Olympics Planning - One year to go

As Hounslow's lead on the Cabinet for the Olympics, on Friday I attended Lampton School's amazing end of term Olympic assembly.  Khulbir Bhaura, GB Hockey team, Seoul and a member of the Indian Gymkana club in Osterley, brought his medals and described the elation of finally winning gold after years of struggle.  On Wednesday I'd met Ade Adepitan, GB Wheelchair Basketball, who had fought bullying at school and 12 years of struggle, to get onto the Olympic bronze medal winning team in 2004.  Both were inspirational speakers, ordinary youngsters who'd been given a chance, saw the end goal, and fought against all odds to get there.   The year 7-10s at Lampton had spent 3 days learning about the Olympics, with workshops and a massive range of taster sessions of different sports (including wheelchair basketball).  It culminated in the assembly and balloon launch before the students were sent off for the summer, hopefully taking a bit of that enthusiam and aspiration with them.

On the Council side, we're getting our heads around the implications of the 2012 Olympics for the borough over the next year.  We set up the Olympics Project Board which I chair in the spring, bringing together the various officers, Council and others, who will have a role to play. We are required to make sure everything we are responsible for runs smoothly, to have contingency plans in case things go wrong, ensure our core services continue to run as normal, as well as the more exciting work of making the place look nice and welcoming, and co-ordinating the many regular and special events that will take place in hte borough over the next year.  It's going to mean taking people off their day job some of the time, even full-time for one or two - very difficult when resource pressures are so tight at the Council now.

The most important theme will be ensuring there is a legacy from the 2012 Olympics in the borough.  We have no Olympic venues in Hounslow, but we hope to use the opportunity of the Olympics to increase participation in sport, physical activity and culture, raise the borough's profile and promote our towns and villages as places to visit and for businesses to invest.  The lesson from the Sydney Olympics is that, the more you plan for this "soft" legacy, the better the long-term impact.  Once the opening ceremony is upon us, it will be too late to invest in anything long-lasting.

We've got a lot to do from a standing start, and it's going to need a lot of co-ordination and planning.  

• On Friday I met Ruth Williams, a maths teacher at Lampton, who has used the national "Get Set"  programme to plan a whole programme of activites from this week through next year.  She is really keen to link up with other schools through Get Set and to set up a schools network - so that's now on the agenda for the first Deputy Heads meeting of next term.
• The torch relay will be going through the borough on or around the 24th July - a massive event that will bring thousands onto the streets and selected local people will get the chance to carry the torch
• The Big Dance - is going to be a massive West London series of events on Hounslow High Street, and culminating in a record breaking Bollywood dance spectacular at Lampton Park on the 7th July.
• Traffic officers have been working for some months now on the Olympic Route Network - our bit is the A4 through Chiswick and there'll be some restrictions on that for most of the summer.
• There's also the Queen's Diamond Jubilee to plan for, and many other events, annual such as the Barrio and the Mela which will be bigger than usual, and one-off cmmunity events.

We'll be developing a Hounslow Olympic web-site so future up-dates will be posted on there at regular intervals.  Meanwhile, do get in touch via Olympics@hounslow.gov.uk and register your interest.