Report from Vice President - Youth Sports

Dear Readers

After Slovakia chaos we at ICSD must see better future for all deaf athletes over the world. President Craig Crowley is reporting to you about Slovakia chaos in his eNews message and we share with him in his report.

Our next step is the 43rd ICSD Congress which should take place before the end of September 2011. We believe we may have found a suitable venue. We expect to have an announcement on the exact dates and location before the end of April.

I am working right now with CADS (Confederation of African Deaf Sports) on the project to send the African countries to participate in the qualification competitions in football, basketball and volleyball for the World Championships and 2013 Summer Deaflympics. We agree that we must be very strict with our requirements to make sure they know what we mean. At the same time, it is vital to develop Deaf sport around the world, providing new opportunities wherever we can.

At this moment we are working with three countries which are interested in becoming ICSD member. The process takes time and the Legal Commission is reviewing two of them and the third one is in early stage meaning that it has not yet applied officially but we are on communicating terms explaining to it what steps it should take. Any country which wishes to become ICSD member is always welcome. The procedures can be found on the link - Application for Full Membership and application conditions for Membership.

There has been some confusion about the current status of France. To be perfectly clear, FFH is not currently a member of ICSD. There is no currently no organisation of Deaf sports in France which meets the criteria for ICSD membership. ICSD, however, is currently considering new developments which are intended to see France once again be a member.

Finally, we have our new Chief Executive Officer in Mark Dolley on our staff and we are looking forward to his duty replacing our long term Chief Executive Officer Tiffany Granfors, who had faithfully served us for ten years and had found her new position in the West USA. We thank her for her serious and loyal work with her deep soul in our organisation ICSD.

David LANESMAN
ICSD Vice President - World Youth Sports