Dear IDBF Council Members, dear Colleagues, dear Friends,
Last year in Szeged I reported on my first 8 months of office. Today I am here to report on another year of the journey together with the Dragon Boat Community of Europe, Paddlers, Coaches, Officials, Members and the EDBF Ex. Com. and Council Members.
The new policy of constant work and cooperation with the Executive Committee and Council members is still on going. After the EDBF Congress in 2018 we had 1no. Executive Committee and 7no. joint Executive and Council Meetings.
Our job is to continue to follow our EDBF program for the EDBF, published on my personal web site https://www.claudioschermi.it/dragonboat/and create more interest in our sport, generate more money and put in place more activities.
The website www.edbf.orghas been updated.
The Facebook page (4806 followers), for the Instagram page (1851 followers) and the Twitter account. We are also opening a Flickr page.
The new EDBF App helps our paddlers to follow us more easily (http://romeo-lab.app.link/edbf).
We had a successful event at the end of 2018 with the EDBF Forum, Gala Dinner and Awards Ceremony.
We have established the Euro Cup and we started in Barcelona on the last May. The ECCC in Seville will also give points to Euro Cup and we have on the Agenda Nottingham, Belgrade and Rome for this year.
In 2 years we have tripled our income and expect an income for this year of €60,000.
After nearly 30 years, the EDBF has been finally registered as a not-for-profit association.
We have a new bank account and we have solved all the problems we had with the previous accounts.
Our accounts are updated and in order. The EDBF Treasurer sent a provisional financial report for 2018 to Council Members in January. The Council approved the financial report in April and we sent it to Arild Jordskar (Norway) to audit. Today, after years of delays, we are finally back on schedule and the treasurer presented the audited Financial Report to the EDBF Congress on the 29the July in Seville, unanimous approved by Congress Members..
At the Forum in November, the EDBF Commissions were set up formally with all their Members. The efforts to activate the Commissions is still on going, but we want to fund the Commissions in order to activate all of them.
This year I was in Georgia for a development project and in Barcelona with Mike Haslam for the first Euro Cup Race.
With the IDBF President, Mike Thomas I went to the IDBF Forum in Lausanne last November.
I have also been invited by IDBF President to join him at the meeting in Paris with FFCK and Dragon Boat France. I am pleased to know that the ICF/IDBF problems regarding the World Championships in France have been solved and that the 2020 CCWC has been confirmed in Aix-Les-Bains.
Finally, in October last year I met the European Canoe Association’s President, Albert Wood and any cooperation between our two Continental Federations has been re-arranged to the IDBF/ICF discussions.
At the Awards Ceremony last year we offered the Special QU YUAN AWARD to Raffaele Chiulli, as the personality of the Sport “not been part of the Dragon Boat World, but always been near to our sport”. A few months ago Raffaele was elected President of both GAISF (Global Association of International Sport Federations) and of the SportAccord. I expressed him the congratulations from the dragon boat community of Europe and I invite the IDBF Council second our congratulations.
Last but not least the Championship in Seville. One year ago it was a dream and today the dream has come true. Thanks to Jorge Carracedo Cervantes, President of the Spanish Dragon Boat Federation. We had a good cooperation and it was a great championships. The maximum numbers ever: number of nations, number of crews, number of paddlers.
No protests to Race Officials and everyone was happy!
This is what we want and the work with Valerii Morgun, from the Ukraine Dragon Boat Federation, starts today with the same spirit for a great Championships in Kiev in 2020.
In Seville, for the first time in an International Competition, we had an official Paradragon Event thanks to Nigel Bedford. It was a first step with 4no. PD2 Crews, I am sure that in the future the Paradragon will grow both at EDBF and IDBF Level.
The EDBF has sponsors! Peisheng is our main sponsor and last year we also had Hornet Paddles, Tegysport starting system, Hotel Barcelò and El Corte Inglais.
In Seville we had elections for Secretary General and Vice Presidents. Julie Doyle has been unanimously re-elected Secretary General. Ute Becker and Peter Jarosi have been re-elected Vice Presidents.
New Entries are Jorge Carracedo, President of the Spanish Dragon Boat Association and Organizer of the European Championships in Seville, and Valerii Morgun, President of Ukraine Dragon Boat Federation and organizer of next European Nations Championships in Kiev.
May I express a note of thanks for Petr Klima and Kim Beckwith for their service as Vice Presidents.
The EDBF wish to discuss and clarify two issues with IDBF.
a) An antidoping IDBF/EDBF protocol in order to officially support the IDBF in the WADA commitments
b) The use of the IDBF registration and competition management platform
I conclude with the 2 pillars of my first term of office as EDBF President:
– The #dragonboatcommunityofeurope that should be our main hastag
– The rejuvenation of the sport that should be the first goal of all our EDBF members. To have Juniors and Under 24 should be our main focus in Europe.
Thank you very much for your support and cooperation.
Claudio Schermi – EDBF President