I think such a trip might make some sense if they would do some homework first and find out whether some of the athletes who are participating at the Torino games have been training in facilties about 800 km away from the games location.

If they find such a location, they can then go there and find out from the host community and the athletes training there what the key ingredient was that caused the athletes to go to such a location so that it can be emulated in PG.

In addition, I am wondering two things.

1. Why is there not money available from the province to take such a trip? Have they turned a request down?

2. Why are there no contingencies in the IPG budget to allow for discretionary spending of this nature, in which case they would have to determine which marketing effort they should fund, rather than having to get addtional funding from their primary source.

After all, it has been known since July 2003 that Vancouver will host the Olympics. Did it just dawn on them now that they might want to spend some money on marketing the local wares at Torino? Seems like Torino might be the ones that are doing the successful marketing in this case by getting PG to bite to come over there and spend some PG money in Italy.

It is interestng to read in the letter to Council that Kimberley will be hosting the Japanese Hockey team. They seem to have done that without going to Torino. We have an ice surface as well, but have not snagged a team yet. Waht has Kimberly been doing right? Perhaps a solution is as close as picking up a phone to find out.

Which reminds me. I wonder if anyone else saw Jim Brinkman's ad in the paper today?

It states, amongst other things:

"To all the successful candidates.

Books & Co could be an invaluable resource. We have books on money management, bridge repair, labour negotiations and public relations! Anything you need, including travel guides to China!"

;-)

Seems like a taxpayer holiday jaunt to me. Perhaps Jim could add books on touring Italy?

That should have read taxpayer funded holiday jaunt