Sky Ride and the 8th Bike Film Festival are now over and the feedback from people has been fantastic. The 50 community reporters did a great job of capturing the cycling event that saw over 12,500 people enjoy the traffic-free streets of Leicester.

Phoenix Square played host to the film festival with audiences enjoying Jacques Tates ‘Jour de Fete’ and Albert Finney’s debut performance in ‘Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.’ We plan to repeat the Bike Film Festival next year as part of the Ride Leicester Bike Festival.

The team created 51 filmed interviews for YouTube, took over 450 photos for the Flickr Photostream and carried out seven Ipadio interviews. All of them can be seen or heard from the Citizens’ Eye website. The Community Action Photographers had a great article in Wednesday’s Leicester Mercury and all their best photos are in a Sky Ride gallery on the website.

BBC Leicester have also used their photos in a Sky Ride gallery and the Community Reporter, James Black, interviewed the East Midlands Special Olympics Cycling Team and the story appeared on CNN report. Well done James.

Phoenix Square proved to be the ideal location for a community media centre and all the volunteers enjoyed the four days there. I think we achieved what we set out to and feel confident that we have a building block on which to develop the Community Media Hub plan for the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics.

Without wishing to bore you with the small details, it is amazing what actually happens when you set up a project of this nature. The difference between the plan and the reality can sometimes frighten people. Even today, it surprises me and my past life in the army helps a bit. Plan the work and work the plan, until something happens!

If I had a £1 coin for everytime I heard the word ‘John’ on Sunday’s Sky Ride, I would be writing this blog on Eurostar heading for a break.

I would put some distance or barrier between the people who interview the public about their experiences and the volunteers who were submitting the content and loading the images to various websites. Asking people to stop inputting to go and take photographs caused unnecessary delays.

Plans are already being drawn up for next year’s bike festival and we hope to expand the offering to include a partnership with other local events including the Comedy Festival and Leicester Marathon. It would certainly make the whole Bank Holiday weekend come alive in Leicester and encourage more people to visit the city. The sight of 12,500 cyclists wearing high visibility vests, weaving their way past Leicester Market and the Clock Tower will be remembered by many unsuspecting Highcross visitors for a long time to come. It would be great to get a special market open next year to showcase the ‘2009 Britain’s Favourite Market’.

The really great thing about running the media centre for four days was it proved we could actually do it. The prospect of a three month long Community Media Hub covering both the Olympics and Paralympics means our plan needs to be both simple to implement and effective in the content it generates.

I was fortunate to have Jennifer Jones, a 2012 Media Ambassador, on hand to cast a critical eye over what systems we had (or didn’t have) in operation and the opportunities that were missed. Even before her feedback, I know we could have done more with the community news we successfully captured but most of it comes down to the way the information flows from the reporter, to the person inputting the news.

So, the model used for Sky Ride will be tested again on the Leicester Marathon, due to take place on Sunday October 10th. The plan is to keep testing it throughout 2011 on community events across the city and county. A list of partners to work with has been created.

The one thing that became very obvious to the media volunteers was that the Phoenix Square Film and Digital Media Centre is the perfect place for a media centre to be hosted and I hope we can continue to work them towards the London 2012 Games.

If you would like to be involved as a media hub volunteer or sponsor please contact me.

I realised something important while writing the blog today. If I’m starting the Community Media Hub before the games start, I have even less time to prepare. Therefore, its 604 days until the Community Media Hub opens but the number of days to go before all the sport starts is Olympics 694 days and Paralympics 727 days.

John Coster Blog in association with: