After an opening session hosted by Donald Lockerbie and Chris Dehring of ICC Cricket World Cup West Indies 2007 Inc., delegates from all nine Host Venues are looking forward to a week of…
After an opening session hosted by Donald Lockerbie and Chris Dehring of ICC Cricket World Cup West Indies 2007 Inc., delegates from all nine Host Venues are looking forward to a week of productive sessions during Venue Summit IX.
The week-long series of meetings, taking place in Saint Lucia, will see more than 150 international and Caribbean personnel involved in the execution of next year’s mega-cricket event coming together for various interactive, country – specific sessions related to every aspect of the tournament including venue construction, pitch and field and venue dressing.
The day’s proceedings began with a review by ICC CWC 2007 Venue Development Director and Chief Operating Officer, Donald Lockerbie, of the presentation he made at the first Venue Summit. The slideshow featured images of the 2003 tournament in South Africa and showed the benchmark which the 2007 edition of the Event aims to surpass.
“At the time there were only 43 months to go,” Lockerbie quipped as he went on to describe the very real sense of urgency that now prevails in all Host Venues with only nine months remaining before the region stages the ICC Cricket World Cup.
Summarising the key topics to be discussed in the coming days, he continued: “Our objective in these meetings is to look closely at the progress at all of the venues. Now that they’re approaching completion, we are beginning to really focus on the overlay. These are the solutions that are going to turn all 12 of our newly-built or refurbished stadia into Cricket World Cup venues.”
The morning session continued with a short welcome by ICC CWC 2007 Managing Director & CEO, Chris Dehring, who commended the Local Organising Committee (LOC) CEOs and staff on the hard work being done around the region, which recently received recognition from the ICC. He was followed at the podium by representatives from the Design Team and other international programme co-ordinators who will spend the coming days participating in individual meetings with each Host Venue.
Robert Bryan, CEO for the Jamaica LOC expressed his enthusiasm for the programme so far. “With only 270 plus days before the tournament we have to ensure that every single day is a productive one. While we may have to travel some distance to these meetings, to miss them would be detrimental to our overall delivery as the information and sense of perspective we gain from them is invaluable.”
“There are so many aspects of this Event that are fully interdependent and it is only by participating in these meetings that it is possible to garner a helicopter view of our roles,” he continued.
Venue Summit IX finishes on Thursday while related meetings, including Cricket Operations Forum III, Corporate Communications Workshop V and Medical & Anti-Doping Directorate V, will be held simultaneously through until Friday.
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