Minutes of the 2004 IMCO Annual General Meeting

Sopot,  Poland,  Wednesday, 9 June at 1900 hrs

1)                 DELEGATES IN ATTENDANCE

Observers

Aaron Botzer	ISR	ISAF Windsurfing Com. Chairman
Ilker Bayinder	TUR	Int. RO
Leo Vekemans	BEL	IJ
Menno Meyer	NED	IJ
Brendan Todd	AUS
David Thomson	GBR
W. Holodinsky	BLR
O. Myzkekorodov	UKR
Yair Suari	ISR
Martin Sandrieser	AUT
Cowen Chiu	ASIA
Allison Shreeve	AUS

2)  MINUTES OF LAST AGM

The minutes of the last AGM were unanimously accepted by a show of hands.

3)   REPORTS

Chairman’s Report

Fleet sizes are generally being maintained at major events around the world.

IMCO Fleet will be fully subscribed in Athens and the sailing venue is excellent.

There are many challenges for the class in the last 5 months with respect to maintaining its Olympic status.    Many national authorities are ready to continue if:

1.      a better all-round replacement cannot be found

2.      if any replacement cannot reach the present standard of "one designness", durability and affordability

3.      The market place will not accept a new board.

We will continue to put forward the present MOD as three Olympics games successes proves that it is suitable for the job.

Continental delegates' Reports:

a)      Asia

Mr Cowen Chiu presented a report to the meeting -

In 2003/2004 3 major Int. Windsurfing Champ. were held in Asia,

       Mistral Asian Championships 2003, Penang, Malaysia, 49 comp. from 7 countries

       24^th Siam Cup MOD Championships, Pattaya, Thailand, 23 comp. from 4 countries

       Mistral Asian Championships 2004, Shenzhen, China, 78 comp. from 6 countries

Windsurfing equipment for the 2006 Asian Games

A proposal had been submitted to the Asian Sailing Federation (ASF) for discussion in the ASF Meeting held in India in January 2004.    The proposal details are as follows:

§         That Mistral One Design Class (IMCO) Women, IMCO Men Lightweight and IMCO Men Heavyweight will be events in the 2006 Asian Games Regatta as well as in the Asian Sailing Championships in 2004 and 2005.

§         That if during the 2004 ISAF meeting new equipment for windsurfing events in 2008 will be selected that these events will replace the Raceboard Class events for the 2005 Asian Sailing Championships and 2006 Asian Games Regatta.

§         That if IMCO continues to be of choice for 2008, that a decision will be made during the 2005 Asian Sailing Championships as to what equipment will be chosen to replace the Raceboard Class Events in the 2006 Asian Games Regatta.

b)      South America (Hernan Vila)

The Mistral One Design fleets in the major regattas remaining stable in terms of size.

The country members hope the MOD will be reselected for 2008 - any other option will be too expensive.

c)      Europe (Diederik Bakker)

IMCO World Championships have been held in Cesme, Turkey from 08-18 April 2004. 100 Men and 53 women competed for Olympic selection.

Great venue and a fantastic organisation made this one of the best Championships in the history of the IMCO Class.   The European Championship shows a smaller fleet both in men and women.    Many athletes who didn't qualify for Athens 2004 stopped racing after the Worlds.    You always see this in the Olympic year.

IWA representative Report (D.Bakker)

2004 is an important year for the future of windsurfing in the Olympic Regatta.  In November, the ISAF will choose the equipment for the 2008 Games.    There has been a test event in Torbole, Lake Garda and the evaluation team presented a report to the  ISAF mid-year meeting last weekend.    Their conclusion, recommendation is that ISAF should develop a new racing-board, the Hybrid.    In November, the delegates (MNAs) will vote on the proposals, the MOD and maybe a new design, the Hybrid and or Formula although ISAF has already made it clear that Formula is not the right solution for light wind racing.

2004 will see a marked increase in activity.    In support of the PWA World Tour, four new lesser tours are scheduled which include slalom and freestyle for the first time.   There will be no less then 3 European tours (FW Racing, Slalom and freestyle) and 2 Grand Prix Tours (FW Racing and Slalom) covering other continents.

 In 2005 windsurfing, for the first time, will have one set of rules approved by ISAF in the RRS Appendix B.   This is a big step towards the future.

Financial Report

The Class income and Expenditure account is managed by the IWA.

Details can be found on the IWA Website.

Proposed by Greg Johns and seconded by Rene Appel to mandate to the Ex Committee to finalize the 2003 accounts

All in favour.

Discussion started about the fees structure, IWA income and Rory Ramsden's position as IWA Manager.    His position is not secure after 2004 because B&M's funding will stop when the MOD is not be the Olympic class anymore.    What will happen then is unsure? The IWA has not enough income to pay RR salary.

Peter Krimbacher proposed to use a part of the IMCO reserve to guarantee RR's position as IWA Manager.    The discussion about this ended in a proposal from Rene Appel  seconded by Peter Krimbacher to use a part of the IMCO reserve for payment of RR's salary as the IWA manager in 2005 provided that the IWA income cannot cover this and that the other member classes will do the same percentage-wise.

All in favour.

Proposed by Rene Appel, seconded by Barrie Edgington to mandate the Ex Committee to negotiate with the IWA Ex Committee to balance the payment of the IWA manager.

All in favour.

4)           FUTURE CHAMPIONSHIP VENUES

Video presentation by       Argentina: Puerto Madryn

                              Italia/Sicily: Mondello

Proposed by the Greg Johns, seconded by Rene Appel

Worlds 2005 -  09-16 May,  Mondello, Sicily, Italy

Worlds 2006 -  20-28 Feb, Puerto Madryn,  Argentina

All in favour.

No bids at this moment for European Championships or other Continental Championship venues.    We expect bids after the ISAF November conference, MNAs want to know first what the equipment will be before they can decide over a Continental Championship.

4)                 OLYMPIC CLASS 2008.

Proposed by Greg Johns, seconded by Rene Appel, that IMCO stays as a member of the IWA,

All in favour.

Proposed by Greg Johns, seconded by Peter Krimbacher, that IMCO wants to be the next Olympic class, takes on board a new Olympic class and allows the Ex Committee to propose themselves as the committee to run the non-administrative side of the new Olympic class until its first AGM

All in favour

5)                 REPORT BY MIKE GEBHARDT – ISAF WINDSURFING EVALUATION TRIALS

Mike informed the meeting about the current situation, the E-Team report, the proposal to the ISAF and the feedback from the ISAF Meeting in San Diego.    The full report can be found on the ISAF website.

ISAF want a second test event in September to choose a one design concept for the 2008 Olympics.    Further details are not available at the time.

After discussing in length, the meeting agreed that it's too late to develop equipment for the games 2008.    It will be a big risk to follow that pathway, risking the loss of the medals after 2008!

It is important to develop a new (Hybrid?) raceboard class in the next 2-4 years, integrate it in the existing race-board class organisation and have a ready to race new Olympic class for the ISAF meeting in 2008 to vote on.

6)                 OTHER BUSINESS

Max (Poland) wants to use a part of the reserve to make the sport of Olympic windsurfing more attractive for the public by using GPS devices on boards and a big screen on shore so the public can see live what's happening on the race course.

Ernst Schlieman (Germany) points out that event organizers cannot force athletes to sail with event sponsor logos that are in conflict with the personal sponsor(s) of that athlete.    The meeting asked Ernst to look more deeply into this issue, discuss it with ISAF and keep us updated.

Greg Johns (Chairman) informed the meeting that B&M sold the MOD mould to Cobra (Thailand) together with the Prodigy mould.

Production starts in October and the first board should be ready for presentation at the ISAF November conference.

There will be a white board production.

A long term production contract has been negotiated with Cobra to secure production of the OD in the future.

Because of the future production of white boards, the Class rules need to be changed to make those boards class legal from 2005 onwards!

Proposed by Diederik Bakker (GER), seconded by Rene Appel, that the Ex Committee will investigate the need to change the class rules for 2005 > to make the White Board OD class legal and will present the changes to the delegates (email) before July 10^th to finalize it and present it to the ISAF before 1st August as a class rule change.

All in favour.

Distribution

National IMCOs

IMCO Ex Committee

ISAF

IWA

Website

(Diederik Bakker)