny day in June at the Lee Valley Festival, in my role as compere for the Get Set London roadshow - and what a show it was! Our massive yellow pod was managing to attract all kinds of visitors - of all ages. Our team was ready to handle the questions, excitement and interaction from everyone. The Batak proved very popular as usual with children and parents alike testing their hand eye co-ordination, but the record of 54 hits in 30 seconds by Dan - in charge of the green screen photos -...
Read more of “Positivity at the Lee Valley Festival”
Yesterday I was at BAFTA for the unveiling of the UK's favourite Olympic Champions and a new National Lottery Scratchcard.
It was great. Sports presenter Hazel Irvine was hosting, representatives from the National Lottery plus Tessa Jowell were also on hand to explain how much money has been raised by the special London 2012 National Lottery Games and what the money is being used for.
Hazel revealed the six champions, as voted for in a special poll, in the style of 'A Question of Sport', with a massive picture you don't see all of until the last square. As they...
Read more of “Inspiration in the form of the UK’s official Olympic Champions”
During the London 2012 Games, Villa Park stadium in Birmingham will host part of the Football competition.
Obviously the Transport team in Birmingham and at Villa Park stadium already have well-oiled transport plans in place for the regular season. However, a Football competition that is part of the world’s biggest sporting event will have a slightly different twist.
On Friday, I met with the Birmingham City Council’s Taskforce for 2012 to talk about how its usual transport plans for the Football competition could be tweaked for the Games, reflecting both the matches and cultural events.
While most football matches traditionally kick-off at 3pm on a...
Read more of “The same game plan – with a twist”
The last few days has seen a flurry of Games-related activity in North and East London as part of the Lee Valley Festival.
The North London Strategic Alliance (a partnership between the London Boroughs of Enfield, Haringey, Waltham Forest and Barnet) drew together an exciting programme of new and existing activity in support of the Games, with the assistance of a grant from the London Development Agency, aimed at helping residents from across that part of London understand the opportunities that the Loondon Games offers them.
On Thursday I visited 'Go Enfield Go' - a sports tournament for almost 1,000 Year...
Read more of “A busy week in North East London”
Last Monday morning I was up early to be at the ICA to take part in the launch of the handover plans for August 24th (well, early for me: my internal clock is still set on theatre time, so while I can work late into the night, I'm not at my best before at least 10.30am).
It's nice to be able to drop the 'cloak and dagger' business around the plans for the launch - we've been working on all this for some months now but have managed to keep it quiet until now (give or take the odd leak in...
Read more of “Excited by a unique collaboration of dance talent”
It's not often that you get to celebrate a 10th, 20th and 30th 'anniversary' in the space of two weeks but then working at London 2012 is anything but ordinary. The anniversaries in question were our very first applications for the Inspire programme – itself a first in many respects, not least for giving real recognition to non-commercial projects and events bringing the benefits of the Games to the whole UK in the run up to and beyond 2012.
Already the range of projects and events couldn't be more diverse – or more inspired. Many will form part of London's...
Read more of “Inspire programme: Thanks for being inspired”
With the Stadium site changing so rapidly I thought I'd check back to March to pinch myself and remember what the view looked like then. Brace yourself because, like me, you might think you are looking at something else!
Beginning of MarchJust over three months ago there wasn't even a clear shape to the Stadium bowl:
Read more of “Latest photos: a lot's changed over the last four months”
It’s good to get out of the office occasionally and see the infrastructure for London 2012 taking shape. On Wednesday, the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) team showed a few of us from the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) Transport team around some of its project sites. As well as improving transport connections generally in east London, these latest DLR projects will help thousands of people get to the Games more easily.
Our first stop was the DLR station under construction at Woolwich Arsenal, which will serve the Shooting events at the
The Royal Artillery Barracks. The station is large for the...
Read more of “Transport progress: helping people get to the Games easily”
What a coincidence to be sharing a train journey to Bristol with academics from Bristol University who had been assisting a community consultation exercise at Hackney Wick adjacent to the Olympic Park!
I was in Bristol to give a paper on the Olympic Park at the GreenSpace conference, 'Parks for Life', which is part of the national programme 'Love Parks Week'. The conference focused on the potential for parks and green spaces to improve health and well-being.At the conference we heard from Annie Volkering, Deputy General Manager of Parks Victoria. They have placed health and well-being at the top of...
Read more of “Ship shape and Bristol fashion”
Last week me and my classmates came and saw the design work we did for the big boards around the Olympic Park site - the hoardings. We arrived at Stratford and a bus took us to Hackney Wick Community Centre where we met other schools who had also won the competition. We looked at all the designs and pictures that had been made.
Me (centre) and my classmates:
Read more of “Seeing our design on Olympic Park hoardings”
Recently, my children asked me if I would go to their primary school to talk about the London 2012 Games during their Health Week, which incorporated the annual sports day and a discussion and workshops
around the Games.
When I was at school it was very clear in my mind that being a teacher was not for me, so presenting in front of a school was not something I initially felt excited about!
Also, working in the Transport department, I wondered how could I inspire young children to be involved in the Games?
When I thought more about the opportunity to share my experiences first hand, and be part of...
Read more of “Transport goes to school”
Marc, Dancer, 18 June 2008
Wow! In a way I am glad I didn't know too much beforehand about the
Handover press conference on Monday. From the moment I arrived it hit me just how big being a part of this once in a lifetime opportunity was going to be.
I was quickly informed that I was going to be needed to say a few words in the press conference to represent CandoCo Dance Company and its involvement in both the Olympic and Paralympic Handover Ceremony in Beijing this Summer.
The way that the London 2012 team has chosen to have the same performers in both...
Read more of “Nervous excitement: Announcing our involvement in the Handover”
Today, I got the opportunity to interview some adidas athletes many of whom, are hopefuls for Beijing. Athletes included BMX rider Shanaze Reade, diver Tom Daley (who I met for the second time this week), cyclist Victoria Pendleton, Modern Pentathlete Heather Fell and swimmer Xavier Mohammed.
Many of them were involved in the launch of the new adidas Team GB kit, and came into LOCOG to hear more about what adidas has got planned for the next few months as a sponsor of the London 2012 Games. They also had the chance to find out more about what LOCOG are...
Read more of “Meeting the adidas athletes”
The preparations for the 2012 Games seems to be a hot topic of conversation among many people, so you can imagine our delight when we had a confirmed tour date of the new development. Members from the Association of Building Engineers (ABE) were given the opportunity to attend either the morning or afternoon tour. There was significant interest in the tour which meant that the majority of available places were filled.
The tour offered a great insight into the masterplan of regeneration for the area. The tour guide gave a very thorough and informative account of this and provided examples of how...
Read more of “2012 Olympic Park Tour”
We have been at Eton Manor since December 2007 and we are involved in training people to use construction machinery (diggers, trucks etc). When setting up the National College of Construction for East London site we required large amounts of crushed brick to form stock piles incorporating ramps for training purposes. So when the North Park Contractor took us around the Park looking at various stock pile heaps to see what would suit, we saw several buildings were in the process of demolition and lots of materials were being crushed and screened.
Myself and Plant Training Manager, Andy were very interested at the time in...
Read more of “Transformation of Olympic Park is unbelievable”
It has recently been confirmed that Natalia Partyka from Poland will compete in both the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Table Tennis in Beijing 2008. Since 1997, she has been a member of two table tennis clubs – one for the disabled and one for the able-bodied.
She competed in her first Paralympic Games in Sydney after winning her first table tennis medal in the disabled World Championships of 1999. She became unique in the sport when in the same year, 2004 she won her first elite medals in both able-bodied and disabled events: she won...
Read more of “Natalia: Paralympic AND Olympic athlete”
Yesterday, we launched a new education resource designed to encourage schools and colleges across the UK to celebrate Paralympic Handover on Wednesday 17 September.
Launching the new resources - Front: Young Ambassadors James and Jasmine; Back L-R: Brenda, Primary School Headteacher; Nick, Head of Education; Ade Adeptian; and Seb Coe
On 17 September, at approximately 2.45pm, the Paralympic Flag will be handed from the Mayor of Beijing to the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, signalling the moment that London becomes the next Host City and our four year build-up to the Games.
Paralympic Handover...
Read more of “Schools and colleges: celebrate Paralympic Handover with us!”
