Hi All, I was watching the Paralympics the other night and, as always, was left in awe of what the Olympic movement stands for and the sacrifices made and determination shown by the athletes. The Paralympics exhibits this perhaps with even more clarity than the Olympics. However, I wondered how many of us can actually identify with these driven, focused people? Do we need an Olympics style event for those without the drive or the willingness to sacrifice? Events such as field hockey for those who don’t like to train, 100 metres for people who wear oversized pants, triathlon for people who don’t like being out in the sun, the keirin with training wheels or table tennis for those without hand-eye coordination.

Team selection could be difficult, anyone who answered an advertisement and turned up at a designated area at a designated time would automatically be deemed too driven to participate. The people we would want are those still at home sleeping through their alarm, looking for their car keys or believing that it was happening next week. There is definite potential here. We have a great many titles dealing with event management on our shelves here at Ipi. I thought “The complete Idiots Guide to Meetings and Event Management” would be the ideal starting point for such a venture, unfortunately it focuses far more on event management and discourages idiocy rather than embracing it. Oh well, I guess the dream of an Olympic style celebration steeped in indifference and the unremarkable will have to wait, at least until one of the major networks can make a reality show about it. Marcos