Outside the Downtown Eastside Residents Association office on Hastings Street East in Vancouver, Canada.

1) Support the development of 3,200 social housing units rather than a new roof for BC Place
2) Support legislative changes that would protect renters
3) Support the UN Human Rights Complaints Against Canada related to SRO Housing Conversions www.noplacelikehomevancouver.org
4) Support a $1 Homelessness Levy on Olympic Tickets and Merchandising to be matched by the Provincial and Federal Governments.

can skip to the front of the line and buy your 2010 Winter Olympics tickets sooner.

Guaranteed ticket and hotel packages go on sale Friday through VANOC sponsor CoSport on a first-come, first-served basis.

Sticker shock is likely when prices are also revealed on Friday via the New Jersey company’s website. During the Beijing Games, CoSport charged $468 US a night at the four-star China People’s Palace hotel. Pre- and post-Olympic room rates were $88 US to $150 US.

VANOC and CoSport’s parallel five-week ticket application windows opened last Friday.

Residents of United States, Australia and various European countries will pay a hefty markup on the prices VANOC is offering to Canadian residents. For example, a $1,118 opening ceremony ticket for Canadian residents is US$1,294 through CoSport.

No line if you pay up

markup is a whopping $281 after currency conversion.

from http://vancouver.24hrs.ca

Seats for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver go on sale Friday, but fans don’t have to worry about getting a wristband or camping out all night to get a space in line.

Instead of selling tickets on a first-come, first-served basis, the Vancouver Organizing Committee has given fans five weeks to submit their choices online.

The seats will then be distributed equally by computer, regardless of when the request was made. When demand exceeds supply, a lottery will determine who gets which seats.

But people who choose one of several dozen ticket packages that include a variety of events will get priority over those buying individual seats.

Prices for individual tickets range from $25 for events like Nordic skiing to over $1,000 for the top seats at the opening and closing ceremonies and do not include service and delivery charges.

VANOC has already announced there will be no public parking at any of the events, so service fees will include access to some Olympic buses and public transit.

But the cost of a seat on a special bus between Vancouver and events in Whistler, B.C. will be extra.

Organizers say the online ticket ordering system has been vigorously tested and will be able to withstand the expected pressure of hundreds of people logging on.

VANOC has also reduced the number of seats available to Olympic officials, International Olympic Committee members and official sponsors in an effort to avoid having thousands of empty seats in the stands, as happened in Beijing.

Officials also promised to crackdown on ticket scalping by setting up VANOC’s own online ticket reselling service.

from http://www.cbc.ca/canada

Residents in the area are asked to form groups of 10, with an adult chaperone, to register for “exciting” volunteer opportunities leading up to and during the 2010 Winter Games.

Donna Wilson, VANOC executive vice president, workforce and sustainability said, “volunteers from previous Games tell us that being an Olympic or Paralympic volunteer is one of the most rewarding experiences they’ve ever had and we know that will also ring true here in 2010. We’re looking for enthusiasm, dedication and a commitment to demonstrating the very best of Canada and what we all represent. There are many opportunities for talented young people to contribute to the success of the Games. So please show your heart and play your part by volunteering for the 2010 Winter Games”.

The Vancouver 2010 official website http://www.vancouver2010.com provides more information

Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/timfarley/2654073113/
Vanoc hopes to embrace a resort mentality where one call will lead to any service.

So when athletes begin checking in to the Vancouver and Whistler villages, Vanoc’s vice-president of services and villages wants them to know they will only have one number to call if they need anything.

One number for a wake-up call. The same number for laundry service. And for any kind of help. He doesn’t want them distracted from their efforts on the field of play.

It is a concept that has never been used before at the Games, he said. In the past, organizing committees have used an old style of multiple employees for single needs that wastes resources and increases the possibility that important tasks will get overlooked.

Sarp knows what he’s talking about.

Before he came to work for the Vancouver Organizing Committee three years ago, he spent much of his career managing properties for high-end hotel chains, including Intercontinental, Hilton, Pan Pacific and Mandarin Oriental.

He’s lived in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, the U.S. and Turkey.

He brought in Service One at hotels in Yokohama and Singapore, he said, and it will work at the Olympics.

“It’s a hotel resort concept, no question. That’s been our vision from day one.”

Last week, Sarp wrapped up a 10-day observation tour of the Beijing Games. He came over after the Olympics to watch how the Beijing Organizing Committee converted the athletes village and food services for the Paralympics.

What he found, he said, was a smooth operation that quickly sorted out accommodation issues for nearly 6,500 athletes and coaches from 148 countries.

Bocog put massive amounts of young manpower into making the Games work but didn’t use the Service One concept.

Beijing’s model is one he says he can’t afford to use in Vancouver, where he wants to deliver the same service with less staff.

“We won’t have the sheer numbers that they have here. In the villages, for example, they have more than one-to-one, one workforce for one guest. There is no way in hell we can do that in Vancouver, nor do we want to do that in Vancouver.”

Sarp said the key for him is to have one employee deal with many areas of responsibility.

“Our style of delivery is going to be very different, and the reason it’s going to be different is because we are going to need to work in a multi-functional approach.

“That way, unlike most hotels where you have a room service button and a housekeeping button and a front office button and a bell desk button, you call one location with one button and all your needs are channelled through that concept.”

read more http://www.canada.com

Visitors from around the world meet Vancouver at Vancouver International, and 2010 Olympic organizers are making a big bid to make sure they are greeted by a strong representation of the 2010 Games.

Vanoc and Vancouver International Airport have just opened their first dedicated Vancouver 2010 store, a 1,300-square-foot boutique located in the international departures area of the facility.

“It’s an ideal market for us, and an ideal place for us to be,” said Caley Denton, Vanoc’s vice-president of ticketing and consumer marketing

“People who come to Vancouver look for 2010 merchandise, and if they can get it conveniently at the airport, that’s a great thing for us.

“At the same time, local people who are going abroad and want to take a gift with them, they know they can pick [2010 gear] up at the airport.”

Vanoc expects sales of licensed merchandise to generate $46 million in royalties to support its budget. To earn that revenue will require $500 million in total sales. At the end of April, some $7.8 million were earned in merchandising royalties, according to Vanoc’s latest quarterly report.

Read more - http://www.canada.com

“Cheaters Beware” was the warning yesterday, as organizers of the 2010 Winter Olympics announced plans for a state-of-the-art, multimillion dollar anti-doping laboratory to be built at one of the Games’ own venues, the signature speed-skating oval in the sprawling suburb of Richmond, B.C.

“You can’t stop people from taking drugs, but if you come to Vancouver, we’re likely to find you,” declared Dick Pound, VANOC board member and the former head of the World Anti-Doping Agency.

“This will be an absolutely first-class effort … Whatever the most modern tests are, they’ll be here.”

The 2010 anti-doping program will be headed by Christiane Ayotte, director of the world-renowned doping control laboratory in Montreal.

VANOC president John Furlong said the organization’s goal is to host “a doping-free Games.”

Housing and equipping the Games’ anti-doping laboratory at the spacious speed-skating oval will more than double the cost to $9.1-million, up from VANOC’s original budget estimate of $4.1-million.

Ayotte said it makes sense to have anti-doping facilities as close to Olympic venues as possible. “If something is weird, then we can collect another sample from the athlete immediately. It’s much more efficient.”

Except for cross-country skiers with a history of blood doping, the Winter Olympics produce fewer dope cheats than the Summer Games.

read more - http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet

As part of the $3 million Official Supplier partnership, Canada Post will supply VANOC with mail delivery services within Canada. In addition, Canada Post - as an authorized user of VANOC trademarks - will design, produce and sell more than half a billion 2010 Winter Games-themed stamps and associated philatelic products, including collectors’ packages and special cancellations. In turn, Canada Post receives sponsorship rights for the Canadian Olympic team for the Beijing 2008, Vancouver 2010 and London 2012 Games. Stamps will be issued to celebrate all three Games.
“Canada Post has a natural role to play in delivering images and memories of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games to Canadians and customers around the world. Our partnership gives us an unparalleled opportunity to showcase Canada Post’s strengths as a world-class postal operator,” said Stewart Bacon, Canada Post’s Chief Sales and Marketing Officer. “This investment means we will earn significant revenues from commemorative Olympic stamps and other related products, starting with Beijing 2008 stamps, which launch this month.”

read more - http://www.allnationsstampandcoin.com

Whistler will be the centre of activity, but some of the venues will be in Vancouver, Richmond and the cities are cleaning up and getting ready for the 2010 Olympics. This is part of the business district, close to Canada Place; General Motors Place, where a lot of the ice hockey will take place is just east of here and U.B.C., to the west. Towers seem to be going up everywhere in the city and the province seems to be thriving with the prospect of the Olympics coming to the area. The two pro teams, the B.C. Lions ; Vancouver Canucks play at centres nearby. Various forms of transport, including skytrain and the seabus are close. Yaletown, Chinatown and Gastown are within walking distance, as is Stanley Park. Whistler is about 70 K from here.

From http://flickr.com/photos/59492428@N00/326925841/

Life during the 2010 Games won’t quite be business as usual for local residents of host cities, say Vancouver’s Olympic organizers.

From road closures to parking restrictions to security cordons, people living around venues will have to modify their daily lives, but organizers promise they’ll at least still be able to go out and buy a carton of milk.

How they’ll get there, how late the store will be open and whether they’ll have to walk around a security cordon, is anybody’s guess for now.

Residents around Olympic venue sites are learning for the first time a little bit more about what impact the 2010 Games will have on their day-to-day lives.

A series of information sessions being held by Olympic organizers began Tuesday night in Whistler, B.C., and are expected to continue Wednesday with an event near the speed skating oval in Richmond, B.C.

More than 200 people packed the Whistler session to learn more about how the Games will affect the community.

The mountain resort will be home to all the Nordic events for the 2010 Winter Games.

There will be no public parking in Whistler Village during the Games and access to venue sites will be restricted to people with tickets or accreditation from Olympic officials.

People with tickets to events will be also given access to public transit, but details around that program have not been revealed.

BC Transit recently issued a call for proposals from transit management companies to oversee transportation requirements during the Games in the Sea-to-Sky corridor of B.C., which encompasses Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton.

According to the request for proposals, a special transit plan will be in place for the Games, which will involve up to 75 buses plus six mini-buses.

That’s in addition to extra buses being added to the existing fleets that serve Whistler and the other cities.

Getting around will also be made more difficult by the security requirements of the Games, being co-ordinated by the RCMP along with local police forces and the military.

Though barricades will not be placed around public areas, further details on how security will affect road closures or the areas around venues won’t be finalized for some time.

But Cpl. Manon Chouinard of the Integrated Security Unit told the session that as soon as there was information available that would affect the daily lives of residents, they’ll know.

“(Planners) are not leaving one stone unturned in order to be familiar and know what is around those venues and how we can minimize the impact,” she said.

“That is one of the No.1 priorities.”

When it comes to policing, response times will be about the same, Chouinard said, but extra officers will be added to areas like traffic security to help keep the roads moving in case of an accident.

Police officers throughout B.C. will also be pulled from non-security related obligations where possible, like testifying at trials.

The session was the first of 10 organizers are holding over the summer to give people living near venues a snapshot of how their daily lives will look during the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Tuesday night’s presentation was good on concept but short on details that many Whistler residents crave, said local businessman John Morrow.

Morrow said he’s attended a number of sessions now with both Olympic organizers and local business groups and is still confused on how exactly the daily grind of the city will be affected.

Business owners, especially those not working in services directly connected to the Games, need more details now, Morrow said.

“They are talking about delivering but they haven’t delivered yet,” he said.

“Until someone can actually say ‘this is what you are going to be given to work with,’ we can’t actually formulate our own business plan.”

From http://canadianpress.google.com

from http://flickr.com/photos/blackbird_hollow/2514647584/

Pivot Legal Society demands action on shelter stats

Vancouver - Pivot Legal Society is demanding that the City of Vancouver place a moratorium on tickets given to people sleeping outside in light of newly released shelter statistics that say homeless individuals, on over 40,000 separate occasions, were refused access to shelters in Metro Vancouver over a nine month period. Over 17,000 of these turn away incidents involved women and families.

“These turnaway statistics are alarming,” said lawyer David Eby of the Pivot Legal Society. “We have bylaw officers, police officers and security guards cracking down on people who sleep outside, but these statistics make it clear that there is nowhere else to sleep.”

The statistics cannot be extrapolated into numbers of homeless individuals, because neither the participating shelters nor B.C. Housing can say whether the same individuals are being turned away from multiple shelters on any given night or whether individuals give up after visiting just one shelter. The statistics on families and women may count families as one person, or may count children as well as parents, making those numbers less certain as well.

“We need a provincial investigation of the real number of people who can’t find shelter,” said Eby. “We’re calling for a moratorium on police and bylaw officers ticketing people who sleep outside until we figure out whether our shelter system has been overwhelmed by demand.”

There are currently 1,028 known shelter beds in Metro Vancouver, according to the document. The GVRD Homelessness Count indicated that there were 2,592 homeless people counted during its biennial 24 hour count in March of 2008.

Pivot Legal Society released two open letters, one to Sam Sullivan - Mayor of the City of Vancouver and Chair of the Police Board - calling for a moratorium on bylaw and Trespass Act tickets given to the homeless, and one to Rich Coleman - B.C.’s Minister responsible for housing - calling for a formal investigation into the capacity of Metro Vancouver’s emergency shelter system.

Source: David Eby’s Official Vancouver 2010 Olympics Newswire

Organizers have announced they’ll hold a series of 10 meetings beginning next week and over the summer in communities around Olympic venues.

“It’s the first step in sharing with the residents who live in communities where there is a Games venue what that experience will be like in terms of their work, their play, their day-to-day life and also give them a sense of what’s going to happen when,” said Renee Smith-Valade, vice-president of the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee, known as VANOC.

The sessions, which follow private conversations organizers have had with city officials and community boards, will address such topics as what time venues will open and close, what sorts of infrastructure will be built around them to support Games activities and what events will be taking place inside.

Vancouver organizers will return twice more to the 10 affected communities, once next spring and again next fall.

With the meetings beginning next week, VANOC will run ads and keep the information on their website current so people can plan to attend, Smith-Valade said.

Keith Jacobson, president of the Killarney Community Centre Society, said this month’s meeting is the first time his community-at-large has heard from VANOC and he was unaware until Tuesday afternoon that the meeting had been set for next month.

The east-end neighbourhood is home to a training venue for short-track speed skating, and the rink abuts a community centre that’s home to dozens of programs from day care to fitness classes.

What concerns him most, Jacobson said, is how security measures for the Games are going to restrict community activities.

“It’s a community centre and the Olympics are supposed to be a community event and if you close down the swimming pool, what’s the community going to think?” he said, adding that for services like day care, provision is needed year-round.

“You have to be respectful of the community during the Olympics. I understand security, I understand the threat of terrorism but you also have to keep in mind the community.”

Smith-Valade said specific information on security is still some months away.

“We’re not ready at a detailed level yet,” she said.

“Our goal is by fall of 2009, they will have a very clear sense of all of the information they will need to plan their daily lives during the Games but the information will come out in degrees and in stages.”

Clay Yandle, who lives near the curling venue in Vancouver, said he’s opposed to the Games but it’s the right thing for organizers to be reaching out to the community.

He said given that there’s still over a year left to go until the Olympics, he understands why organizers are only coming to his backyard now, but he feels the lines of communication should have been opened sooner.

He said the full implication of having the Games in people’s own backyard extends beyond the days of athletic competition.

“It’s going to be almost two months when it is said and done because there has to be some sort of giant security sweep that’s done well in advance of opening day and all that,” said Yandle, who also sits on the board of the Riley Park Community Centre.

“That’s something that I don’t think people realize.”

During the Games itself, he said, he and many of his neighbours plan to leave town.

Yandle said residents of Riley Park are more excited about the fact that after the Games, the curling venue will be turned into a community centre, though funding for that hasn’t yet been approved.

Tammie Tupechka heads a community group fighting against the Olympics’ use of an east-end ice rink called Britannia as another training venue, in part because of security concerns and because of the potential for service disruptions.

She said community consultation should move beyond the venue communities and into the community at large.

She pointed out that over this past winter, both Riley Park and Killarney rinks were closed for pre-Olympic touch-ups, leaving Britannia the only rink serving a wide population.

If it becomes a Games venue too, she said, where are communities supposed to work and play together during the Games?

Tupechka said Vancouver organizers have continually made promises that the community will be involved in the execution of the Games.

“VANOC wants to get whatever it needs done and I don’t think it really cares,” she said.

“They want to put the Olympics on, they want it to be a certain way and that’s the way it is. There is no connection with the community, with any community.”

From http://victoriastar.canadaeast.com/article/322047