Athletes

FAI President's letter - October 2012

Dear Air Sport Friends,

Soon we have our 106th General Conference. This time in Antalya, Turkey, organized by the Turkish Aeronautical Association. I am convinced it will be a very successful and also pleasant Conference. Look in at http://www.fai2012turkey.com for the latest updates.

I hope to see as many of you as possible there, although I am well aware that for some it is a very long journey indeed.

In July, my Deputy Alvaro de Orleans Borbon and I sat down with representatives of the FAI  Parachuting Commission (IPC) to sort out some questions of concern to the Executive Board (EB). Present were also our Secretary General and our Senior Sports Manager, taking notes. One of the issues was the fact that IPC had created a UK based company for the exploitation of commercial options within parachuting (IPETA). This company is owned by the IPC President, the IPC Financial Secretary and one other person. We had what we agreed was a successful meeting where we decided to talk to our respective Boards that IPETA, for a number of reasons, would be integrated in FAI/FAME (FAME as you know is the FAI commercial company set up in May). For various reasons this has not yet happened, and I have now suggested that we set up a Working Group to sort out the options and structure for the development of commercial parachuting events.

The General Conference week starts on Tuesday October 16 with the meeting of the EB where of course the IPETA issue will be up for discussion for further action. Apart from other normal business we will sum up our period of office and do our best to give the next term of President and EB as good a start as possible.

The next day EB will have the pleasure of sitting down with the FAI Commission Presidents’ Group for a dialogue. The last time we did this was in Lausanne in May, when the start of our company FAME and the contract with our Global Sponsor Breitling were announced. We now need to bring these opportunities forward together.

Then on Thursday there will be the annual meeting of the FAI Air Sport General Commission (CASI) where a number of changes to the Sporting Code General Section will be discussed and decided. One proposal (from IPC) involves changes to the way the FAI medals are managed. The proposal, if adopted, would see each Commission deciding independently on the design and production of the Medals for FAI World and Continental championships. This discussion is of course of great principal interest, and the Executive Board has made an alternate suggestion, taking into account the value of our brand, closely following the medal principles of the Olympic movement.

Finally we have the two-day General Conference. The Agenda follows our Statutes and there will be formal reports from myself, our Secretary General, Finance Director, Executive Directors and Commission Presidents. You will also hear reports from our new Regional Vice Presidents. We will clarify the implications of having a Global sponsor, Breitling. We will hear proposals from Iceland, Israel and Australia. And there will be elections. After the meeting with IPC representatives in July I felt we were on the right track and I decided to run again for the Presidency. As always it is now up to you to elect what is best for FAI!

On 3 October, you received the minutes of the meeting the EB held in August, containing a lot of helpful information on the latest EB actions, projects and decisions. I therefore invite you to read this document before we all meet in Turkey.

Looking forward to seeing you in Antalya,

Soft landings,

John Grubbström      
FAI President