Dear VANOC et al,

I am writing today on behalf of the True North Media House to continue on the conversation started with individuals from Raincity Studios, Daily Vancouver plus other media outlets, citizen reporters and interested parties.

Based on our planning over the past years, we aim to create the "True North Media House" - a space in which citizens can enrich the worldwide understanding of the civic issues, and arts and culture events during the international sporting events in Vancouver/Whistler 2010. We have no commercial aims on the events or the IOC/VANOC-related brand names, but we do plan to cover events in the public space and assist others in producing content for a worldwide audience.

The True North Media House will be a media creation facility with production resources, collaboration space and educational activities for independent, alternative, social and grassroots reporters and media-makers throughout February and March 2010.

The participants will crowd-source coverage of activities surrounding the official Games including hospitality houses, concerts, protests, civic concerns, and all manner of festivities and tourist activities which don't traditionally make the mainstream media coverage.

We've familiarized ourselves with the IOC IP guidelines as administered by VANOC and Federal legislation, and the VANOC "Protecting our Brand" page. We also understand the importance of protecting civil liberties and ensuring that stories of civic importance are documented for the public record in a fair and accurate manner. Also, the Olympics include dozens of non-sports cultural and arts events which lack media attention, as do the ParaOlympic Games, which participants and attendees of the True North Media House will be able to showcase.

The True North Media House will serve as an entirely un-associated and informal complement to the official media centres. We don't seek any altercation with VANOC, or associated lawyers or security policies, as such we ask for your input and opinions now rather than in February.

Frankly, we are disappointed that a VANOC representative couldn't make it to the Northern Voice panel, "Social Media and the Olympics: Then and Now" this past February at UBC. There were international expert speakers including Dr. Andy Miah and a representative from LONDOC plus an auditorium full of bloggers, photographers, and documentarians who were very eager to learn about participating in what we believe is "our" games.

Indeed, we all would have appreciated your professional input as a courtesy to our intentions. The BCIMC sent a representative - his remarks were well received and he clearly returned to his office with valuable new input as well.

As a consortium of citizens, we will continue to conduct our plans in a fully translucent manner and, in the spirit of fairplay, we again invite you to express any concerns about our plan forthwith so together we can mitigate any legitimate issues.

Again, we invite communication from VANOC, IOC, VPD, RCMP (and any other acronyms) who have interest, advice, concerns, or ideas on this project.

With Regards,