Cathy Le Feuvre

Inspirational

This past couple of weeks have been truly inspirational.

The London 2012 Games started with a fantastic Opening Ceremony in the Olympic Stadium in East London, has seen some magnificent performances from medal winners and those who've just missed out, and even more amazing stories of sports people triumphing over disaster to compete.

But it's away from the Games themselves that I've found my personal inspiration.

I've been working for More Than Gold, the agency set up to encourage and support churches as they get involved in the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. I've been working in the Media Centre which was set up just for the Olympics to help spread the news of what the British churches, and Christians, have been doing across the Games.

Churches across the nation have been getting together to host fantastic community events, thousands of volunteers have been out in the streets and at events helping people to enjoy the Games, hundreds of people have opened their homes to complete strangers through something called the More Than Gold Athlete Family Homestay programme. More Than Gold Games Pastors have been out at transport hubs as additional support for travellers and particularly our international visitors, and a million bottles of water have been distributed.

In the Media Centre we've been telling these stories, encouraging media to cover what the church is doing....and we've had some really good coverage.

I've met people from different nations who've come to volunteer in the Media Centre, made some new friends and worked with old friends. It's all been really good fun and very positive.

But the most inspirational moments for me came this morning at the More Than Gold / Athletes in Action Legacy Breakfast, an event held to honour committment and character on the field of sport and off. Two Christian sportspeople, Olympian rower Debbie Flood and Olympian Decathlete Bryan Clay were presented with the first ever Eric Liddell Award, and we also heard from Eric Liddell's daughters Heather and Patricia as we were reminded of that amazing athlete's Christian witness as well as his sporting achievements.

The Legacy Breakfast had a couple of other special guests, Stephanie Cook, the modern pentathlon Olympic gold medal winner who is also a doctor and Stefanie Reid, a long jumper and runner and a medal winning Paralympian.

The whole morning was inspiring and but for me, Stef Reid's story was the most challenging, impressive and motivational. 

When she was just 16 Stef lost her right foot in a boating accident. For someone as sporty as Stef, with dreams of being a rugby player, you'd think suddenly becoming an amputee would crush her and her ambitions.

But no - today she stood on a platform at London's Methodist Central Hall and told several hundred people how she was inspired, by her family, friends, complete strangers, and her Christian faith, to still reach her full potential.

Listening to Stef was truly humbling. She reminded me that whatever life throws at you, with belief in yourself, and faith, anything is possible. In my case, it may not be striving for Olympic sporting gold, but I can take this thought, and inspiration into many areas of my life.

And I'll be watching the upcoming London 2012 Paralympics with even more interest now!

 

Going with the Olympic Flow

So, it's almost upon us! The Greatest Sporting Circus is about to hit town....or to be more specific....London!

With just a day or two to go now before the Olympic opening ceremony at the magnificent Olympic Stadium in Stratford in East London the country is gearing up for the excitement and, after months of poor summer weather, the sun has come out at last!

There's so much to say on this if you're a journalist. Disasters with the private security contract - the Army has been mustered. Transport issues - will the London Underground cope with all the extra bodies? Is it fair that there are priority lanes on the road which will ensure that most normal drivers will spend hours in traffic jams? The 'Branding Issue' - the brand police purportedly ensuring that only official Olympic brands are seen... anywhere.... during the next two weeks! But all those questions have been and are being and will be discussed, picked over and mauled to death and most of us are tired of it all right now.

For some the excitement is just too much. The Torch Relay, which is coming to an end and is now making its final progress through the London boroughs on its approach to the East End and the Olympic Park, is creating a bit of a minor frenzy. Our TV carries feature after feature of smiling people enjoying the sight of the torch....the nearest most of them will get to an Olympics event because most Londoners, and indeed Brits, haven't actually been able to get their hands on tickets.

For others, of course, this is just the tedious end to a tedious seven years of constant Olympics since London won the bid for the event in 2005. Some people will leave the country, others will have a TV fast for the fortnight from Friday and I'm guessing many more will pretend to be interested as their family, friends and colleagues gush unendingly while they silently wonder, with a sinking heart, 'WHEN will it end?' Two weeks (or just over that) is an awfully long time if you're a dissenter.

I'm no sports person but I'm excited. I freely admit it. Not that I have tickets for an event, or have pushed through a crowd to catch a glimpse of the Torch -  it was 15 minutes away from my village today but .... I was busy and it was hot and ...quite frankly I just couldn't be bothered.

I accept that the transport will be a nightmare but .... what's new? London's transport system is often a nightmare and if you want to go anywhere in a hurry then you probably need to note that London is not the place for you, at any time of the year.

As for the Olympic Priority Lanes, I had to drive into Central London last weekend and got to go down one of the special bits of road (the restrictions don't take effect until tomorrow morning) Did I feel a bit special? I can't quite decide. I don't drive into London that often and I do feel sorry for those who will be inconvenienced and may even lose business by all the Olympic restrictions. Their  plight may be eased a little if those of us who really don't have to drive into the city just leave the car at home for the next little while.

But I'm still exited because I AM involved in the Olympics, albeit on the fringe!

I've lived with it for years. When working at The Salvation Army UK as Head of Media I was involved as part of a team negotiating and preparing for the hosting of an Olympic venue. The Salvation Army is, as far as I know, the first church in the world to host an Olympic event. At the Army's Hadleigh Farm in Essex the Mountain Bike Event will be held on a specially created course. The legacy will live on there with a community course run by the Army's partner Essex County Council. That's an amazingly exciting prospect.

Thousands of churches across the British Isles have embraced the spirit of the Olympics and I've been involved, just a little, helping to tell their story. More Than Gold, the agency established by all the main denominations to help churches make the most of the Games, is supporting the London organisers as well as the churches and other groups and I've been working one day a week for them since January.

Now I'm about to pick up my little bag and head into London where I'll be part of a great team in the first ever church Media Centre for the Olympic Games. From Friday we ( a team of media guys drawn from a range of organisations) will be manning phones, pointing people to stories and spokespeople, answering questions, sending out daily bulletins with the aim of ensuring that media in particular are aware of what the churches are doing. It's a real honour to be involved.

So - although I'm sure I'll have a few moments over the next fortnight or so when I may join the ranks of the Moaning Minnies, especially when buses don't arrive or are overstuffed (I'm going to try to avoid the London Underground at all costs) or I can't stand another news bulletin with nothing but Olympics stories - I'm determined to be pragmatic about it all.

I've decided I'm just going to go with the Olympic Flow, to get my work done and try to be helpful to and smile for all the lost tourists I'm bound to meet. And also I'm going to remind myself that this is history in the making around me.  I'm unlikely to see anything of the kind again in my lifetime and even though I'm on the fringes, I'm involved.

And .... after all .... it's only two weeks! That is, until the Paralympics....but that's another story.

And if I have the energy to post updates, I'm going to do so ..... watch this space!

 

 

 

Time for a BBC Sports Channel

My first memories of television will show my age .... but here goes.

'Andy Pandy' and 'The Wooden Tops' - early kids programmes featuring puppets and all in glorious black and white. The programmes, I believe, were part of something called 'Watch With Mother' although whether my mum sat down with us kids to watch I can't recall.  I do also remember seeing a funeral service on TV - very solemn - and I think that was probably the funeral of Winston Churchill, former British Prime Minister.

In those days and for many years, UK TV watchers only had a couple of channels to chose from - the BBC (1+2), then ITV (Independent Television) and eventually two other commercial stations Channel 4 and 5 .... and all on the 'terrestrial' channels which came to us on an 'analogue' signal via our TV aerials.

Zip forward forty odd years and we're now in a digital world when we have access to literally hundreds of TV (and radio) stations via 'digital platforms' galore. It no longer matters if a programme is transmitted on one of the 'main' BBC or commercial channels. Now space can be found on a digital channel and we can 'surf' away to our hearts content and find many new programmes, and many many many repeats!

By the end of this year or thereabouts the 'analogue' signal in the UK will be switched off for the final time, everyone will have 'switched' to digital and we'll all be in the new world where it will matter not if a programme is transmitted on BBC 1 or BBC 2 or indeed any other channel.

Already the BBC is making changes based on this new world. They've already announced that Children's Programmes will come off the 'main' BBC (1+2) channels and in future will only be found on the existing BBC Kids channels. We already also have a BBC News channel with the majority of news carried there, and a BBC Parliament channel which carries politics live or 'as live'.

So,  if we're going down the 'ghettoising' of programming route there's an idea I'd like to float.

To any BBC executives reading this - If you're intent of putting programmes into a virtual alcove on separate channels, PLEASE START WITH SPORT! AND PARTICULARLY FOOTBALL!

Right now, during the European Cup Football Tournament, our 'main' BBC channels are dominated by hours and hours of 'live' coverage. It's not just the matches, but all the chitter chatter and so called 'expert' comment that preceeds each match and chews up hours of TV time during 'half time breaks' and then again at the end of each match. Before the match they try to predict what is likely to happen. At the end of the match they spend precious time trying to explain why what they said would/might happen didn't happen. It's SO tedious and uninteresting for people like me and it sort of makes me want to scream.

I don't so much mind the matches themselves but it's all the drivel that is the commentary that really bores me rigid. Tonight, for instance BBC 1 started it's coverage of the Sweden-England match at 7pm and it's not expected to end until 10pm....and it'll probably over run the schedule because the start of the match was delayed due to bad weather.

On the flip side, there are sporting tournaments which I would rather watch uninterrupted by other programmes - the Olympics this summer from London may turn out to be one example and I would love to be able to watch the tennis from Wimbledon this summer without having to stop watching because it's time for a programme about DIY or even a news programme.

In the digital world of television WHY does sport need to be on the 'main channels'? We have quite a number of BBC Channels already so why not just shift things around a bit  ... why not put sport on just one, and not mix sport with other interests at all?

Before you start clamouring about my philistine attitude towards sport ... yes I know that ITV (the main UK commercial station) is also carrying lengthy hours of football from the same tournament, but the commercial channels aren't solely funded by MY money.

The BBC is wholly funded by people like me who have to pay an annual (rather expensive) licence fee, so I feel I have a right to a say in how they spend my money. 

So here it is Mr and/or Ms BBC - here's that idea again, and I won't even charge you for it.

Put sport on JUST ONE BBC CHANNEL and then I'll know which one to avoid when there's a tournament which I can't bear and I'll also know which channel I need to flick to for the tennis.

 

The 'other' Relay

Excitement is mounting here in the UK.

After years of build-up, miles of news and online copy, hundreds of hours of reports on radio and tv .... today we see, at LAST,  the REAL start of the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics season!

Today the Olympic flame arrives in the UK from Greece and and tomorrow the Torch containing that flame will start its epic 8,000 mile journey across the country, visiting thousands of communities and coming within 10 miles of 95% of people living in the UK, the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey.

The Torch Relay will involve  8,000 people each of whom will get to 'bear' the torch for about 300 metres on it's long journey to the Olympic Stadium in London for the Games Opening Ceremony on Friday July 27th.  

But there's another important relay which is running simultaneously with the Torch Relay.

More Than Gold the charity set up to help the churches get involved in all things Torch Relay, Olympics and Paralympics is running a 70-day PRAYER RELAY.

It's started today with a blessing ceremony in Cornwall, where tomorrow the Olympic Torch will set off from Lands End at the very southern end of mainland Britain. The Prayer Relay will mirror the journey of the Olympic Torch through over 1,000 communities and prayer batons will be exchanged at strategic points, passing from community to community.

The first handover is in Plymouth in Devon tomorrow (Saturday May 19th) which will be marked by a special prayer event. Hundreds of  churches and individual Christians will be involved in the Prayer Relay, during which prayers will be daily said not only for the 2012 Games but also for the communities and people of the UK.

Among those involved with the prayer blessing exchange in their area are several Church of England Bishops including the Bishops of Durham, Newcastle and Whitby. Locations already confirmed include Berwick Bridge and Newcastle and Liverpool Cathedrals. It's a massively significant event and if you're in the UK and want to get involved look on the More Than Gold website. You can follow the prayer relay on Twitter @morethangolduk and you'll even be able to post your own prayers on Twitter using the hash tag #mtgprayer.

But that's not all - along the Torch Relay route many hundreds of churches and individuals will get involved in providing refreshments, facilities, friendship and fun for those who come out to see the Olympic Flame pass. A Praise Bus will also run ahead of the Torch Relay, providing a focus for arts and music and Christian outreach. This bus is the brainchild of a small Methodist church in Cornwall and it's also been blessed today as it set out on its journey across the UK and beyond.

How do I know so much about this? I'm privileged to be involved in helping their media team over the next months so stand by for more updates over this next few months.

If you're into prayer then this comment from Jane Holloway, chair of More Than Gold’s Prayer Team may inspire you: 'The Olympic Torch journey will pass through over a thousand communities. We would also like it to inspire a cascade of prayer and praise – with individuals and churches taking time to pray, alone and together, as it travels through their area.’