29th EDBF Congress
Brandenburg 2018, August 22nd
EDBF President Report
After a smooth handover with the former President Alan Van Caubergh, I have been in charge as EDBF President since 1st January 2018.
In these first 8 months we adopted a new policy of constant work and cooperation with the Executive Committee and Council Members. We had 6 Executive Committee and Council Meetings in the period.
Now for running the Federation day by day, the Executive Committee meets every 30/45 days with the meetings open to Council Members. If necessary we call the Council for specific decisions.
We are facing the problem that the EDBF has never been registered and we had limited access to our bank account.
These problems will be soon be resolved and, for this reason, in Brandenburg we had a specific Council Meeting to endorse the President and Treasurer to register the EDBF as a not for profit association, to estabilish a seat of the Federation in Rome at the office of the President and to open a new bank account in an international bank.
In my President’s position I am working very closely with the Secretary General, Julie Doyle and the Treasurer, Maura Dezi.
Specific portfolios have been assigned to the 4 Vice Presidents and I am confident they will soon start to work on it.
At the Congress in Brandenburg all the Commission Chairs go up for election and I hope to make these commissions more active as the CC&T Commission, chaired by Saed Abdalla and the Medical Commission, chaired by Antonio De Lucia.
– Statutes and Bye Laws
First we updated the Statutes, following the recommendations of the Congress in 2015 (finally approved in February 2018), then we updated the Bye-Laws, which have been out of date for more than 10 years. Today, during this Congress Meeting in Brandenburg, we will finis hour job with a final update, following the reccomandation of the Council.
– Logo
The next step was to approve the new EDBF Logo, to relaunch our brand.
The new logo needed to be modern, because we wanted to show our sport to be attractive for new generations of dragonboaters. A new colour has been added to the European blue and yellow: the purple to represent all those Nations that are not members of the European Union.
– web site and social network
After many years a new EDBF web site is on line and updated.
Our Facebook page increased to more 3000 Members and we have more then followers on Instagram in the new EDBF profile.
– Visit to Members:
- Spain
In the spring I visited Spain because the Alicante racing course would not have been ready to host the ECCC 2019 and, after a visit to the racing course in Granada, we choose Sevilla. We will sign the contract after the presentation here in Brandenburg.
The web site is ready and i twill be on line after the Congress.
- Germany
I had a positive meeting in Berlin with DDV President Ute Becker Frenzel, the C&TC Commission Chair Holder Saed Abdalla and the EDBF IT Technician Slawek Borucki about the ENC 2018 in Brandenburg and today I have seen that the details for the Championships are being processed as agreed. And we had a superb European Nations Championships for our paddlers. - Armenia
It was a great experience to see how much the Armenian Federation is committed to our sport, especially with their project for the disabled people. They are ready to spend money for a new boat, but they also ask for a development boat if they buy the first one. At the moment the have very few boats in Armenia. I’m very sorry that for visa release problems the Armenian National Team has been forced to withdraw - Czech Republic
I went in Prague for the investigation about the governance of dragon boat in Czech Rep. The report of the investigation has been submitted to the Ex. Com and Council then to the IDBF Council. The day after I was invited to attend a massive and professional General Assembly.
The CzDBA is registered, democratic, well organized with a massive sport calendar and top level crews.
I recommended to the IDBF Council to close the investigation because no evidence has been proved to doubt that the CzDBA is the governing body for the sport in the Czech Republik. The IDBF Council approved our reccomanation and the issue about Governance of Dragon Boat in Czech Republic is now closed and CzDBA is confirmed as the only IDBF and consequently EDBF Member.
– MEMBERSHIP UPDATE
At the moment the following EDBF should confirm the Membership to:
- 1) Armenia, 2) Austria, 3) Cyprus,, 4) Czech Republic, 5) France, 6) Germany 7) Great Britain
8) Hungary 9) Ireland 10) Israel 11) Italy 12) Moldova 13) The Netherlands 14) Norway
15) Poland 16) Russia, 17) Serbia 18) Slovak, 19) Spain, 20) Sweden, 21) Switzerland,
22) Ukraine
We do not have contacts and we had to cancel outstanding fees to:
- 1) Belarus, 2) Denmark, 3) Estonia, 4) Lithuania, 5) Portugal 6) Romania
The Membership of those Countries is suspended, subject to their new application, payment of membership fees, prove to be a National Association with at least 3 active members.
In Portugal we are trying to establish a new development plan with Ana Paula Cuna and with a Representative of the Spanish Dragon Boat Federation, Jose Carrillo.
Contacts are on going with Azerbajan, Romania, Bulgaria and Estonia.
– European Dragon Boat Federation (EDBF)/European Canoe Association (ECA)
Note: this point has been discussed and reworded during the Congress
Last March we had a joint meeting in Rome between the representatives of the IDBF/EDBF (Mike Thomas, Alan Van Caubergh, Ute Becker and myself) and the representative of the ICF Thomas Konietzko, VP, and of the ECA Albert Woods, President.
A joint statement has been released after the meeting.
We had a new informal meeting at the SportAccord in Bangkok and we decided to follow up discussions for a continental MoU in Europe.
The first step was a conference call with Elena Iskhakova, the ECA Technical Representative for Dragon Boat, that I reported to the EDBF Council and to the IDBF Executive Committee.
Last July I reported also to IDBF Executive Committee and Council.
I ask to Congress the endorsement to work on a Master Plan, a “green paper”, to submitt at the EDBF Council in Sevilla next 30 November for a final revision.
I strongly recommend to have a positive agreement with ECA as soon as possible in Europe as a test for the IDBF. But it is necessary before to clarify the long term plans both of the EDBF and ECA.
The key point, which is non-negotiable, is that the Governing Body of the Dragon Boat is the IDBF and EDBF, as it is according to GAISF and AIMS Membership and according to our IOC application that it is still on going.
Thank you for your attention.
Claudio Schermi
EDBF President