Jacqui Hellyer, Sydney Olympics

Jacqui Hellyer is manager of environmental communications for the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG).

Good news! It looks like the Environment Pavilion is a happening thing! We now have enough financial commitment to proceed, barring some unforeseen disaster. I am so pleased. It has been a hard slog to get to this point, and there's more hard work ahead, but it will be a wonderful addition to the Games, and an excellent forum for getting across the "Green Games" messages.

The other events of the day pale in comparison to that news. One good thing is that we again have permission to use the Olympic environment logo. We developed a special Olympic environment "look" and logo to give the program a profile. Usually only sponsors who have paid large sums of money can use an Olympic logo, but our idea was to use the environment logo to give some Olympic affiliation to green groups and other organisations with specifically environmental projects. Our plan was almost spoiled by a new system of "coordinated communications" across all the Olympic agencies that calls for the use of only one standard Olympic logo. But today I managed to convince the powers that be that there are certain situations, such as us supporting National Threatened Species Day, that require the environment logo because use of the official Olympic logo is inappropriate (and, in fact, illegal). Hooray, another win for the day.

On a lighter note, I had some fun organising the next get-together of EcoChicks. This is a network of young(ish) women working in the environment field, many working within industry. It started because a few of us working on Olympic-related environment issues (the environment managers of the construction consortium building the Olympic Village hotel and an employee of one of our Olympic sponsors) became friends and regularly met to discuss work, as well as girlie things like where to get a good haircut. We realised that there were plenty of other women in similar positions, so we set up the network. Now we meet once a month, sometimes just for dinner, sometimes for other activities. Last month we went on a "ghost tour" of the old quarantine station here in Sydney where passengers on infected ships had to spend two weeks before being allowed into the country. This month we are doing a cappella singing with a group that specialises in environmental songs. It's a particularly good support network for those of us who work within industry, as the corporate culture can be oppressive and not particularly conducive to environmental progress.

I met a lovely lady from the Washington Post today. She was feeling a little disoriented from the jet lag and the fact that the sun is in the north and not the south, but enjoying her stay nonetheless. She was looking forward to seeing a real echidna (one of our mascots, Millie, is an echidna), which is an indigenous spiny anteater. She had already seen a platypus and a kookaburra, our other two mascots, but not a frill-necked lizard, the Paralympic mascot. The Post is starting a kids section and is looking for good Olympic environmental stories. I think I managed to impress her with the range of issues related to the "Green Games" and their appeal to kids. I'll look forward to working with the writers on those stories.

However, that unexpected briefing has put me behind in my schedule today, so I'll have to finish this diary entry early and get back to work on the Environment Pavilion. I have to sort out all those dull issues to do with contracts and financial arrangements. I can see that I'm going to be here a while longer. But once it's done I'm off to see a movie about dolphins at the IMAX cinema this evening -- should be good.

Until tomorrow ...