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From the Olympics Toward Tomorrow

Shinano Mainichi

"Organizational recruiting" is just too boring

Looking for a more "citizen-centered" approach

A Luge World Cup welcoming reception was held on February 16 at Asakawa Elementary School in Nagano City. Local residents belonging to the Asakawa Area Olympic Cooperative warmly greeted athletes and officials with home-cooked food. They tried their best to talk with the athlete's in broken English. At a test-run one year before they had also held a similar party, and this time were able to quickly rekindle their friendship.

A Welcome Reception for Bobsleigh World Cup participants held at Asakawa Elementary School in Nagano City. Local women greeted the attendees with rounds of applause and conversed with the athletes in broken English.

There are 26 of these types of area Olympic Cooperatives throughout the city-- informing residents, conducting beautification campaigns, and supporting Olympic-related events. It is all part of a resident participation promotion called the "Hearty Nagano Campaign." Residents participate at the local level, organizing at community centers. The model for organization, which was begun in Nagano two years ago, was borrowed from a local support theme at 1994's Hiroshima Asia Games.

New links of friendship are being developed by local groups like that in Asakawa, by having cultural exchanges, making handmade gifts for athletes at community centers and the like. However, there are some districts which have become stuck on only "people mobilization," in other words compelling locals to participate in similar activites.

In the middle of January, the City's Fourth District (Dai-yon chiku) Chairman Masami Mizukura (age 79), received some papers from the Central District Olympic Cooperative. Among them was a request for 40 residents participate at the Freestyle Skiing World Championships Award Ceremony to be held at Nagano's Central Square in February.

Mizukura contacted local officials, Senior Citizen's groups, and women's clubs in his area, and also had five other local district representatives do the same in their respective areas. There was also a request from the cooperative to help by "lining the streets as greeters from the athletes' hotels to the venues." He replied, "There's no way we can do all that." To that end officials from his district came out instead to greet and applause the athletes.

These kind of "requests for recruitment" up until the present time have also come when Olympic VIPs were to arrive at Nagano Station. Nearly a hundred people showed up to help at a Welcome Parade for an international environmental delegation from Norway in September of 1996. When the group finished passing by, small flags given to each of the residents to hold up were hastily collected without much in the way of thanks.

Mizukura says, "There's probably some resistance to 'recruiting' performed by the administration itself. The essence of the cooperatives I think is to act as a go between, as a kind of cushion to that initial resistance."

The City at first studied its options for resident involvement through community centers as was done in Hiroshima. But, according to Nagano City Olympic Bureau Chief Tomio Miyashita, "Local community centers just wouldn't be able to play a very active role." So they looked for assistance from District Leaders Groups in Nagano made up of heads of local areas.

These cooperative groups were established one after another throughout fiscal year 1995. Every time a local District Leaders Group was to hold a meeting, the City released a report on how many cooperatives had been established. Some area leaders held their heads high when reporting that they "too would soon have one organized."

Most of the cooperatives elected the District Leader as it's chairperson. The cooperatives were made up mainly up local area officials, along with people from senior citizen's groups, social groups, and women's organizations. They organized special activity groups within each cooperative, and set up offices within local City branch offices. The vertically organized local area organizations were taking on a whole new, more "horizontal" look, so to speak.

But areas which have no Olympic facilities nearby are even now lost as to what they can do to get involved. Even in Nagano City's southern districts where there are Olympic facilities area chairpeople worry that "No one is getting involved. Only senior citizen's groups are doing much to lend a hand." The chairman of another cooperative said, "It's almost like an election poll that shows no hope of a high voter turnout."

Recently, in order to help "wake-up" these kinds of cooperatives, the City and NAOC have been "suggesting" specific types of activities. But according to one area official, those suggestions "just seem like orders from above," indicating that they may not do much good. The city administration is concerned, saying that "If we do nothing, the people end up saying 'What the heck is the City doing?'"

In Asakawa one year before the start of "Hearty Nagano," a group of former volunteer firefighters suggested that a cooperative be formed. Keiji Kasahara, one the first people to suggest its formation, was chosen to be chairman. There are no vertically organized special activity groups in this cooperative. Kasahara, who uses his own home as the cooperative's office says, "I'm not doing this because I was asked to. Everyone in our group thinks they themselves are the leading figure."

How will a very limited "vertical style" of organization be effectively passed over for something more "citizen-centered?" The power and ability of the citizen's themselves is being challenged.

No part of the article, photographs, or illustrations presented here may be printed or used without permission.

Copyright 1999 The Shinano Mainichi Shimbun