2009 Annual General Meeting Roundup

This years AGM held in Paris has seen great reception by the nearly 40 delegates from national class associations, industry, tour operators and other parties interested in the development of international kiteboarding.

While the General Assembly discussed a broad variety of topics, ranging from point systems and class (equipment) rules to olympic campaigning, the enthusiasm about the ongoing structured development of the sport couldnt have been greater.

As parts of the executive committee declared their retirement due to personal issues as workload etc, the general assembly elected a new chairman of the class. Richard Gowers from Great Britain will stand on top for the next four years and lead the class together with Executive Secretary Markus Schwendtner. Also new members of the executive committee are Alberto Anido from Argentina and Bruno De Wannemaeker from Belgium.

The reports from the various working parties about the development of unified judging guidelines and rules for course racing received broad support from the floor, as well as the development and simplification of the ranking systems.

Special interest was drawn to the upcoming olympic campaign of the kiteboarding class, although it is a long way until Rio de Janeiro 2016, excitement was great about the possibilities that kiteboarding has to offer to the olympic family.

Other topics included human resurces requirements and qualification to ensure comparable quality of competition around the world, and the issues about training/teaching and the cooperation with snow- and landkiting were extensively discussed.

Although some of the topics received controversary argumentation, this only shows the liveliness of the class. At the end of a long, hard day all delegates were aware of the fact that there is still plenty of work, but the direction we are heading to is seminal.

Full details of the meeting including minutes will be published on the class website during the next days.