Report from the President

Ladies and Gentlemen, dear Delegates,

I am happy to welcome you in Ruzina for this General Assembly perfectly organised by our Slovak Friends. I will try to be as brief as possible in order to have a fruitful and very constructive meeting.

Let's start with the sportive aspects first. This year was an excellent one for various reasons. Many races have been organised in our countries and most mushers have been able to do a complete season and this is extremely positive. But this year, we the FISTC have been able to organise a very special event, I mean the demo race in Chiomonte (Italy), during the Winter Olympic Games, more precisely during the first week-end, starting just the day after the opening ceremony. That was an important event for the promotion of our sport. And it has been even more than what I could hope. The race itself was extremely well organised, the place is beautiful and the weather was perfect and there were many medias from several countries.

But the most important was what we did not see, what I learned a few weeks later when I came back home: some VIPs were curious to see that demo, and they came ! They didn't stay very long, one hour only, but they enjoyed our exhibition and declared that our sport is very interesting ! These personalities were the President of the French National Olympic Committee, together with some other of his colleagues from France and other countries. That was one of our main goals and it was a success, even if on the spot we did not know it. The race itself was excellent and I would like to thank very warmly, in name of the FISTC, Gianni GORGERINO and his team from the club Canadian Wolves, as well as our Italian friends from CIS, and other helpers and supporters on this race. For all participants, this event will remain in the memories, and the pricing ceremony was a very special one with all these flags of the Torino Olympics, the torch that two days before was used to light the Olympic flame and so on. I would also like to thank all participants for their behaviour that was perfect and totally sportive.

One week later, the E.C. in St Ulrich am Pillersee have been organised by our Dutch friends, together with Eddy Nutz. The place is also really beautiful but(this time there is a but) the weather did not help us and the organisers. However, all major problems were solved with a strong implication of the local organisers, the very good and hard work the Dutch team has been able to achieve, and the FISTC team very present as usual. Some minor probles arose and in some countries there is some work to do to teach people on the beraviour they should have on the trail, the finish line and the stake out. But once again the participation was excellent and we had a beautiful FISTC EC. Just one word about one Belgian musher who could think that he might be able to participate as he had participated in the WSA championship under another name... This shows what the WSA is able to do also and has definitively destroyed its credibility vis a vis International Sport Juridictions.

This winter, we had decided to organise all our events in a row. In fact that was a good ideea for those mushers and organisers who were able to do these three events in order to save money in travelling costs. However, it was also a challenge as three weeks in a row is hard to deal with when there are some problems.

So from St Ulrich we moved directly to Krahule in Slovakia. It is a nice place and we had a very nice organisation team with many people who did not race because they were there to organise the MD/LT Championships. There too we have had a serious problem with the weather and a lot of rain that obliged the organisers to use different trails, shorter ones and having them run twice. These were not the best possible conditions, and thanks to the FISTC team and the Members of the Slovak organising club, and I also should say to a little bit of luck, we have been able to realise a good race up to the end.

Overall, the winter racing season was a very good oneand one of the most important one we ever had. So I would like to thank all the people who spent a lot of time and energy in making these events succesful.

For the sportive aspect of the season that was it. Now let's talk a little bit about more administrative aspects.

After many years of lack of information, now and thanks to our Secretary, Jana, there is a lot of information available from the FISTC website. There may be more but it is up to Member countries to provide that information.

We may also question once again the idea of having a FISTC Journal. I received from Hungary a proposal to make it at a very low price. But that is not the problem, the real problem is who would be willing to work for it, to draft articles and give pictures ? Of course all articles should be in English language and this will not help...

Once again, but this is not new for the FISTC, we do not have had any sponsors. This continues to be a pity as with more money we would be able to improve our organisations and our communication.

We are having new Members, and this si also positive as now most people know the FISTC, but there is still a lot to do in that area. That may well come in the near future, thanks to the work that is done with the FCI.

In March, two weeks after Krahule I met Mr. Yves de Clerq, Executive Director of the FCI, with whom I already had some exchange of information after the decision taken by the FCI at its last GA 2005, decision that was reported last year here at our GA. I have had further contacts with him in May and we will have a meeting in Paris together with the French National Kennel Association (Société Centrale Canine). We are promoting the development of the "working sled dogs", and we will need to keep this in mind when we will examine and adopt (or reject) some of the proposals that are on the table to day. If we want to be succesfull we need to give the opportunity to all countries, even those that have no snow, to be able to practice our sport in different ways, and we need to be open minded in order to invite as many countries as possible to become Members of the FISTC. This continues to be, in my mind, one of the most important aspects with the most important consequences for our sport in future. But we should also keep in mind that in some countries, and even within some of our Members actually there is a strong resistence against the work of the dogs, which is surprising when you think that our four polar breeds are built and minded mainly to work and love to do it.

This is something I will detail some more later during the meeting.

Let me express the hope that the meeting will be extremely fruitful for the best of our sport and of our pure breed sled dogs. But please try to keep in mind when you ask the FISTC to do something for you and your mushers that in exchange you should also try to do something for the FISTC and always try to be positive! This may be difficult for some people as, from what I saw from some national proposals, some clubs still have very negative thoughts. It will be very important that by the end of the meeting these people will have understood what are the most important priorities for the FISTC as a whole, because that is more important that the priority of one club or another. You may have seen from the proposals from the board that this year we have some important decisions to make and some proposals may help the FISTC develop further in the right way as we see it.

I will finish this report in thanking once again all the members of the board for their very active contribution, as well as all the people that have been helping the FISTC in achieving its goals this year once again.

Thank you very much for your attention. .

Franco MANNATO