MORE than 20 organisations have joined forces in Dorset to orchestrate the smooth running of the sailing competition and associated events for the London 2012 Games.

A series of working groups in the county, collectively known as the Weymouth & Portland 2012 Operations Group, have the responsibilities of transport, visitors, culture, health, communications, safety and security, volunteering, live site and torch relay.

Key contacts for each of the groups will be bringing insight to their activities through a weekly column in the Dorset Echo and online at www.dorsetforyou.com/london2012.

Here’s Jacqui Gisborne, who deals with marketing and promotions for the Weymouth & Portland Operations team.

IT’S TIME that counts...

• This is the first time Olympic and Paralympic sailing events have been set against the backdrop of Jurassic coast.

• The Olympic Games have been going for 2,700 years and we are in the 30th Olympiad of the modern games.

• The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games were announced seven years ago.

• The five Olympic rings represent the five continents. • The Olympic Games last for two weeks, a sailing race lasts 40 minutes and someone may win gold in under a second.

The Games in numbers...

• 64,400 tickets have been sold for the Nothe Olympic spectator site.

• The resort is preparing to welcome around 900,000 visitors during the Olympics and some 225,000 during the Paralympics.

• There are 10 classes of boat in the Olympics and three in the Paralympics. • There are two Olympic mascots – Wenlock and Mandeville who’s names derive from the places where the modern Games started.

• We have 27 different languages spoken by 90 of the 600 Weymouth and Portland Ambassador volunteers.

• There will be more than 1 million sausages cooked during the Games.

• The global television audience for the Games this year is expected to be more than 4 billion.

• A total of 15,000 Bring on the Games stickers have been snapped up so far.

• The two weeks of the Games is expected to bring £30million into the local economy.

• There will be 12,000 ambassador volunteers welcoming the world to the UK this summer – 600 of which have been selected to become Weymouth and Portland Ambassadors.

• The number of residents in the sailing venues for the past three Olympic and Paralympic Games are: 8 million in Qingdao, 6 million Sydney, 4 million Athens – compared to 65,000 in Weymouth and Portland But, the most important number is the number one. We all have only one chance to get it right, showcase the area in its best possible light with the aim of welcoming our new visitors back again...