Election year for the FIR

[Admin]

2008-04-14 12:56 "H" wrote:

Norty, Henrik and all other Racketlon enthusiasts, who want to see our
sport continue to grow all over the world,

Speaking of democracy; This year is an election year. This autumn the
present Council will have been around for three years and at our next
General Meeting (presumably to be held at the Worlds at the end of the
year) it is up for re-election.

According to our statutes the FIR Council consists of nine members:
the president, the vice-president, the secretary, the treasurer, and
five other officers.

Any person can run for any Council position if proposed by at least
two country representatives.

Also (as quoted from our statutes):
"Nominations for the elections of the Council members including
President and Vice-President may be made by all country
representatives. Such nominations must be sent (e-mail) directly to
the President of the FIR and the Council so as to reach the FIR not
later than 4 weeks before an Annual General Meeting when elections
will take place."

/H
(Hans Mullamaa - initiator of the International Racketlon Federation
and its first President 2002-2005. Presently a member of Council and
Rules Officer.)

[Admin]

2008-04-21 17:46 "H" wrote:

Regarding the elections coming up for the FIR Council towards the end
of this year. Those interested to run for a position - be it
President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer or any of the "other
five members" - should be sure to check out this video;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyVQk5SaaCg . It will give you a good
idea of what's involved and what our meetings are like.

[Admin]

02 June 2008 13:31:00 "Keith" wrote:

Hans - here's a question for you:

At FIR meetings is the focus mainly around rules, rankings and the
tour?

Do other issues ever get decent exposure? EG How to develop racketlon
into skills, media, more involvement with international bodies and
this sort of thing.....

My inkling would be we spend too much time on rules and not enough on
getting the sport out there, what do people think?

On May 31, 10:30 pm, Admin <racket...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> 2008-04-21 17:46 "H" wrote:
>
> Regarding the elections coming up for the FIR Council towards the end
> of this year. Those interested to run for a position - be it
> President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer or any of the "other

> five members" - should be sure to check out this video;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyVQk5SaaCg. It will give you a good

[H]

Keith,

That's a very good question - that we in the Council should keep
asking ourselves continuously. (A friend of mine keeps saying that you
should spend about half the time thinking about HOW you do things
rather than actually doing them - and I think that's actually a good
guideline.)

Part of the answer is how we have presently organised ourselves in the
Council. It consists of 9 elected members with the following
responsibilities:

President
Vice President
Communications Officer
Homepage Officer
Marketing Officer
Rankings Officer
Rules Officer
Treasurer
World Tour Officer

So, from this perspective, our resources have been spread equally over
seven areas (while leaving the President and the Vice President with
general responsibilities).

But, in addition to that, all members of the Council also have a
general responsibility in the sense that our statutes say that it is
the Council that governs the FIR between General Meetings (which is
where all our members come together to form our highest deciding
body).

And, yes, I do think we spend a comparatively big amount of time on
the Tour. And, my personal opinion is, in fact, that this is the way
it should be (and always has been since we got started back in 2002).
The best way for us to make Racketlon grow is to make tournaments
happen and - from the perspective of the FIR - our main tool to
achieve this is indeed the Tour. We want to find organisers in all
parts of the world willing to organise tour events and in return we
offer them status and support.

The other way for us to make tournaments happen would be to support
the development of local (national) tours and corresponding
organisations.

But having said the above I should add that I agree with you that
there are a LOT of things that we could do to develop the sport that
we are not doing at present and ideas are always welcome - especially
if they can be backed up with resources (e.g. someone willing to take
on the work required to get them done). But our main focus, at least
for the foreseeable future, will probably continue to be to make
tournaments happen.

[KL]

On the Elections:

We need to encourage more "professionals" - people with the skills we
need. I mean for example Bart Beks is talking about skills he has,
etc.

On the FIR Make-Up:

I don't think we just focus on "the tour". Football isn't just the
Premier League. Football is played in schools and clubs. Racketlon
needs to be played in schools & clubs. The tour is not enough. There
should be an FIR Devlopment Officer whose remit is to focus on
schools, universities & a club network (seperate to the tour)

> > > > Rules Officer.)- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[H]

Yes, thanks for feedback! I don't disagree with any of that (while
still feeling that the goal of "making tournaments happen" comes
"first" at this stage of our development. I mean, what would the clubs
be training for if there were no competitions?)

"Skills" and "development officer" are sound ideas that we take with
us in our internal discussions.

[KL]

Hans

Let me make the point in a different way.

People interested in racketlon may have objectives other than winning
competitions and may not want to play competitions at all! Not
everyone is competitive....some people play sport to meet people or to
stay fit.

At the moment the tour is basically a club, but the tour will evolve
very quickly into a higher quality elite event (especially when money
comes into the game) and then where are the social players left
without clubs, obscurity one would suggest.

But they may still be interested in the sport, perhaps to play with
their kids. Trouble is they don't know about it (media) and there
isn't a non-competitive structure in place (schools & clubs).

This needs focus, hence am bringing to your attention!

Cheers

Keith

> > > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

[Admin]

"JOD" wrote 2008-11-12 (in another thread):

Will Marcel be carrying on doing a fantanstic job as President is my
first questions? if not,has anyone mention a replacement, as at the
Gothenberg tournament i was asked my a couple of people with votes
for
the upcoming elections, i would ask Marcel if possible to stay on,
unless there are people with the interest and time to step into his
shoes.

If not, a certain J Porsborn is a possible choice with his
outstanding
tennis knowledge and tennis connections he would be good replacement.
Or even that slick tt player from Belguim Gert Persman, i guess its
all about time and interest.

It seems we have gone almost to the point in Europe,where we can't
take the sport to too many new countries and really do that much more
with the sport either.

See you all in Germany

A Non Mikko K Vs M Eliasson Final..... any takers...???

[H]

For those interested in FIR politics I can report that elections for
Council will take place at the Annual General Meeting to be held on
Friday night (9pm).

According to our statutes the Council shall consist of nine members
and 10 candidates have applied, as follows:


President
One candidate: Marcel Weigl (Aut)

Vice-President
One candidate: Marc Veldkamp (Ned)

Other Council Members
8 candidates for 7 positions:
Michael Dickert (Aut)
Lennart Eklundh (Swe)
Karim Hanna (Sui)
Ray Jordan (Eng)
Hans Mullamaa (Swe)
Poku Salo (Fin)
Thomas Troedsson (Swe)
Martti Vottonen (Fin)


Our statutes also say that there can be a maximum of two people from
the same country in the Council. Since there are three candidates from
Sweden this means that one of them will not be elected.

All candidates have been offered the opportunity to present themselves
and their offers on-line before the AGM in order to make it clear to
the Country Reps what they are voting for. So-far I believe I am the
only one who has used this opportunity (which should have something to
do with the fact that I might be the only candidate who will not be
able to make it to the meeting in person). My presentation can be
found here:

http://www.racketlon.com/hpres.08.htm

Personally, I expect Lennart to grab one of the Swedish positions
while the other one will be left for Thomas and me to compete about. I
have all respect for Thomas and the competition will probably be
tough. But if _you_ like the general ideas I outline in my
presentation and think I am the right man for the job then please make
sure that your Country Representative votes for the right person :)

[H]

Just a couple of notes on the election results from last week's AGM:

The results were that Lennart and Thomas were elected for the two
Swedish positions on the FIR Council and therefore not I.

So, I would like to congratulate them! And I would like to wish the
new Council the best of luck over the next term.

In addition, here are a couple of positive points:
1) I enjoy to see some great new names on the Council!

2) Specifically, I think that Thomas should be a great asset during
this particular phase of our development given his experience as
General Secretary of the Swedish Squash Federation.

3) Also, I have been told that Karim (whom I never met) is a lawyer
and therefore probably a better person than me to take on the position
as Rules Officer. (Those who read my presentation might have noticed
that my offer was limited to the position of Rules Officer and even
more specifically to looking after the rules on sport level only -
given the limited time I can spend on Racketlon administration
nowadays.) Besides, I have basically been the only one (not forgetting
Stuart's excellent work with the doubles rules though!) updating the
Racketlon Rules since I wrote the first English version of them back
in 2001 - so it's about time that someone takes over!

4) Generally, it is obviously great for me to see that Racketlon is
moving on without me having to put in a lot of hours to make it
happen. It was my outspoken objective during the initial years "to
build something up which can take off without me" and I have felt
increasingly confident since I chose to step down from the Presidency
three years ago that this is what is going to happen.

Again, good luck to the new Council:

President, Marcel Weigl (AUT)
Vice President, Marc Veldkamp (NTL)
Marketing Officer, Martti Vottonen (FIN)
Rankings Officer, Poku Salu (FIN)
Resultreporter Officer, Thomas Troedsson (SWE)
Rules Officer, Karim Hanna (SUI)
Tournament Support Officer, Ray Jordan (ENG)
Treasurer, Lennart Eklundh (SWE)
World Tour Officer, Michael Dickert (AUT)

cheers,
Hans Mullamaa
- founder (2001) and head of Racketlon.com
- initiator of Racketlon's first World Championship and Marketing
Officer of the first three World Championships (2001-2003)

- initiator of the International Racketlon Federation and its first

President (2002-2005).
- initiator of the Racketlon World Tour and its co-ordinator during
the first four years (2003-2006)