To

Aase Friedrichsen

Carl Friedrichsen

Kjartan Solvberg

Peter Hackenschmidt

 

 

Dear all,

1.

The Nordic Games in Jyväskylä proceeded smoothly, just as planned. Afterwards they spurred a lively debate on out association's website about the unexpectedly low number of participants and what to do about it. The “Word is free” collected a dozen responses from the members, in which two suggestions rotated: first, to open the Nordic Games to a wider area, say Baltic states Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, or even to all states around the Baltic Sea including Poland, Germany and Russia (St. Petersburg area). Second option was to organize a “GP-level” high-standard event, and possibly, give it to one organizer (Sweden was considered optimum!).

 

We took the item up among the council members and activists, but have not yet come into a conclusion. We were, however, able to confirm the observations, which Peter presented in the last meeting in Jyväskylä: the economic low conjecture effects families decision to travel abroad. Another fact is that the international event calender is already quite full. This summer the European championships in Hungary will probably collect most of the active athletes.

 

Naturally, those clubs which organize events are the most worried.

 

We will continue our discussion here in Finland. May I ask you to take up the item among your athletes as well? I have promised to formulate a conclusion of our discussions and bring it to you in July.

 

What we can easily do for the already decided events, to boost up the number of participants, is direct informative marketing through email. Thanks to Lahti 2009 WMA championships, my association has a list of email addresses of those Finnish athletes that took part in the event. It is possible to inform them about the Nordic Games through sending emails on this list. Do you have a similar base of email addresses of your active athletes?

2.

The EVAA General Assembly will meet on 20th July. Our candidate for the vice presidency of EVAA is Reijo Häyrinen, a good sport and a fine person, who will certainly be able to use his experience from both amateur and professional sports for the benefit of EVAA (his CV attached).

 

As I write this, there are already three good candidates for the vice presidency.

 

I hope to meet you all again in Nyiregyhaza, July 18th!

 

Yours sincerely,

Pia

 

 

Pia Kemppainen-Kajola

FMAA – The Finnish Masters Athletic Association

President