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The board has during the
passed financial year consisted of president Claës-L. Ljung (Sweden), vice
president Berit Tveter Alm (Norway), vice president Dieter Beck (Germany)
together with vice president and secretary-general Fredy Moder
(Switzerland). Mrs Sabine Klettenhofer, Austria has been a most reliable
treasurer for our organization.
The labour in our committee has been productive and friendly. For me
myself it has been a source of inspiration and an opportunity to meet with
interesting people. During the past fiscal year I have experienced good
help from the whole committee and I also know that my colleagues in the
board has been in contact with many of our members! This, I can assure
you, is also the case for our secretary general and myself.
The 54th general assembly of the FEGAT was held in Copenhagen,
Denmark on Thirsday the 24th of May in connection with the European
Championship for Lady drivers.
• Fredy Moder from Switzerland was re-elected as vice president for the
coming 3 years.
• Fredy Moder from Switzerland was re-elected secretary general for 1
year.
• Sabine Klettenhofer was re-elected treasurer outside the board for 1
year.
Board meetings have been held on the following occasions during the past
fiscal year:
• in Copenhagen, Denmark in connection with the European Championship for
Lady Drivers
• In Salzburg, Austria in September
• in Prague, Czech Republic in November
There has also been numerous telephone calls between the committee
members. Between the secretary general and myself there has been contacts
several times every week. The SKYPE program on Internet has been most
helpful and also vice president Dieter Beck has been reachable through
SKYPE.
There has been more technical contact between non FEGAT countries
concerning the world championships. Three out of four non European
countries have accepted to pay an amount of EUR 500 a year for the work
performed by the FEGAT in connection with the world championships.
The championships and FEGAT Europe Cup
The ladies version of the EC was held in Denmark,
unfortunately with only 2 possibilities for each driver to compete.
European Champion was Morgane Le Vexier, France, followed by ruling
champion JuliaKashkowskaya, Russia and Andrea Nagyvari, Hungary – all well
known profiles in their home countries. The championship took place in
Odense 23rd of May and Copenhagen 24th of May. The championship ended with
3 participants on the same number of points and a summing of the times in
the races had to be used to find a winner. This was not a good system in
this case as the races were driven over different distances. From the
sport side seen this arrangement held a very low quality, I’m sorry to
say.
The EC for men was held in Salzburg, Austria on Friday 7th
and Saturday 8th of September. Champion became Christian Mayr from Austria
followed by Iver Jessen from Denmark and Rune Skogen from Norway. We
crowned a very popular winner, Christian Mayr is not only a very good
driver, he had also been most active in the procedure to organize!
FEGAT EUROPE CUP was held this year in the Czech Republic.
The FEGAT board had a lot of extra job because of very late knowledge
about if Czech Republic could organize at all and also the dates for the
event was given us far too late. In the end we had a very nice EUROPE CUP
that saw Franck Marty as worthy winner. France really has made a “burnout”
by winning two of our events the second year they are members! I also want
to express our gratitude to Belgium who promised to organize if the burden
for Czech Republic should have been too heavy!
In May this year the World Championships will be held in the US.
FEGAT will be represented by Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway,
Germany, Hungary, Czech Republic and Spain. I am happy to see that our
returned member Spain will represent us although both our other newcomers
France and Italy still have to wait.
Exchange between member countries are numerous. Many of these matches are
brought up as ideas on FEGAT meetings when members have been talking off
record – so is the birth of THE NORDIC CHAMPIONSHIPS as well as a yearly
meeting between Russia and Sweden.
Now 16 members! We are very happy to say welcome back to Italy and Spain
who from our general assembly last year in Denmark are members again.
There has been some knocking at the door from Serbia and Malta. Serbia
does as for today not fulfil the criteria’s for a membership and Malta has
not given in an application for membership. However, everything has to
take some time and right now I feel that it is hard enough to arrange
championships with 16 members.
There has been a long and tricky problem in the FEGAT this winter. Italy
had not quite understood that they from last general assembly on would
participate in the world championships under FEGAT rules. This caused a
lot of discussion where even a withdrawal of the Italian membership was up
for discussion. Now things are settled and we can go on with more
important issues.
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As always in an organization
like the FEGAT we have different engagement from different members. Some
seems to sleep between our annual meetings and some have a very good
contact with the board during the entire year. I think you can feel a
little yourselves on which side you belong and remember that we in the
FEGAT board like to have a close contact with every single member country!
Work in the board. Berit Tveter Alm and Dieter Beck have not yet
presented the reviewed five-year plan for the work inside the FEGAT. Some
of the items the board has have been successfully performed and some are
still to deal with. On the board meeting in April 2006 Berit Tveter Alm
and Dieter Beck were given the mission to freshen up our 11-point
strategy, which as for today looks as follows with my own commentaries:
1. The board feel that the number of members in the FEGAT will
remain unaltered during the coming 5-years period and it is no reason for
changes in the system around championships and likewise. This § is now
irrelevant.
2. The new rules for world championships worked out by the
secretary general and the president in the FEGAT after hearing the
non-FEGAT participating countries. We will use these rules in the US.
3. The entire FEGAT shall try to find an international sponsor who
will follow our championships and use the good will of them for their
business promotion. This is the responsibility for all members!
4. In general we shall try to reach a higher standard for our
championships.
5. In every member country shall be a race named the FEGAT Race every
year. An honorary price shall be provided named “FEGAT - HONORARY PRICE”.
6. The amount of races driven under FEGAT flag shall be expanded.
Press releases, starting lists and results must be forwarded to our
secretariat. The FEGAT name must be given more importance. Our secretariat
stands willing to provide all addresses and contacts necessary to make
this possible.
7. Within the frames of our economy and with possibilities we know
of we will make promotion over the Internet and over our homepage. Every
country is responsible for finding sponsors who will have advantage of our
homepage and who are willing to pay a sum for this. Some of our members
have done this, some not…
8. Economy: we must be able to keep the standards of today and
hopefully raise them. One way to do this is by higher member fees (see the
proposal from the board for the general assembly 2001). If all members
sell some advertisment place on our website the problem will be solved!
9. We will help to act as intermediary in finding practice jobs for
interested persons with the aim to give tuition to young, horse-interested
people. This has been done and we must evaluate if we shall continue or
not!
10. In our homepage we will give the opportunity for interested
sponsors to add a link to their homepage. See other proposals concerning
our website!
11. We will present an annual book again. Most likely not! We now
have our website as a tool.
I hope that you will read the 11 points above with a little self
criticism. Have you as a member fulfilled what you are expected to do? 3,
4, 5, 6, 7, and 9 are all works for us all – what have you done the last
year???
Alm/Beck will hopefully present a revised version on our general assembly
2008.
To all of you I want to express my gratitude for the passed year. Despite
big differences in the possibilities for the sport, in culture and
character the FEGAT stands strong. We have been able to give and to take
in a way that makes us all to feel like winners.
I feel especially happy that we now have reached a point were all members
are carrying out their duties with arrangements in the scheduled way! The
only cloud on
the sky is outside Europe. We do not know yet if New Zealand will be able
to organize the world champioships in 2010 – if not we might come back to
you for a suggestion…
I also want to use this opportunity to say thank you to the amateurs in
Austria for the gentlemen’s EC and Denmark for taking care of the ladies
EC. Also the Czech Republic shall have a thank you for the FEGAT EUROPE
CUP!
FEGAT of today. FEGAT is the only umbrella organization for harness
amateurs throughout the world. Overseas nations search our aid and maybe
we should widen the sphere and have a worldwide branch to give everyone a
possibility for shelter. These are current issues for the board to work
with!
As always:
FEGAT is going ahead with good speed and a wise general assembly and a
productive board successfully perform our work! Thank you!
Always be proud to be a
member of the FEGAT!
Fegen, February 2008
Claës-L. Ljung
President
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16.02.2008/fmo
Copyright
2006 fmo