Agenda Item 6a

PRESIDENT’S REPORT

NATIONAL EXECUTIVE COUNCIL XV MEETING

AUGUST 11, 2007

(Excerpt from AVA Presidents Report)

IVV REPORT

Report on IVV Congress of Delegates: July 12, 2007.

While the administrative portion of the meeting proceeded without fanfare, the remainder of the meeting was a contentious, unconstitutional sham in which nine central European countries, with complete disregard of IVV Bylaws and meeting rules, seized control of IVV by voting out of office the entire Presidium and voted five of their members into a new “Presidium”. Their actions were clearly planned in advance, perhaps even rehearsed.

I attended the last three annual Congress of Delegates (COD) meetings as an AVA delegate. The other AVA delegates were: Shirley Lindberg, Martha Myron, and Hans Dieter Fuhr, AVA’s appointed representative to IVV. COD meetings are usually chaired by one of the IVV Officers, in this instance the Treasurer, Karl-Heinz Beckman, from Germany. Although IVV has Bylaws and Standing Rules, which govern IVV meetings, the Chair of this meeting blatantly disregarded IVV Bylaws and meeting rules, ignored motions by authorized delegates and manipulated both rules and the agenda to assure the “firing” of all IVV Officers except himself and the election of new officers to run IVV, including himself.

It was apparent to me that the meeting agenda was rehearsed and that a group of nine central European countries: Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, South Tyrol, Switzerland, Austria, Netherlands and Luxembourg combined forces with the Chair/Treasurer to elect themselves. I believe that there is no possibility that these countries could have achieve their goals without the cooperation of the meeting Chair.

Upon the resignation of the IVV President, Odd Ivar Rudd, the Chair/Treasurer called for an election of a new IVV President. This action is contrary to IVV Bylaws which say that upon the resignation of the President, two of Presidium members will fulfill the President’s duties until the end of the normal term of office. In spite of motions to follow existing IVV rules from the Presidents of AVA and the Canadian Volkssport Federation, the Chair/Treasurer ignored the motions and conducted an election of a new IVV President. IVV VP Lynn Clark and Josef Gigl of Germany were nominated. Lynn Clark protested the illegality of the issue and declined to participate. Her protest was ignored and Josef Gigl was elected to a full four-year term.

Immediately following, the Chair combined five separate, but similar agenda items to call for the resignation of all of the rest of the IVV officers. VP Lynn Clark protested the agenda item in that each of the IVV Officers was individually elected and should therefore be individually removed if the Congress desired to do so. The Chair insisted that the agenda item be followed. VP Lynn Clark asked delegates for a justification for her removal. No one had a justification and when asked directly by VP Clark, Josef Gigl volunteered that he had no issues with VP Clark’s performance over her ten years of service. VP Clark’s second request to be considered separate from the entire Presidium was rejected by the Chair/Treasurer without a vote or solicitation of opinion from the Congress delegates. Subsequently, the entire Presidium was removed from office with the group on nine central European countries voting as a block.

Disregarding any required notices to member countries and without an agenda item pertaining to the election of new officers, the Chair/Treasurer proceeded to call for a new election. He asked for volunteers to conduct the elections (IVV rules require the election of at least three delegates to an Election Committee to oversee the election). When he received the first three nominations, the Chair/Treasurer solicited no other nominations, seated the three at the front of the room, and yielded the conduct of the meeting to their German member, allowing them to conduct the election of themselves as the Election Committee (IVV Bylaws Article 2 requires that a Chair must relinquish chairmanship for any deliberation, election or vote involving himself). Once they oversaw their own election, the Election Committee proceeded to elect new IVV officers, one by one. When VP Lynn Clark was nominated for a new VP position, she declined the nomination, again protesting the illegalities of the meeting and asking the membership why they would fire her and then ask her to run again for office.

It became clear to me in the voting for the three IVV Vice Presidents, that the group of nine central European countries, with Japan as an ally, had planned and orchestrated this takeover. Of the three VP positions, none of the group ran against each other so that all votes of the group of nine were cast for one nominee.

After election of the first two VP positions, I, and the Canadian President, were each asked if we would run for some IVV office. Realizing that our election would only add legitimacy to this electoral sham, we each declined to participate, citing the disregard of IVV Bylaws and Standing Rules.

On a curious note, later in the meeting when the IVV voted to endorse Turkey as the country site for the 2011 IVV Olympiad, the Austrians, who had also bid for the Olympiad complained that the new Presidium was not “following the rules”, apparently accepting previous deviation from the rules until they, themselves became a victim. In this case, the rule that an Olympiad may be awarded only to an IVV member country was ignored, because the Olympiad vote came before the vote on granting full member country status to Turkey. While the Austrians had a valid complaint, the rules had apparently been ignored too many times by that point.

This meeting was a mockery. The “gang of nine”, or perhaps only these individuals, placed their personal desire for power and control above harmonious relations among member countries who desire to promote the cause of sport for all people.

I have since read minutes from a meeting of the nine countries involved, held in Como, Italy several months prior to the Congress of Delegates. In spite of their public denials that they addressed IVV politics, the minutes clearly show their planned takeover. The minutes reveal that they classified all IVV member countries into three groups, “Central Europe”, “Rest of Europe” and “Other”. The group labeled “Other” includes: USA, Canada, England, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Korea. The minutes contain their comment that “… other English-speaking countries are very far off, and without us, they would fail for we “Central Europe” we are the financial base for all.”

Together with the insulting treatment of a valuable and competent American IVV officer, their repeated, intentional violations of IVV Bylaws and rules bring shame upon our entire movement. We must take the strongest action possible to protest this “putsch” and restore the importance of IVV ideals of unity of purpose and sport for all among IVV country members. If we cannot achieve a balance, then we must decide to pursue these ideals by some other means.