London, Mar 28, 2014: The Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) today concludes its sixth and final Coordination Commission (CoCom) meeting in Glasgow, overviewing progress towards the XX Commonwealth Games to be staged in Glasgow, Scotland from 23 July to 3 August 2014.
The review meetings were scheduled over the period from Wednesday 26th to Friday 28th March. The Glasgow 2014 Organising Committee, Glasgow City Council, Police Scotland, Scottish Government and Commonwealth Games Scotland reported on progress for Games wide planning and delivery of all aspects of the Games.
Bruce Robertson, Chair of the CGF’s Coordination Commission, said:
“As the Organising Committee and Partners enter the final 15 weeks of mobilisation and preparation before the athletes commence arriving on July 13th, they are very well prepared to deliver a successful Commonwealth Games”
“Since the previous CoCom review in October last year, there continues to be significant progress across all aspects of preparations.
“The very successful Queens Baton Relay continues its journey around the Commonwealth. On its 160th day, it is currently in the Caribbean. It has 14 more countries to travel through in the Caribbean and Americas regions, and then it arrives into the European region on its last leg before returning to Scotland on 14 June.
“Glasgow and Scottish community engagement is at unprecedented levels. The clyde-sider volunteer positions were oversubscribed and all required positions and back up roles have been filled. The process to select up to 4000 people to carry the Baton in Scotland has been extremely well-received with successful baton bearers about to find out about the part they will play in the countdown to the Games, and the additional release in February of 4000 tickets for Netball Finals sold out in just three hours.
“With 33 corporate partners secured, and more to be announced in coming weeks, the Games’ sponsorship programme is in great shape.
“The most visual indicators we have seen during this visit demonstrating the progress achieved in the past 6 months were the Commonwealth Games Village and Hampden Park. The Village construction is now complete and the Organising Committee is the manager onsite and has commenced bump in of temporary overlay, furniture and fixtures.
“Hampden Park now has a grass infield in place on the raised deck and this iconic stadium is starting to look like an athletics arena already.
Through strong financial management, the Partners are now well positioned to turn the plans for a successful Games into the best ever Games through refinement of the services being delivered for the Games clients.”
“The extent of detailed planning presented by the Games organizers has provided a high level of confidence for the CGF that all aspects of Games delivery will be fulfilled. The remaining period to mobilise the operations and determine readiness will,however, be challenging.”
CGF Chief Executive Mike Hooper, said:
“There is a lot to be done, and one of the challenges to delivering a Games is managing the activity in the final weeks when installation of temporary overlay, training of the workforce and installation of equipment, mobilisation of transport, security, spectator and related services, and conduct of readiness events all converge. It is complex, and there is limited time, but this mobilisation period is being well planned and we have every confidence that the challenges will all be met”
“There are on-going exercises and activities across the Games theatre for training, rehearsal and testing of Games time procedures and processes. For key decision making and overall Games time management, the CGF is confident the strength of the partnership across the Glasgow 2014 Organising Committee, Glasgow City Council, Police Scotland, Scottish Government and Commonwealth Games Scotland remains robust. This has been developed over 6 years of hard work together and will position the Partnership well to manage the range of issues that will arise in the coming weeks and at Games time.”
Photo: One of the world’s largest display screens to be used at Celtic Park stadium for the Opening Ceremony of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. —- CGF
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