Visioning Event Executive Summary
With the 2012 Games, Kent and Dover have a fantastic, once in a generation opportunity to ensure that the county derives the maximum benefits and ongoing legacy from this exciting event.
One of the most significant ceremonies in the build up to the Olympic Games is the Torch Relay, symbolic as it heralds peace and unity across the world prior to the commencement of the Games themselves. Following traditional rituals a torch bearing the Olympic Flame is ceremonially lit at Olympia in Greece and is carried by torchbearers until it arrives on the eve of the Games at the Olympic stadium where it lights the Olympic flame which burns for the duration of the Games.
Keen to maximise the benefits of this opportunity and that of the Games in general, Kent County Council (KCC) recognised early on that the Olympic Torch arrival and subsequent relay offers huge potential to the county and region.
KCC has successfully developed enthusiasm and support for the Torch arrival and relay and the benefits it will bring. In order to focus and formalise a myriad of enthusiastic discussions, ideas and preliminary plans, KCC hosted a Visioning Event on 20th March 2009.
This incredibly successful event hosted stakeholders, key organisations and children who openly collaborated in free flowing discussions and workshops to discuss the potential of the opportunity and contribute towards the strategic planning by Kent’s 2012 Co-ordinating Group. The Visioning Event was refreshing and empowering, and all participants, without exception, openly and willingly contributed their own time and ideas.
Children from local schoolswere invited to participate alongside the adults. Their input lifted the event to another level and in turn encouraged the adults present to forget their inhibitions, join in and just ‘imagine’ – an activity so many of us probably practice far too infrequently!
The work carried out at the Visioning Event is critical to KCC’s strategy for the arrival of the Torch and subsequent relay moving forwards. Next steps are to continue discussions with the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) as their own plans develop, to ensure Kent plans which will be developed in parallel, support and maximise the potential for LOCOG, the Olympic movement, Dover, Kent and the rest of the UK.
Since the Visioning Event, the International Olympic Committee has effectively cancelled futureinternational torch relays. National torch relays will still exist in the host countries– and, of course, in the UK. Importantly, the Olympic Flame still has to arrive in the UK, so it is still our aspiration that Dover be granted this honour.
This site is a collation of the information and outputs from the Visioning Event on March 20th and will be kept updated with all information as our own and LOCOG’s plans for the Torch and Olympic Flame develop.
