REPORT FROM THE PRESIDENT

Ladies and Gentlemen, dear Delegates,

I am very happy to welcome you here in Modena for this General Assembly and I take this opportunity to thank Massimo Bassan and the FIMSS for the perfect organisation of this event. It is clear now that this year most of you have enjoyed Italy and this is another opportunity to discover new aspects of this wonderful country.

Let's start working. This year my report will be much shorter than in previous years. The main reason is that we had a tremendous winter with very little snow all over Europe and that many races have been cancelled during the season, week after week.

However, last year we took an excellent decision when the General Assembly in Ruzina decided that we should start organising FISTC Championships with carts. So did we, and on 9^th and 10^th of December we had our first trial in Pulmann City Harz, thank to our German friends who had an excellent idea to organise it in such a nice and funny place. That was an interesting organisation as it gave us the opportunity to see how this sport was handled in our various Member countries, particularly from the point of view of equipment and rules.

It goes without saying that it has been a big success, as always with our German friends. Some 76 competitors from 7 nations started on this event. But the most interesting for us was to check and compare the equipment that differs from one country to another, and also to discuss some points on the rules that have been improved. To day you will have a new set of rules to adopt, thanks the work of our Board member and responsible for Cart races, Gert Kronholm who will present you his views later on. Cart races are, in my view, more dangerous than sled races, and there has been an accident in the O class but by chance, Hagen Muller is now in much better shape as we could see him in Auronzo. Security on cart races must be a top priority! As we decided last year, with regard to equipment for cart races we will come along with recommendations for the coming four years (as last year we said five years) to try to reach an harmonisation for the equipment in this timeframe. Nothing mandatory yet (except helmet and gloves), but some strong recommendations.

After this first success for the FISTC in the year, we started crying because of the lack of snow. By chance we had given the organisation of the World Championship Sprint to Italy and to the CIS. And CIS (Club Italiano Sleddog) had had that fantastic idea to organise it in Auronzo di Cadore. It was one of the very few places with enough snow for a perfect organisation. I would like to thank CIS, the whole club, for that organisation, and particularly those men in Auronzo who did such an important part of the work, Antonio Piazza and Renato Alberoni. The stake-out was perfect as was the trail and the 155 starters enjoyed the race. At least almost all of them as two were disqualified. I also want to take this opportunity to praise the perfect behaviour of the Austrian Team, despite two incidents that occurred, and I want to apologise for this. One, that was unacceptable, but unfortunately a mistake from the sponsor during the pricing ceremony and the other one for the misunderstanding with the race marshal about a protest at the end of the race. Apart from this the race was absolutely fantastic and once again we, the FISTC, we thank the CIS for that organisation.

As was decided two years ago, we organised the two Championships in a row to reduce travelling costs for both mushers and FISTC organisers. So from Auronzo di Cadore we moved 80 km away to Pian Cansiglio where our second Italian Member, F.I.M.S.S. (Federazione Italiana Musher e Sleddog Sport) organised the European Middle Distance and Long Trail Championship. The distance between the two places was relatively short, 80 km, but that was enough to make a difference. Pian Cansiglio seems to be a perfect place for such a championship, unfortunately the extreme weather conditions this winter, too sunny and warm made it very difficult to organise properly. We had to change place for the stake-out and the start and finish area itself had to be changed several times and even at the very last minute.

Despite all these problems, both organisation teams, FIMSS and FISTC reacted as well as possible and with the help of other partners like Corpo della Guardia Forestale, we were able to start, and to finish the race on two heats only as it became clear that the third one would not be possible to organise in a safely way. It is important in my view to recognise the work that has been put into that organisation and to thank all the people who have been working hard on this organisation and from the FISTC side, Olivier Favre and Walter Treichl. I also would like to thank the 55 starters for their participation. We had some guest teams on that race and that was interesting and certainly something to develop and improve, we are looking for the best way to do that.

Overall, in such a poor season with no snow, the FISTC has been able to organise both its championships on snow as well as the first trial of 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 continues to be good thanks to our Secretary and Webmaster, Jana, most of the available information is on our website and always as quickly as possible.

We continue to increase our members, as today we should formally accept two new clubs, one from Russia, more precisely the Kamchatka club KSSC, the Board gave to this club a provisional membership as from December 2006, but it needs to be formally approved by the GA to day, and a new Romanian club Alaskan Malamutes Balan SA. That we received recently. In addition, there is a new country that will join the FISTC, but had no time to prepare all the material for this meeting, it is Luxembourg, from which one musher participated in Auronzo. They will certainly be granted a provisional membership when documents arrive and until our next GA 2008.

As I already mentioned in past years, we are in close contact with the FCI, and through the French Kennel Federation (SCC), we continue to work in order to get the recognition by the FCI, not only of our sport, but mainly the recognition by the FCI of the FISTC as the organising body for FCI international European and World Championships for sled dogs. A new step has been proposed to the FCI at its General Assembly last week in Acapulco and I am waiting for the result. Once again, I repeat this is fundamental for the future development of our pure breed sled dogs sports.

This meeting is a special one as we will have elections and that we will need to elect the new board that will lead our sport during the next three years. I take this opportunity to thank very warmly all board members who helped me in my difficult task during the last three years. 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 Franz Stadolka who decided to resign from the Board after the winter season and also to give special thanks to Gert Kronholm who joined the board last year in Ruzina to become responsible for Cart races and who has been very active in this field and more generally as Board member. I also take this opportunity to thank all the people that have been helping the FISTC in all our Member countries.

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.

The past three years have been constructive and very positive; I hope the next three years will be even more positive and that all together we will achieve all the goals. It is a heavy and difficult task but also a very exciting challenge.

Thank you very much for your attention.

Franco MANNATO