Olympic Festival Fun For All!
Tomorrow the Council will be submitting a bid to the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) for the Bedford International Athletics Stadium to be granted the status of an 'Olympics Live Site' next summer. If successful, this will see us awarded a grant of £7,500 and will enable us to stage a free fun-filled festival of sport at the stadium during the Olympics, featuring a big screen showing all the action live, including the men's 100 metre final, and opportunities to have a go on the top class facilities on offer, especially for young people.
The aim is that by staging weekend-long event with the big screen, demonstration events and 'have-a-go' sessions in amongst the live sport, we can give local residents the chance to enjoy a shared olympic experience close to home, while also encouraging people to take advantage of the excellent facilities we have at the stadium and other leisure sites around Bedford. There will be tremendous enthusiasm surrounding the Olympics next summer, and I believe we have an opportunity to translate that enthusiasm into lasting benefits such as an increase in the number of local young people taking part in and enjoying sport and growth in the local voluntary-run sports clubs. Current thoughts around the event are currently focusing on holding an 'Olympic Festival' over the first weekend of the athletics events with the big screen showing, for example, Jessica Ennis competing for gold and, as a climax to the weekend, the men's 100 metre final on the Sunday evening. With the screen hire and other infrastructure in place for the remainder of the week it could be offered to particular groups, especially of children and young people, including the holiday playschemes and gameschemes which run during August.
This is of course dependent upon LOCOG looking favourably on our bid, so I have my fingers crossed! We will be informed shortly as to whether we have been successful.
Of course, those people who are able to come along and enjoy the Olympics with an enthusiastic crowd in a local stadium at no cost will hopefully quite simply have a great time, and perhaps even forget any lingering disappointment that may still be there over the official ticket ballot!