The Levittown Property Owners Association (LPOA) met on Feb. 10, with three representatives of the 1998 Goodwill Games to be held in New York City and Long Island on July 19-Aug. 2. The representatives were Richard Finn, manager, public relations; Marilyn Shaw, manager, volunteer services; and Allison Micklin, delegation and staff services assistant. Each comes with extensive experience in major sports events such as the New York Marathon, the Atlanta Summer Olympics and other international sports competitions.

Finn began by explaining that the Goodwill Games are: "a world-class, international, multi-sport event, featuring 15 sports and 1,300 of the world's best athletes, including numerous Olympic and World Champions from more than 60 countries." Their purpose or mission is to benefit the Boys and Girls Clubs of America and UNICEF International. GoodWill Games, Inc., a division of Turner Sports and TBS Superstation, and Time-Warner will donate $1 million to the Boys and Girls Clubs and $1 million to local clubs and UNICEF.

TBS will broadcast three hours of prime time coverage each night; CBS will broadcast 10 hours of weekend afternoon coverage; and HBO will broadcast boxing. The 1998 games will be broadcast to a record 130 countries around the globe and, as Finn said, will feature "the world's best athletes competing on the world's biggest stage,"

The sports included are: track and field; basketball; boxing; cycling; diving; figure skating; gymnastics; rhythmic gymnastics; soccer; swimming; synchronized swimming; triathlon; volleyball (beach); water polo; and wrestling. The events will take place in New York City at Madison Square Garden, Columbia University, Central Park, the USS Intrepid and, in Nassau County at the Mitchel Athletic Complex, Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum and the new GWG Aquatics Center in Eisenhower Park. The games are hosted by Goodwill Games, Inc. (Turner Sports), sports federations and state, city and country governments. Their newly adopted cause is "benefiting children." They were held in 1986 in Moscow; in 1990 in Seattle; and in 1994 in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Finn showed a brief film of the plans for the games. He stated that the majority of the events will take place on Long Island and "all the world will see Long Island as these historic events are shown for 45 hours on TBC, CBS and HBO." He emphasized that "never before in NYC or LI has a sporting event of this size and nature come to New York."

Shaw, a native New Yorker who has worked on the NY Marathon for 12 years and Micklin from Northport, noted that housing for the athletes will be provided at the Marriott at the Coliseum area and in the Marriott Marquise in New York City. They each enumerated and described some of the many positions needed to be filled by volunteers. With a need for over 5,600, they have only 1,725 so far. Volunteers are needed in ground transportation as drivers for athletes; official GWG staff and camera crews; dispatchers for transportation assignments; access controllers (for checking credentials and directing traffic); meeters and greeters at the three local airports and hotels; clerical and typing personnel; computer database operations, communications; assistants in ticketing; food and beverage; media/press; ushers, messengers, etc.

Shaw and Micklin stressed that knowledge of languages, other than English, is useful and very important and that volunteers are needed for long-term (July 13-Aug. 3) and short-term shifts over 15-23 days. The representatives distributed application forms which could be filled in and mailed by people wishing to volunteer in this momentous event which brings together "the world's elite international athletes."

Incidentally, "$5 million will be awarded in prize money, ... creating the largest purse in multi-sport history." Finn noted that admission prices for events will range between $10-$60 and that volunteers will receive a 20 percent discount. The presentation by the Goodwill Games speakers appeared to evoke enthusiastic interest on the part of LPOA members.

Before the meeting, chaired by Vice President Frank O'Brien in the absence of President Jim Morrow, adjourned, the barbershop on Gardiners Avenue was briefly discussed. Also, mention was made of the surprising "give back" in salary proposed by Levittown School Superintendent Herman A. Sirois. We were told this would be voted on at the next board of education meeting.

The next regular monthly meeting of the LPOA will be on March 10.