Well, London 2012 will undoubtedly benefit East London and quite clearly London as a whole, but it will also absolutely, categorically, most definitely benefit the whole of the UK.

The Games are coming to life – right here, right now and there are of course the statistics to support this:

• 641 potential Pre-Games Training Camps have been included in the London 2012 Pre Games Training Camp Guide;

• 6,528 schools and colleges have signed up to Get Set, representing over 2 million students;

• Nearly 800 London 2012 Open Weekend events were held in communities across the UK from 24-26 July 2009;

• 193 Inspire Mark projects have been awarded to non-commercial projects around the UK, that are inspired by London 2012;

• 1,045 companies have already won work supplying the Olympic Delivery Authority, worth over £5 billion; and

• Just under half of these companies are based outside of London

But life is not about statistics, valid though they are. It is about experiences, interaction, those moments that really do make a difference and most importantly - people. 

The past two weeks have been full of those moments as I have accompanied Seb Coe, Paul Deighton and Charles Allen on visits to the South West, East Midlands and Yorkshire.

My whistle-stop tour of the nations and regions started last Tuesday at Bicton College and Arena, a facility in the Pre-Games Training Camp guide; home to some wonderful equestrian facilities, not to mention a beautiful horse or two.  Accompanied by Olympic Equestrian medallist, Mary King, Seb toured the facilities and watched displays of Archery, Dressage and Dance. 

We then headed to Willand School in Cullumpton who have recently become members of the Get Set Network. Whilst at the school we witnessed one of the best initiatives I have seen on my travels around the UK – Wake and Shake.  Based on the 'healthy mind, healthy body' principle, the Deputy Head takes a whole school assembly with a difference.

The kids line up in the playground at the start of the day and dance, on this occasion to Queen’s ‘Don’t stop me now’. It was brilliant, energetic and pure genius all at the same time and has had a positive effect on concentration levels of the children in lessons. This has to be rolled out across the UK… and perhaps in a few offices in Canary Wharf!

The following day I joined Paul in the East Midlands and first stop was East Midlands Airport where we were joined by Olympic Gymnast Beckie Downie, to launch an East Midlands Tourism Inspire Mark Project. 

East Midlands Tourism has commissioned photography of regional Olympians and Paralympians set in key tourist destinations, as part of a campaign to attract visitors to the region in 2012. You can see Beckie in action this month at the World Gymastics Championships.

Moving on to the New Walk Gallery in Leicester where we visited the 'Love Sport Exhibition'. Just like the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Love Sport is a marriage of sport and the arts. It uses the appeal of sport to attract an alternative demographic into one of the city's finest museums. 90,000 people have visited the exhibition in the past 6 months, many of whom are new visitors.

My favourite story however is a toss up between that of a 90-year-old man who has been in twice a day, every day, for the past 6 months to build up a sweat at the Really Sweaty Show; or, the 70-year-old who threw her birthday party at the Gallery and celebrated along with 20 of her friends by challenging one another on the Love Sport Exhibition pieces.

The next stop was Yorkshire with Nations and Regions Group Chairman, Charles Allen.

We arrived at Scarborough Spa where 200 regional representatives gathered for the morning for the launch of the York and North Yorkshire Cultural Strategy.  The strategy has maximising the opportunities from the 2012 Games as one of its core strands and the delegates listened to Charles set them the challenge to Get Involved with London 2012.

Welcome to Yorkshire hosted us for brunch and a round-table discussion about tourism where they set out their plans for attracting visitors to Yorkshire in 2012 and beyond. One major attraction as to be the stunning North Yorkshire Moors and we enjoyed a drive across them en route to Dalby Forest.

Not only is Dalby Forest a naturally beautiful playground for walkers, hikers and thrill seekers, it is a world class facility that next year will be the first ever English venue to host a round of the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup. 

The course has already been designed and built and local school-children were there yesterday trying out the course. 

Dalby only bid for the World Cup after seeing the benefits to the UK of hosting London 2012 and deciding they too wanted a piece of the action. They will certainly have that in April next year when the world's top mountain bikers -including London 2012 hopeful Annie Last - whiz around the 6km lap in under 20 minutes...I'm off now to book my weekend away in Yorkshire!