Across the UK
The BBC's local and regional services are already organising themselves to track the impact of the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics on communities in every corner of the United Kingdom.
Although there will be limited sporting activity outside London, the organisers are keen for the 'ripple effect' to be felt everywhere through commercial benefits, volunteering and a wide range of cultural activity.
But first, the BBC's local television, radio and online services are gearing up to report from Beijing, supplying stories and interviews with members of the British team for their home areas. "The fencer from Norfolk" or "the gymnast from Scotland" will be personal stories of achievement which may dip below the national radar but will be followed closely by their local communities via the BBC. A small multimedia team will make sure these stories are found and distributed across the BBC's local services in the lead-up to Beijing and at the Games themselves.
At the same time, the build-up to the London 2012 Games is already being seen and heard on BBC local programmes. The 2012 Roadshow, with local and national Olympians, is touring the country this summer and being covered by local BBC outlets as it arrives in each location. BBC Radio Lincolnshire featured it most recently, interviewing former Olympic athlete Roger Black and others at the county's showground.
Elsewhere, a new series of public meetings across the UK has started, with the first being held in Birmingham. Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell joined Lord Sebastian Coe and others to answer questions from an audience who were alerted to the Ask The Team event by the BBC's five local radio stations across the West Midlands. Radio Five Live's Victoria Derbyshire chaired the discussion, and the panel also answered questions from listeners in a special 2012 phone-in programme which ran on all of the region's local radio stations. The BBC will continue to partner and host these debates as they move around the country.
Plans being discussed include an expansion of the BBC's Big Screens so that there is a focal point in many of the UK's main towns and cities for communal viewing of the opening and closing ceremonies as well as the sports events themselves.
The screens may also play a central role in the Cultural Olympiad events. New Cultural Programmers are being appointed by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in each English region and the BBC's regional teams are preparing to work closely with them to develop an exciting range of cultural activities. As the rest of the world arrives in London, this is an opportunity to celebrate the many different world communities who have made the UK their permanent home.
In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the BBC's sports teams are already beginning to track would-be 2012 Olympians, as well as preparing a range of related ideas to be commissioned.
And elsewhere, in many different corners of the UK, our local programme teams are beginning to help build the momentum towards this once-in-a-lifetime experience with a wide variety of stories. These have already included the bids to attract different countries' training camps to the East and West Midlands, a week-long series of interviews with young athletes on Radio Wiltshire's breakfast show, and a BBC South Today feature on Paralympic medallist and world champion swimmer Danielle Watts.
Finally, the BBC's local services - which have a long-standing partnership with the volunteering organisation CSV - will be exploring ways to help attract many of the 70,000 volunteer helpers needed for the Games from places far beyond London.
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