February 27/04 11:23 am - Hamilton Legacy Announced

Posted by Editor on 02/27/04
 

Worlds Legacy Report

Today the Hamilton Road Worlds organization performed one of their last duties, when they held a press conference announcing the legacy and economic impact of the Road Worlds last fall. Briefly, the legacy from the Road Worlds will be over $500,000 each to the CCA and the Hamilton National Cycling Centre. The economic impact has been calculated at $48.3 million.

The legacy has been used to set up two legacy funds, one to the CCA for the national team program, and one for the Hamilton NCC. Taking them each in turn:

CCA

The Foundation has been incorporated with a Board of five members:

Pierre Hutsebaut (CCA Director-General)
Brian Jolly (past CCA President and UCI Technical Delegate)
Steve Bauer
Linda Jackson
Ross Chafe

The CCA foundation will be able to access both interest and capital and, according to Hutsebaut, the objective is "to develop young road athletes. We will have programs in Canada, a European base, a talent identification program and, hopefully, scholarships. The Board will receive proposals and will make decisions, based on the mandate to manage funds according to the CCA Board."

"This is the first time in Canadian cycling history that we have this opportunity. It is what we dreamed about when we began the process (of hosting the Worlds), and it represents the whole rational - to leave something behind for cycling in Canada."

Hutsebaut said that the first meeting of the foundation Board should take place in the next month, when they begin to set up operational guidelines.


Hamilton NCC

The National Cycling Centre program is a little further behind than the CCA one. Neil Ross, who is the head coach at the Hamilton Centre, estimates that they are about a month away from incorporating the organization here (and the money will not be forthcoming until the incorporation takes place). At that time, a Board will be set up to oversee and approve disbursements.

Ross expects the Board to consist of 8-9 members, with 5 being stakeholders:

OCA
CCA
McMaster
City of Hamilton
CSCO - Canadian Sports Centre Ontario (the feds)

One of the other members will be Eddy Della Maestra (the accountant finalizing the Worlds books), plus two - three others.

The Board will be able to authorize both interest and capital disbursements, to fulfill the identified goals of the Centre. Those goals are (in order of priority):

1. Development of the NCC in Hamilton, involving the hiring of coaches and the presentation of programs for personalized coaching, fitness assessments, training programs, race support, strength training instruction and training camps. Administrative support for these programs also falls under this goal.

2. Ontario Grassroots Cycling Development, targeting youth 6-14. The NCC will begin to implement the Sprockids program, summer camp and public/high school programs.

3. Junior Racing Improvements and Event Continuity. The NCC plans to develop a regional road race series aimed at junior and development riders, plus other cycling events, including, potentially, international level events on a regular basis.

4. Becoming the "hub" for the local cycling community and clubs.

These are extremely ambitious goals for a relatively small endowment, and we hope that they do not overextend themselves and "eat" into their long term capital.

The other major announcement of the session was the statistics from the event and the economic impact. The numbers provided are as follows:

- direct impact to Hamilton = $31.1 million

- impact to the rest of Ontario = $17.2 million

- Festival = approximately $5 million (full numbers are still not in)

- Value in Kind = approximately $4 million

- 674 jobs created, 440 in Hamilton

- $9.5 million in wages and salaries paid into the Hamilton region, and another $4.6 million to the rest of Ontario

- $8.6 million in taxes

- 1483 volunteers worked over 167,000 hours

(Note: some of these numbers were provided by Mr Braley, and do not match exactly with the economic impact statement)

A copy of the full economic impact assessment report can be found Here.

David Braley presents legacy cheque to CCA D-G Pierre Hutsebaut
David Braley congratulates Hamilton NCC coach Neil Ross
$500,000 to the CCA