REPORT FROM THE PRESIDENT

Ladies and Gentlemen, dear Delegates,

I am happy to welcome you here in Taxenbach for this General Assembly and I take this opportunity to thank our Austrian friends for the organisation of this event. While we are here we will learn more about this place and the excellent race they organise as I have been told by FISTC Board members who participated here this winter.

Let's start working. This year my report will be mixed as we had some positive aspects and some negative ones.

We started the season with an excellent second European Championship Kart in Bueriis, Italy. As we expected from our Italian friends from FIMSS, the race was well organised and the trails were very good and quite flat. Indeed we had a successful organisation and all the controls were done and the results as expected. We mainly missed participation from some countries. The Netherlands did not show up, is that a lack of interest? All doping controls were negative and that also is very important. Equipment and rulesare still under review and final decisions will only be taken in 2012. Some rules need improvement and that is coming. Unfortunately, our friend Gert Kronholm was not able to join us for this meeting but he has provided us with additional proposals for improving the cart race rules. Overall, that was a good event even if we might had expected some more teams.

Security on cart races will continue to be the top priority! As we decided two years ago, with regard to equipment for cart races we will come along with recommendations in the coming three years to try to reach an harmonisation for the equipment in this timeframe. But on such trails as we had in Denmark and then in Italy it was difficult to have problems.

After this first success for the FISTC in the season, we started enjoying a lot of snow ! We knew that the organisation of the World Championship Sprint in Werfenweng would have been a total success and it has been so. A joint organisation between the German Federation and the city of Werfenweng made it possible to have a perfect organisation. I would like to thank particularly our friend Franz Stadolka for the excellent work he did and the way he handled the whole organisation. The stake-out was perfect as was the trail despite the change and the difference in height, and the 145 starters enjoyed the race. Despite some complaints before the race about the length of the trails, at the end almost everybody was happy, sometimes tired but happy.

Werfenweng remains one of the most beautifull places for our sport and the terrific number of spectators showed how important our sport is in the country. Nevertheless, the Animal Welfare is taken extremely seriously in Austria. A National Officer was present on our race checking everything, and despite the fact that she was a beautifull lady, she was observing evrything and at the end she looked quite satisfied with our work. We should then thank our friend Guust as well as the big Vets team (10 persons). I know that a few mushers were not happy with the remarks they received, but they must understand that Animal Welfare will take an increasing importance over the years and that what was acceptable even a few years ago will probably not be accepted in the near future, and not only in Austria.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind everybody that there are very strict rules edicted by the European Commission (where they understand very little about the problems our dogs may be facing when travelling in boxes in the mountains). According to the EU laws, because these texts must be understood as such, most of our dogs would need about 1 m3 of space for travelling. This of course is crazy and this is why some years ago, with Arno we decided to implement the "FISTC rules" for dog boxes that are much more reasonable and can be acceptable to Animal welfare officials in all our countries when we explain them the real problem. But we must be extremely carefull otherwise, when the real EU rules would apply that could be the end for all big or medium size teams.

Once again this winter we had problems with the organisation of the Distance Championships. We were all willing to go to PiandeLagotti but. it has been snowing too much there as well as in the other locality where we should have been able to move to, Ospitale di Fanano and it would not have been safe enough to organise a race. Then we started looking for another place and we found Inzell for our Middles Distance and Long Trail Championships.

I would like to thank very warmly, in name of the FISTC and in the name of all our mushers the city of Inzell, the SSD as well as SSB for having been able to accept THE solution, to organise these Championships in Inzell, where we should have been last year when unfortunately there was no snow. Inzell is a really beautifull place, and they have been able to put the necessary efforts to organise it with such a short notice and I really want to thank them very warmly.

Despite some difficult weather conditions, that was an excellent organisation. The only pity was the heavy snowfalls during the race beacause I can assure you that during the days preceding the race, Inzell with a beautifull and sunny weather is really fantastic. It was important that we could have our Championships and they have been a success. The organisation together with an SSD sprint race did not cause too many problems and I think that everything was really well managed. The pity was the small number of participants, with one country (France) showing up with almost 50% of the participants. Here something should be cleared. Why so few participants? Why do some countries not play the game, why were there some important races organised in that week-end in other places? Was it because the place in Italy was too far away? These are the kind of problems that must be discussed at and during a General Assembly. The Board has been thinking about these problems and has come with some provisional solutions. Despite the fact that with the change of location the race took place over two days only instead of three, some teams arrived late on Friday evening and some countries had no delegates at the musher meeting or delegates who did not understand all and that was one of the reasons why some mushers missed the trails. I would never stress enough the importance of team leaders and the importance of delegates attending the meeting.

Our organising FISTC team was, as usual I would say, very efficient with Arno, Guust and particularly Walter Treichl and Olivier Favre who did their work in the most perfect way, thanks to their very strong experience.

Overall, this season once again, the FISTC has been able to organise both its championships on snow as well as the Cart championship, so we can at least be satisfied for this.

That is it for the sportive aspects of our activity. Now let's talk a little bit about some administrative aspects.

Communication was not as good as in previous years as our Secretary and Webmaster, Jana, who also is one of the FISTC best mushers for Long Trail races had decided to go to Scandinavia for the second time to do some very exciting races. She was right to do it as she must do it now that she has the right team to do so, and the board tried to find a solution for this problem in having Marco Visconti updating the website during the Championships, but we then fell in additional and unexpected problems during the preparation of this General Assembly and I would like to apologise for this.

We continue to increase our members slowly, and some like the new Romanian club Alaskan Malamutes Balan SA already participate regularly in our Championships sprint. The level of the teams of these new countries (we had 13 countries participating in Werfenweng) is increasing and I would like to congratulate Hungary for thei first medal ever on our championships. I meet new countries in the FCI regularly but we are still quite some time before we will see teams from the entire 83 FCI Member countries coming to our championships but that will come quite soon. In many of these countries they need todevelop and structure the sport.

As I already mentioned last year, we are now in close contact with the FCI. To day I can give you some very positive information. The FCI Sled Dogs Commission has met in Budapest one month ago, on 9 and 10 of May. This Commission of the FCI is working towards an harmonisation of rules for pure breed sled dogs all around the world and paves the way to a formal recognition of our sports by all FCI Member countries. We are working to implement a set of rules to help new countries to develop this sport and now we are recognised also for the dogs. I will give you some more information on this issue later on during the meeting.

Once again, I repeat this is fundamental for the future development of our pure breed sled dogs sports.

Unfortunately, once again I noticed that some mushers do not understand many things to the organisation of sports. They do not understand that when they belong to a Federation they should, they must support it and not try to work against it. They must be proud to be in the FISTC and then they should forget the idea of going to race in the other body called wsa. This year, in Werfenweng, some quite impolite and egocentric people went around collecting signatures in order to request that FISTC teams could be allowed to go to wsa championships. I personally found that initiative totally unacceptable for the following reasons:

1. This is a matter for the General Assembly and not something that can be decided upon on a race and we will discuss it here during the GA;
2. That was a total lack of respect towards the organisers of Werfenweng and the members of the FISTC Board who were working night and day towards the success of the FISTC World Championships;
3. Anyway that petition could not change anything as the decision was taken by the GA and can only be changed by a General Assembly;
4. The petition was circulated with lots of lies as, for example when I saw it I went to ask some people why they signed it, in order to understand. The answer was quite surprising as the answer was, i quote " these people have wsa races close to them and they cannot go there to race, times are difficult let them go". But when I explained that the only races they are not allowed to go to were the wsa championships, these people told me that they had been told something totally different! This is probably why in some countries, when the national General Assembly took place, they decided to stick to the present rules, this is the case for Italy, CIS! So to do a petition may be in some case usefull when it is done honestly, but that was not the case this time!
5. This is a political matter that cannot be left in the hands of a minority of mushers. It is up to the FISTC General Assembly to discuss it and to take the appropriate decision whenever possible with the largest possible consensus.
6. We are having contacts with the wsa and any change in our attitude could be harming our positions, I had contacts with them last month and they are having problems, I will explain them later;
7. Finally, last but certainly not least, you cannot break the rules and do what you want when you belong to a Federation that has rules. And particularly you cannot expect to be able to break the rules and have no punishment, even if the rules will change in the future, because no changes in laws or rules can be retroactive.

That is purely and totally unacceptable as this has already been said in previous General Assemblies. It would be a shame to break the FISTC for the sole interest of half a dozen of individuals who only care about their own interests. If they want to go to the wsa, no problem, but then do they need to stay in FISTC.

If this year we decide during this General Assembly to change our views on this and to come back to the previous situation, I have no problem, but it is up to the General Assembly to decide.

Before I finish my report as president of the FISTC, I want to take the opportunity to thank very warmly all board members who have been working very hard during the year. They have been very active, efficient and friendly and we have been able to work in a very positive and constructive way. I would like to thank particularly Gert Kronholm who is responsible for Cart races and who has been very active as Board member, Marco Visconti our responsible for Sprint races who went to race in Taxenbach to check the trails and the organisation from the inside and who also took responsibility for the website, Arno Roos who did a great job as usual, despite a very busy timetable and Guust Zagers who continues to take care of our dogs in a very efficient way. Thanks to our board members and to all the people that have been helping the FISTC in all our Member countries we continue to develop and improve.

All together we have been able to promote our sports and our wonderful and lovely pure breed polar dogs, but we still have a lot to do. We need to continue to work in this positive way and to progress, but the way seems to be opened in the right direction and our future looks bright. Anyway, we must all work together to find the best way to solve any arising problems but please always keep in mind the interests of our sport and of our Federation before the interests of some individuals. Don't forget that the FISTC is the result of many compromises made year after year. It is fragile and the equilibrium can be broken at any time which would then lead to the end of the FISTC as it is now.

Thank you very much for your attention.

Franco MANNATO