Priority Work Areas

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  The Cultural Olympiad was launched with the Open Weekend on 26-28 September 2008 and runs until the end of the Games in 2012. It will showcase the country’s arts and culture to the rest of the world (see www.london2012.com/culture).
  
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  The aim is to deliver a programme of events, festivals, projects and programmes that will provide one of the most visual and tangible examples of the opportunities London 2012 has to offer - engaging new audiences, not just in the build up to 2012, but also sustaining interest and participation in the long term.
  

1. 
   Ceremonies – extraordinary live spectacles watched on television by one in three people around the world.
   
2. 
   Major projects – A number of major cultural projects featured in the London 2012 bid, forming the backbone of the Cultural Olympiad.
   
3. 
   Inspire mark projects – local and regional events featuring in our UK-wide celebration
   

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  Inspire and involve the widest range of London and UK-wide communities;
  
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  Inspire and involve young people; and
  
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  Generate sustainable long-term benefits to our cultural life
  
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  Create outstanding moments of creative excellence across the full range of performing arts and creative industries
  
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  Connect future generations with the UK’s artistic communities and with their peers around the world
  
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  Drive tourism and inward investment and use the creative industries to boost economic regeneration; and
  
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  Embrace the Olympic movement values of ‘excellence, respect and friendship’ and the Paralympic movement vision to ‘empower, achieve, inspire’
  
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  Generate a positive legacy – for example through cultural and sports participation, audience development, cultural skills, capacity building, urban regeneration, tourism and social cohesion and international links
  

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  The main reason for taking part is that it enables public and voluntary organisations to reach new audiences through the LOCOG promotional machinery (this will be significant - through the LOCOG website, press and media. Local press will also follow through)
  
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  There are no new resources for delivering the Discovering Places project. In other county’s partner organisations are using their own budgets and where possible, working to secure match funding. It is possible that one of the London 2012 sponsors might want to support Discovering Places, but there are no guarantees
  

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  Start planning now in order to seize and make the most of the potential benefits
  

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  Working with new audiences, trying new mediums and forging partnerships where there just wasn’t the impetus to previously.
  

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  Promotion and profile (status)
  
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  Connection with a new and broader target audience thought the inspiration of the Olympic brand
  
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  Opportunity for creative thinking and to promote activities in new and unusual venues
  
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  Inspiration of the Games can be a catalyst for enhancing existing programmes and plans and a vehicle to support delivery plans. For example – a number of the LAA targets
  

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  Most of our cultural infrastructure is local, not regional or national. Local government controls the majority of the resources that can be aligned with the Cultural Olympiad at the local level.  Every year local government spends about £2billion on cultural, sport, tourism, leisure and recreation services.  Local government is the second largest funder of the arts after the Arts Council
  
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  Local government is at the heart of harnessing the transformational potential of culture and that is why councils have a critical role to play in ensuring that every community in the UK plays its part in the Cultural Olympiad
  
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  Councils can provide expertise on using culture in its widest sense to engage young people and other harder to reach communities with the Cultural Olympiad
  
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  Councils are also ideally placed to make the local connections between, for example, culture and sports participation, and culture and community involvement   
  

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  Bring together culture and sport
  
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  Encourage audiences to take part
  
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  Animate and humanise public spaces – through street theatre, public art, circus skills, live big screen sites
  
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  Use culture and sport to raise issues of environmental sustainability, health and well-being
  
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  Honour and share the values of the Olympic and Paralympic Games
  
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  Ignite cutting edge collaborations and innovation between communities and cultural sectors; and
  
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  Enhance the learning, skills and personal development of young people by linking with our education programmes.
  

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  In September 2007 the Department for Culture, Media and Sport appointed the West Midlands Creative Programmer. With the support of key regional agencies in the cultural sector the Creative Programmer will develop plans for the delivery of an inspiring Cultural Olympiad, which will generate a sustainable legacy of participation in cultural activities.
  

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  Paul Kaynes the West Midlands Creative Programmer: p.kaynes@culturewm.org.uk
  

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  Worcestershire 2012 Opportunities Coordinator: Peter Turvey pturvey@worcestershire.gov.uk
  

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  Major projects
  
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  www.london2012.com/culture
  

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  In most instances there won’t be extra funding available to support local Cultural Olympiad activities so the realignment of some current resources will be necessary in supporting the Cultural Olympiad. Therefore councils need to be proactive in identifying what can be achieved within existing resources.  For example, by incorporating the Cultural Olympiad values into your area’s existing cultural offer, or giving planned cultural events an Olympics-related theme or twist
  
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  Find out plans for regional cultural activity from your Regional Creative Programmer (RCP), feed in local cultural priorities from your local plans, and identify how your council might be able to get involved to boost local cultural participation.
  
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  Put forward a local cultural project for the Inspire Mark.  If the application is successful the project will receive official recognition that it’s been inspired by the Olympic and Paralympic values and be able to use the Inspire Mark branding.  Apply to your Regional Creative Programmer
  
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  Identify potential links to other projects, such as the National Year of Reading 
  

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  Note: The Legacy Trust UK has allocated £2.2 million to the West Midlands to develop dance opportunities and deliver Community Olympian Games across the Region and this provides an opportunity to draw down resources to support the delivery of the Cultural Olympiad (See ‘Legacy Trust’ Briefing Sheet)
  

What are councils already doing? 

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  Many councils are already thinking about how they might use the Games to spark new interest in culture and councils have already made a major contribution towards the Cultural Olympiad by making possible a large proportion of the 600 events nationwide for the Open Up weekend, September 26-28.
  
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  Examples include:
  
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  Kent invited young people to join an international community of young story tellers to make a film about what the Games mean to a young person in Kent
  
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  The Olympic and Paralympic Games will be the main theme of Worcestershire’s “Museum on the Move” in 2009
  
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  Hampshire is exploring linking its existing food festivals to the Games 
  
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  Brighton & Hove City Council is working with a range of partners to develop a spectacular arts and culture programme in the lead up to 2012, further establishing Brighton & Hove as a vibrant place to live and visit
  
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  2012 is the bicentenary of Charles Dickens’ birth and Kent County Council is working with Medway District Council and Portsmouth City Council on how best to maximise the Dickens effect – tying it in with the Cultural Olympiad’s literature programme  
  
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  Olympic Handover Festival (see separate Briefing Note for a summary of this in Worcestershire), on the weekend of 26^th to 28^th Sept - over 40 events across the West Midlands took place as part of the Cultural Olympiad Open Weekend; ranging from rare natural habitats and venues opening their usually closed doors to the public; to outdoor theatrical performances; community arts trails; artists opening their work spaces to the public; dance; music and story-telling.
  
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  Full details of Cultural Olympiad Open Weekend events in the West Midlands can be found at Get involved: Find an event - London 2012
  
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  A “Light up Dover” event was hailed a huge success attracting crowds of well over the 5,000
  

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  William Penny Brookes was the founder of the Wenlock Olympian Games and the direct inspiration for the modern Olympics. His vision - of a Games which included both sport and the arts - inspired Pierre de Coubertin, when he visited the Games in Much Wenlock in 1890, to found the modern Olympics as a celebration of both sporting and artistic excellence. It’s that inspirational vision we’re rekindling with the Cultural Olympiad.