Charlie Tims
Associate
Charlie Tims recently co-wrote Video Republic, a look at the social and political significance of internet videos. He is currently involved in producing a part of the TED prize in London.
“an ability to associate with the 2012 Games on a non-commercial basis is essential if community involvement and legacy is to be realized to its full potential. We recommend to the International Olympic committee that it should work with LOCOG to identify ways of permitting this”
The need to protect corporate sponsors rights to the Olympic rings is so great that people who want to run events in association with the games effectively have two choices;
1. Make your event, programme or project *nothing* to do with the Olympic games.
2. Convince the Organising Committee that your event can be endorsed by the Olympics and then issue licences to every single participating organisation, and then make sure that those organisations do not have sponsors.
You can’t help feeling that it’s not just the term DIY Olympics which is contravening the Olympics, but the concept itself.
Why does this matter? Why should people be able to have ways of participating in the games?
When the games were projected to cost £3bn, you could almost justify such rigorous protection of the Olympic sponsor’s rights – the sale of rights was supporting a third of the budget. But with the costs now parking closer to the £10bn mark, it seems much harder justify – we’re paying for the games – shouldn’t we be able to do what we want with them?
In a world where digital cameras, mobile phone videos, flickr accounts and blogs abound,
Integrity
Thirdly, rhetorically the organizers of the games have called for participation in the games and people have responded by saying they want to. 100,000 people have expressed an interest in volunteering. Across the country community organisations, city councils are at the ready. What is energy and enthusiasm, could rapidly turn into disillusionment tomorrow without routes for this energy to be channelled.
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Every announcement I've heard so far from the Olympic organisers has been completely underwhelming. I get the horrible feeling that
they're talking to the wrong people and have very little ambition to fully use the massive creative opportunity that's been given to them. But if the London games are just a slight variation on what's been before, what's the point?
Every Olympics bid starts out with the ideals of wide community engagement, a genuinely sustainable infrastructure and the ultimate creation of a legacy which plays an ongoing role in peoples’ lives. I have yet to see one that achieved it. Too often we look back on lost opportunities, glad that the event actually worked, but reflecting on the lost opportunities ... not to mention the financial handover.
Somewhere between winning the games and hosting the event, we gradually lose our focus achieving anything other than getting the event completed successfully.
Well, it isn’t enough to just do this.
We should use the games as a catalyst to energise UK sport and community activities, particularly with children to leave an ongoing legacy of a healthier, more active, more engaged nation. We should reverse this outdated perspective of licensing and give every club, sporting group and not for profit in the UK the right to sensibly use the Olympic branding for the period which their games are in their country (and they are paying for it). We should look to embed the Olympic energy into heart of the UK, not restrict it to multinationals and a small part of London. If we truly want a peoples games, then they means involving people. Not a few hundred athletes, not a few thousand volunteers, but as many people as possible, as much as possible.