London 2012 blog

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 Six students from across the borough. Each school took on the identity of one of the nations competing at the Olympic or Paralympic Games with the flags of Costa Rica, Israel and Brazil seen streaming down the home straight before the final 8x50m relays.

Students had the chance to try a whole range of Athletics events, Boxing, Taekwondo, Trampolining and other sports as well as Paralympic Sports like Boccia, Wheelchair Basketball and Goalball.

A really nice part of the day - similar to the 2012 Games themselves - was the way that art and culture played its part too, with dance performances from a number of schools choreographed on the theme of London 2012. This included a really great dance routine from Enfield's new youth dance junior squad that was featured in front of a packed stand before the medal ceremonies:



Events on business and cultural opportunities followed on Thursday and Friday evenings and then on Saturday I was out again in the Youth Zone at the Tottenham Community Festival and Carnival, reputedly Europe's second largest carnival. Tens of thousands of local residents from across North and East London descended on Bruce Castle Park in Tottenham to enjoy performances on the main, Latin or Youth stages and visit the hundreds of stall and fairground rides, as well as enjoying the carnival passing through.

Again it was the performances of the young people on stage that took the breath away with lots of street dance acts, other fusion dance routines, singers and a very, very talented harmonica player (believe me it was better than it sounds). I didn't see all of the acts but the DLC (Dance Like Crazy) troupe were fabulous and with the harmonica and the young woman I heard sing in the sound check were certainly the highlights of the day.



It was really good to be getting out to more new communities, meeting people who hope that their child can be part of the team and parents at the other end of the spectrum who's children are already high performing athletes in Swimming events and are working already towards selection for London 2012.

Me talking to one of the visitors:



Just like Africa Day there was also a lot of interest in construction jobs on the Olympic Park site.

Our friends from the London Development Agency were also out at the Festival with their own information about the legacy plans for the Olympic Park, giving local residents the chance to identify their priorities for the new area and to take part in a short workshop to help design the Olympic Park after the Games, positioning homes, jobs and other activities on the site and discussing how they interact.

Finally, the Get Set London roadshow made its first appearance in its second run at the 'Sporting Futures - See it, Try it, Love it' event at the Lee Valley Athletics Centre on Sunday - thousands of people, great weather, the perfect end to such a concentrated programme. Watch out for the Roadshow at other events across London this summer.