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María
Isabel Velasco (i)
At the European Paralympic Committee General Assembly held in Dublin on the 29th of September 2001, the twenty-seven EPC members present elected its Executive Committee. The members of the Executive Committee shall remain in office until the General Assembly in 2005. The 2003 General Assembly is an excellent opportunity to take stock of the work carried out by the EPC EC during the first half of our mandate, to report to the EPC membership on these activities, and to set down priorities for the second half of our term of office.
In this report I shall outline some of my main activities as Secretary General of the EPC since the last General Assembly. I would like to take this opportunity to encourage all EPC members to play an active role in the 2003 General Assembly in Athens. Your input and advice is vital in the process of establishing priorities for EPC for the future.
1. EPC Membership
Since taking over as Secretary General, the five International Organisations of Sports for the Disabled (IOSDs) already in membership of the IPC have joined EPC. Each IOSD has identified a European-based representative:
The five IOSDs are now full members of EPC, and when we speak of the EPC membership we must ensure we include them as such and do not refer only to National Paralympic Committees.
As regards NPC membership of EPC, there have been no requests from new countries to join EPC during the last two years. Forty-nine National Paralympic Committees are currently EPC members. Of the European countries only Malta does not presently have a federation or NPC recognised by IPC, although we have been informed they are in the process of establishing a new organisation.
During the period 2001-2003 we have attempted to ensure our data base of EPC members’ contact details is completely up-to-date. I am pleased to report that, according to the information received at the EPC Secretariat, this is currently the case, and I urge all EPC members to continue informing the Secretariat of any change in their contact details which may occur.
2. EPC News
We began work on building up a new database for the circulation of EPC News immediately after the General Assembly in 2001. This database now includes all EPC members and other members of the Paralympic family and, in addition, many people involved in the Olympic movement, in European NGOs and, perhaps most importantly, Members of the European Parliament and the European Commission. A total of 642 copies of EPC News are mailed to individuals and organisations and the total print run of the magazine is now one thousand.
The magazine is printed in full colour and has twenty-four pages. Three issues have been printed and circulated in the last two years and the total revenue generated from advertising over this period is in the region of three thousand euro. The Design Department of the Spanish Organisation of the Blind (ONCE) has provided expertise and human resources worth approximately 2 500-3 000 euro per issue free of charge for the production of the magazine.
At the Executive Committee meeting held in November 2002 it was decided only one issue per annum would be published henceforth and that more resources would be made available for the EPC web site.
3. EPC Web site
At our meeting in February 2002 the Executive Committee commissioned Cristian Sainz, Athletes’ Representative on the Executive, to take charge of the development and maintenance of the EPC web site. Cristian is a computer expert and works in IT. As of January 2003 EPC has a new webmaster, with María Isabel Velasco taking over from Leif Soderberg. María is a severely disabled woman (Cerebral Palsy) who has set up her own company in the Internet and web site sector. We identified three initial tasks at our first meeting with her: giving the web site a new look, ensuring the site is accessible for all disability groups, and updating the content. The first two stages have now been successfully finalised and she is now working on the third area. However, this task depends largely on all those involved in EPC (Executive Committee, members, organising committees, etc.) forwarding up-to-date information to her. Obviously she cannot actually come up with the content of the web site.
Finally, we are also looking to have our web site listed as a “recommended site” on other European sport and disability web sites.
4. Meetings and Conferences
Four full meetings of the EC have been held since the General Assembly in 2001, and a fifth is planned for Athens immediately prior to the General Assembly. We have also taken advantage of our presence at other events to meet informally on three occasions:
Full meetings:
I should mention that the meeting in Salamanca was sponsored by the organisation in charge of promoting Salamanca as European Capital of Culture 2002. All expenses for the meeting were met by them.
Informal meetings:
Following agreement by the EC, we have now begun to circulate a summary of the Executive Committee meetings to all EPC members.
In addition to Executive Committee meetings, EPC has also organised three conferences and one congress:
In my capacity as EPC Secretary General - and on behalf of EPC - I have attended a number of other meetings which are listed below.
5. EPC Gifts and Flags
All EPC events, but especially the conferences we have organised, have been attended by top-ranking politicians and officials such as Sports Ministers. These special guests have all been offered a gift as a token of EPC’s appreciation. We have also offered gifts to the organisers of some of the events listed above as well as collaborators and volunteers. At the EPC Secretariat we presently have a small stock of EPC gifts such as polo shirts, caps, pens and folders.
As regards flags, the EPC flag has been made available to all for sports events and non-sports events alike. Our stock of flags is, however, much depleted as many organising committees fail to return borrowed flags to the Secretariat after championships. We are presently looking into obtaining new flags when the new EPC logo has been agreed upon.
6. Secretariat
Mr. David Stirton has been working for EPC and for me as Personal Assistant at the EPC Secretariat in Madrid since January 2002. He works on a part-time basis for approximately eight hours a week and his salary is paid by the Spanish Organisation of the Blind. We have also been joined recently by Mr. Bart Schell. Mr. Schell is based at IPC HQ in Bonn and his responsibilities focus on European Union matters.
EPC now has official headed notepaper and a stamp, which is needed for many official documents, as well as 300 folders with the EPC logo.
Since 2001 I have been able to track down and file EPC documents which date from before my term of office, and we now have an electronic minute book containing the minutes of all Executive Committee meetings held since 1997. We are also attempting to build up an electronic archive of photographs which capture the most significant milestones in the history of EPC. These will be used for the web site and EPC News but are also available to all EPC members.
Enrique Sánchez-Guijo Acevedo,
EPC Secretary General,
20th August 2003.