The History of Sydney 2002

In 1990 Sydney made its first bid for the Gay Games. Put together over one weekend by three people from the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and Team Sydney, the bid was designed simply to get the Federation of Gay Games' attention and Sydney's name on the list of potential host cities. New York won and hosted Gay Games IV.

Three years later Sydney bid again but this time with considerably more planning. A joint venture was established with four representatives from the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and four from Team Sydney. After a great deal of hard work and support from the Sydney community, the group had a document it was happy with despite some last minute panics. The bid was placed before the Federation in Washington in 1993. That year the members voted for Amsterdam.

Even though the second bid came up short, Team Sydney and Mardi Gras believed that Sydney was still the place for the Games, but put off any decision about a bid for 2002. In the meantime, they jointly hosted the Federation's annual planning conference in Sydney in 1996. This introduced many Federation members for the first time to the charms of Sydney and the Southern Hemisphere.

The Conference was a success. Held at the same time as Sydney's Sleaze Ball delegates had the opportunity to work and play. With the conference out of the way, Mardi Gras elected not to pursue a bid and so Team Sydney called a public meeting to help it decide whether to mount a bid on its own. Although some echoed concerns that the Federation was bound to "bring the Games home" to North America, most at the public meeting and, later, at the Team Sydney board meeting were strongly in favour of making a third bid. Establishing a company called Sydney 2002 Gay Games Bid Ltd, the directors of Team Sydney selected ten members of the community who they believed would be willing to help and had the skills to do the job."

This group became the Directors of Sydney 2002 and met for the first time in late 1996. They were:

Sports Program - Stuart Borrie

Cultural Program and Ceremonies - Gillian Minervini

Facilities and Infrastructure - Gary Cox

Communications and Publicity - Cath Phillips

Community Outreach and Support - Bronte Morris

Corporate Support - Barbara Bridges

Government Support - Cathy Verry

Finance and Budget - Peter Fussell

Legal and Bid Documentation - Tom Seddon (Chair)

Strategy and Lobbying - Rob Wardell.

Months of intense planning and hard work went into producing a bid document that would set a new standard in detail, presentation and professionalism. Some of the 2002 directors had worked on previous bids. Cath Phillips was one of the three people who slaved over a hot computer that first weekend back in 1990, and had established the joint venture for the second bid. Gillian Minervini presented the Cultural Program in Washington as part of the bid for Gay Games V. Rob Wardell had been a Team Sydney delegate to the Federation for many years and had become a member in his own right.

The directors drew on their combined history of event management, community activism, government and corporate contacts to develop a strategy that would convince the Federation that Sydney was the only place to be in 2002. Stuart Borrie and Gillian Minervini presented Sydney's bid in Denver in 1997 with a slogan of "Under New Skies". The bid emphasised that the Games could be held under Australia's clear blue skies in the first years of a new millennium utilising the state of the art facilities built for the Sydney 2000 Olympics.

The bid document opened with - "Welcome to Sydney and to Australia! We invite the Federation to bring the Gay games to a new hemisphere, with a fresh perspective, a different view and under new skies."

The rest is history.

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CP ©1997-99 Sydney 2002 Gay Games Ltd. 31 March 1990