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Communities receive £1.6m Olympic boost (From Thisisdorset)
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Communities receive £1.6m Olympic boost
7:17am Saturday 6th September 2008
AN INTERACTIVE festival will be held in Dorset as part of a new £1.6 million Olympic funding boost for communities across the South West.
The Jurassic Coast Earth Festival will be held in beaches and countryside along the coast in 2012 and feature arts and science activities.
It will be preceded by a host of annual creative and educational events, starting next year, aimed at attracting thousands of visitors to the county.
The cash windfall is part of a £13.4 million handout from funding body Legacy Trust UK for nationwide projects in the run-up to the Olympic Games in 2012.
In the South West the money will go towards promoting new sporting and cultural festivals and events and increasing educational engagement amongst youngsters.
The festival is being organised by the Regional Educational Legacy in Arts and Youth Sport, together with the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Team and the Lyme Regis Development Trust.
Celebration It will be developed during the build-up to 2012 through various annual events, starting with the 'Evolution Rocks! Uncoiling The Past' weekend celebration in May 2009.
Further build-up events will follow in 2010 - the 'International Year of Biodiversity' - and 2011 before the Jurassic Coast Earth Festival arrives in 2012.
The Dorset-based event will be attended by palaeontology and geology experts, including officials and an exhibition from the Natural History Museum.
Organisers say it will cover Earth sciences while concentrating on the arts, combining the two to attract as wide an audience as possible.
Meanwhile a series of annual inter-school multi-sport events will be introduced to get youngsters more active in the run-up to the Olympic Games.
They will be accompanied by opening and closing ceremonies to promote sporting and cultural participation amongst young people.
The events will be overseen by newly-appointed school co-ordinators based at Bournemouth University, the University of Plymouth and Bristol University.
The programmes will include workshops on healthy lifestyles and the importance of diet and exercise to build upon the Healthy Schools initiative.
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