39th ICSD Congress Minutes - Melbourne 2005

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

3-4 January 2005

1. Roll Call by Interim President Donalda Ammons: A total of 60 countries in attendance.

2. Appointment of Scrutineers
Ed Ingham, Lennart Edwall, Sebastino Manciagli, and Guido Zanecchia – Approved

3. Welcome Message – Trish Tracy CEO of Melbourne Organizing Committee welcomed all delegates to Melbourne.

4. Ralph Fernandez, logo designer, officially unveiled DEAFLYMPICS logo and presented a slide show presentation on how the logo was created. Round of applause and waving hands when logo was unveiled.

5. In Memoriam – one minute silence for all athletes, coaches, leaders who had passed away since 2003.

6. Formal Request for approval that Jerald Jordan and Knud Sondergaard handle Congress. -  APPROVED due to Donalda Ammons' dual role as Interim President and Secretary General.

7. Confirmation of the 38th Congress minutes-Sundsvall – APPROVED

8. Reports for the period of 2003-2004

  • Executive Committee – Presentation of 2003-2004 report was given by Donalda Ammons with a slide show. A copy of report booklet was distributed to each delegate. 
  • Acceptance of name DEAFLYMPICS – APPROVED
    Note: By the request of delegates – The Secretariat will send members instructions on how to use proper wording of Deaflympic Games, DEAFLYMPICS and how to apply them to Winter and Summer Games and general correspondences.
  • Finance – Ole Artmann provided 2003- 2004 financial report. – APPROVED
  • Financial proposal:
    List of fees for CISS members – YES - 56     NO - 21    ABSTAINED - 10
    Status: (effective 2006)
    Comment: Ukraine recommended that the fee structure be based on per capita instead of the current model as presented by Ole Artmann. For example India is a big country but the Deaf Club in India is in a poor financial situation and would not be able to follow Ole's schedule. Belarus agreed with Ukraine's argument.

Authorization fees:  YES- 96      NO- 0        ABSTAINED -   2 
Status: Passed to keep participation fee at $20
Comment: Don't support participation fee of $50 keep it $20 for Deaflympics.

Withdrawal Penalty Fees: (vote on entrance fee for late registration)
YES- 73      NO-  5  ABSTAINED- 16 
Status: Passed
Comment: Czech proposed a required deposit fee for qualifying rounds ($5,000 as an example).  Recommended that there be a formal proposal at the next congress.

  • Update on Legal Actions against DEAFLYMPICS and officers- a round of applause from delegates for continued success.

9. Approval of Membership Applications- A total of twelve (12) countries applied for membership as follows:

BAHRAIN
CAMEROON
COLOMBIA
EGYPT
FIJI
GUINEA
MALI
PERU
SENEGAL
TANZANIA
TUNISIA
UAE
Approved. Certificates were presented to each new nation member during Awards.

10. New Proposals for Adoption (attachment in PDFPDF)

  • Constitution
  • Deaflympic Games Regulations
  • Deaf World Championships
  • General

All proposals that have been approved during Congress have been applied and updated in their Regulations and can now be found in the most current material on the website. (February 2005)

11. Applications for Deaf World Championships (2005-2012)

  • IMAFD- Pleased that Congress finally approved martial arts into Deaflympics sport. IMAFD will change to 4 years and will need to be clear of relationship between IMAFD and Deaflympics. Will have 2007 WC in France. IMAFD will work with France to get more information.
  • DIBF- 2007. DIBF has selected China as their host country for November of 2007. Greece and Ukraine not pleased with limited information received from DIBF. Want DIBF to explain further on how China was selected. Need further information to see if they can afford to attend before they approve China as the host country. Some delegates thought Lithuania was chosen as the host country. DIBF wanted to clarify in their DIBF congress in late January 2005.
  • Bowling 2007 host by Singapore in the month of October.
  • Bulgaria 2007 Indoor football 16-23 November 2007 and Table tennis 1-12 June 2008
  • 2008 Armenia wrestling world championship 14-22 September
  • 2006 World Championship Cycling in late July early August.  San Francisco, California.  More information is available on their website. Note: New change date June 15-25 2006.

12. Announcements from countries related to finance:

  • Denmark announced that it finally got out of debt for the 1997 Games.
  • Italy.- CONI sent to the Secretariat an incomplete financial report in Italian.  It must be in English. Therefore it cannot be approved as final.

13. Final Report on:

  • Rome 2001 Organizing Committee: Sebastiano Manciagli explained that the financial report is now under judicial review and that it would be a while before it becomes final and official.  After the 2005 Deaflympic Games, in Feb or March 2005, there would be a CONI assembly to decide the future of FISS.
  • Sundsvall 2003 Organizing Committee: Mr. Tore Mesch summarized a report on Sundsvall Games and felt the Games were a positive experience. All sports were held in Sundsvall except one event- downhill in Solleftea. Due to the unexpected 9-11 attack in USA, the world's economy had changed and impacted their finances for the Games. The organizing committee did not get revenue or sponsorships as predicted.  They realized now that they should seek sponsorships in advance. The financial report shows an even balance for expenses and revenue of the Games.

14. Progress Report on:

  • Salt Lake City 2007 Organizing Committee: Mr. Dwight Benedict showed the new logo and poster. The games will be held from 1-10 February 2007 at Salt Lake City, Utah. The official website is www.2007deaflympics.com. There will be a village for all athletes and officials at the Little America Hotel and encourage everyone to stay at this Hotel. This hotel includes FREE internet connection, videophone.  The hotel offers breakfast and dinner at very reasonable prices. Alpine and cross country skiing and snowboarding are held at excellent venues.  Ice hockey and curling will be held at the same rink. Nordic path same as hearing Olympics. Opening and closing ceremony will be held at the same place as Winter Olympics 2002.
  • Chinese Taipei 2009 Organizing Committee: A small team of delegates came to visit Melbourne in 2004 and learned a lot from M2005 Organizing Committee. Also they brought a team of 43 individuals to the 2005 Deaflympic Games for the Observers' Program. The Taipei 2009 Games will also have martial arts (judo, karate, and tae kwon do). The chairperson is Deaf. A new logo was created and can be seen on their website. They are proud that it is the first time Games will be held held in ASIA. Visa problems should be minimal in Taipei. The official dates are Sept 5th to 15th 2009. The website address is: www.2009deaflympics.org  The temperature normally ranges from 18-28c between September to December.  Taipei has much cheaper accommodations.

15. Selection of the 17th Deaflympic Winter Games- 2011-

Mr. Jaromir Ruda will be the President of 2011 Slovakia Organizing Committee. The competition venues will be held at three different towns; Poprad, Tatry and Jasna. There will have full information by 2007 Winter Games in SLC. They would like to offer freestyle skiing as a demonstration event.
  Approve?  YES – ALL    NO – 0    ABSTAINED – 3   APPROVED for SLOVAKIA

16. Awards

  • Rubens-Alcais –  The honor went to Sweden and Bulgaria
  • Medal of Honour – The honor went to Mr. Lennart Edwall, Mr. Kuo-tung Chou, Ms. Josette Robinson, and Mr. Emmanuel Rossel
  • WIDEX Sportsman and Sportswomen of Year- The 2003 awards were given to 2003 recipients. Both athletes of USA- Amanda Goyne and Russia- Sergey Tichtchenko were not present so their NDSF representatives came to receive their awards. The 2004 awards for sportswoman went to Cecilia Ferm of Sweden and the Sportsman award went to Vladislav Yakubovskiy of Russia.
  • Certificate of Membership – Certificates were given to new members that were recently approved at Congress. Comments: Ukraine proposes all current members get this certificate with the Deaflympics logo.

17. Election of Executive Committee for 2005-2009       60 countries – 120 eligible votes

Donalda Ammons, President     89   Valery Rukhledev 23   8 void
David Lanesman. Vice president  62  Valery Rukhledev 39  Jessica Rohde 15 
 

Member Round 1 Round 2 Round 3
Siv Fosshaug 79    
Tommy Jung 44 45 45
Dogan Ozdemir  55 54 61
Yang Yang 57 65  
Jessica Rohde 28    
Valery Rukhledev 41 44  
Not OK 1 4 7

18. Miscellaneous

  • Alex Jones of Taj Productions announced it is the first time that the cultural events are held concurrently with the Games. He encouraged athletes and officials to come and enjoy different plays at discounted rates.
  • CISS Flag – Jerald Jordan and Knud Sondergaard stood together for a historic photo of the CISS flag before it is taken to the museum.
  • Great Britain – Teddy Webb asked for assistance from the new EC members. British Deaf Sports Council has been a member for 75 years today and is trying to work out some internal problems with UK Deaf Sport. Looks forward to positive changes soon.
  • Belgium: Mr. Boudewijn De Roose will soon retire as Secretary General of the deaf sports federation in Belgium.  A round of applause for him.  Belgium suggests that instead of trying to take or follow Congress notes, a DVD copy of congress be distributed for easy translation.  The DEAFLYMPICS secretariat will follow up on this.
  • Malaysia – Needs help with writing letters to government. They should give DEAFLYMPICS exact name and address for a quick follow up.
  • Croatia – Feels absolutely necessary for their country to have "Croatia Deaflympic Committee" or otherwise it would not be able to get funding.  Donalda Ammons asks for  additional documents on this be sent to the Secretariat.
  • Ukraine – Feels we should back up a little bit and keep the CISS as an official name for world championships.  The Deaflympic flag shall be for the Deaflympic Games. It will propose that at the next Congress.
  • Israel wants to know an update of signing anthem.  Donalda Ammons responded that it was not an easy process since we did not have official trademark or copyright of the anthem. Will need to work on this further.
  • Greece – Gave a set of commemorative books of Athens Olympics for the DEAFLYMPICS Headquarters.

• Adjournment – 18:10

ICSD