Minutes of the ECF Semi-Annual General Meeting held in Paisley, SCO on March 22,2005 at 10:00 hours
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Start of the meeting: 10:00
In attendance:
Executive Committee
The 34 member nations were represented as follows:
The Vice-President welcomed everyone to the meeting and advised that the President due to problems at the World Senior Curling Championships was unfortunately unable to attend the meeting, which would therefore now be chaired by the Vice-President.
1. Reading of Notice of Meeting
The Secretary announced that the Semi-Annual General Meeting had been convened by intimation to the members on February 15, 2005.
2. Apologies, number of votes and quorum
Apologies were received from President Malcolm Richardson and John Brown (Rep. United Kingdom)
More than one half of the member nations were represented in person. The Secretary therefore reported that there was a quorum and that the total number of votes available was 22. It was also reported that any decisions needing a two third majority would need a total of 15 votes.
The Secretary informed the members that this General Meeting would be different in three ways:
3. Minutes of the ECF Annual General Meeting 2004 (Sofia, BUL) and approval thereof
The minutes of the ECF Annual General Meeting 2004 (Sofia) were taken as read and were unanimously approved.
4. Matters arising from these minutes
None
5. Correspondence
The Secretary reported that she had received an application for ECF membership from the Belgian Curling Association. This would be dealt with under item 10. of the agenda. Also, an expression of interest had been received from the Kazakhstan Curling Association to host the 2009 European Curling Championships – this would be dealt with under item 7 of the agenda.
6. Progress Reports of future Organising Committees (2005 until 2008 – if in attendance)
Garmisch-Partenkirchen 2005 (December 9-17, 2005) Christoph Falk confirmed that 11 sheets of ice will also be available in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. He advised that the homepage (www.ecc2005.de) with package prices would be running shortly. He recommended to the members to make bookings as early as possible.
Basel 2006 (December 9-16, 2006) Bruno Schallberger made a slide presentation. He advised the members that the championships would be played with time-clocks. The Headquarter Hotel would be the Hotel Ramada, the hotel for the players would be the Swissotel. As chief ice-maker they were planning to hire Hans Wüthrich and as chief-umpire they were looking for Christian Bangerter.
European Mixed Curling Championships October 18-22, 2005 Andrew Ferguson-Smith confirmed that the preparations for the first European Mixed Curling Championships (EMCC) were going well. At the same time he confirmed that the Andorran Host Committee would NOT pay for accommodation of the teams. The reason for that is that the Host Committees of the ensuing years had asked Andorra not to offer it free of charge as they would not have the financial background to offer the same. The host site (Canillo) forms part of a ski area with lots of hotels. The hotel that will be offered to the teams is the Ski Plaza (20 yards away from the ice-arena)
The Vice-President informed the members that the playing system would be as follows: Participating teams will be divided into four groups. Each of the four groups will play a round robin and the top two teams of each group advance to quarter finals. Those are followed by semi-finals a bronze-medal game and a final. For the first year of the EMCC teams will be seeded into groups. For the ensuing years the system of the World Seniors would apply. A written explanation of the playing system had been made available at the registration desk and was still available for pick-up by the members if so desired.
7. Future championships and bids
Expression of interest by Kazakhstan to host ECC 2009 Victor Kim of the Kazakhstan Curling Association informed the members that this was not yet a firm bid to host the ECC in 2009. He explained that the development of Curling in Kazakhstan is enormous. A year ago they had 40 Curlers, today they have 400. On the national championship level there are 8 teams competing for the title. A European Curling Championship would still further the development of Curling in Kazakhstan.
Gifford Rickard (SCO) recommended that no decision on the ECC 2009 be made at this meeting. The Secretary confirmed that ECC-sites are only determined 4 years prior to the event, hence a decision on the 2009 ECC would only be made during the Annual General Meeting in December 2005.
Both, Bulgaria and Scotland again expressed their interest in hosting a future ECC.
8. Areas of responsibility of Executive Committee Members
The Secretary explained that the ECF members had been asking the ECF Executive Committee for quite some time about who within the Committee was responsible for what. Of course the members are perfectly entitled to ask this question. Therefore, the Executive Committee has given this considerable thought and has now assigned the following functions:
The split of the function Secretary/Treasurer would involve a constitutional change which would be dealt with under item 9. of the agenda.
(Note of the Secretary: After Paisley, President and Vice-President approved a request from Konstantin Zadvornov to add a further function for him. It was decided that this function be “Development”)
Joep Waijers (NED) asked whether those functions would also be published on the ECF homepage and the Secretary confirmed that this would be the case.
9. Changes of the constitution
Split of the function Secretary/Treasurer
It was proposed to have the following paragraph added to the constitution (and to delete all references to “Treasurer” in the paragraph “Secretary”:
TREASURER
a. The Treasurer of the ECF shall be appointed by the Executive Committee. The term of office shall be two years but may be, subject to re-appointment, for an unlimited number of two year terms.
b. The Treasurer shall keep accurate accounts and shall produce financial statements showing the financial affairs of the ECF. The funds of the ECF shall be lodged in a bank account under the name of the European Curling Federation where monies may be drawn or deposited by orders signed by the President and/or Treasurer. The financial accounts of the ECF shall be open for inspection to all members of the ECF for one week prior to the Annual General Meeting and to members of the Executive Committee at all times.
c. The Treasurer shall produce a balanced financial statement annually on the 30th September and the budget for the ensuing year for consideration and approval at the AGM.
This was accepted unanimously.
Changes to constitution needed for registration in Switzerland
The Secretary explained that the ECF had not been registered so far. Legally the ECF does not exist and not even a bank account could be opened under ECF’s name. Also, the Executive Officers are liable with their private assets – which is a situation that is no longer tolerable. It was therefore proposed to have the ECF registered in Berne and to add the following paragraphs to the constitution:
DENOMINATION, HEAD OFFICE AND DURATION a. Under the name “EUROPEAN CURLING FEDERATION” (hereinafter “ECF”) a non-profit making corporation has been formed regulated by the present Constitution and accessorily by the articles 60 and following of the Civil Code of Switzerland. b. The registered office of the ECF is in Berne (Switzerland). c. The ECF is founded for an unlimited period of time. e. The ECF can decide its dissolution at any time.
REPRESENTATION
a. The joint signature of the President and another member of the Executive Committee is necessary to validly bind the ECF in any contractual relationship. b. The signature of any contract or document binding the ECF shall be approved by the Executive Committee. c. Any contract of a duration of more than one (1) year, other than European Curling Championship hosting contracts, shall be ratified by the next General Meeting.
RESPONSIBILITY
a. Liabilities of the ECF are only guaranteed by its assets. b. No liabilities may be incurred by a Member Nation or its Representatives. c. The Members of the Executive Committee are responsible only for their personal illegal acts.
FINANCE
a. The financial year of the ECF shall be October 1 until September 30. b. The income of the ECF consists of:
COMPROMISSORY CLAUSE
a. Any decision made by the General Meeting of the ECF or by the Executive Committee of the ECF or by the Policy Committee of the ECF may be the object of appeal arbitration proceedings in accordance with the Code of sports-related arbitration of the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland. The time limit for appeal is twenty-one (21) days following the communication of the decision concerning the appeal. All recourse to ordinary courts is excluded. b. Swiss law applies.
ENTRY INTO FORCE
• The present constitution, adopted by the General Meeting of 22 March 2005 comes into force on April 1, 2005.
Leif Hansen (DEN) asked whether it is not necessary to add a paragraph which outlines what would happen to the ECF funds in case of dissolution of the ECF. The Secretary replied that this was a very valid point as such a paragraph was also included in the WCF constitution.
It was then proposed to add following paragraph:
DISSOLUTION
The General Meeting, having pronounced the dissolution, is entitled to decide by simple majority of the voting members the allowance of the remaining assets of the ECF, which have to be allocated to a non-profit and of public interest corporation.
All above proposals to change the ECF constitution were accepted unanimously.
Zone United Kingdom to be named Great-Britain and Ireland
The Secretary explained that with the acceptance of Ireland as ECF member it now has become incorrect to name this zone United Kingdom. The respective zone-members would therefore appreciate to name the zone from now onwards “Great Britain and Ireland”.
This proposal was accepted unanimously.
Exclusion from the constitution
Olli Rissanen explained that the list of member nations and the allocation to the various zones should in future not be part of the constitution anymore but should become a by-law. If that would remain part of the constitution any addition of new members would in fact mean a change to the constitution with subsequent presentation of the new constitution to Swiss authorities. It was felt that this extra workload should be avoided
This proposal was accepted unanimously.
Last but not least the members were informed that Greece and Israel will in future be part of the Central European zone.
10. Applications for membership
The Secretary reported that she had received an application for ECF membership from Belgium. The application was almost complete, the only document missing was the confirmation of acceptance by the Belgian NOC. The Executive Committee proposed to accept Belgium as provisional ECF member pending the receipt of a letter of confirmation from the Belgian NOC.
This proposal was accepted unanimously.
11. Any other business
The Vice-President informed the meeting that according to a summary for the whole year of 2004 the Secretary was currently working 550 hours for the ECF per year. With an additional championship to be held from 2005 onwards (EMCC) this workload would still increase. The Secretary therefore had asked the Executive Committee to consider a rise in salary. The Vice-President went on saying that this issue had been discussed and the Executive Committee would propose the following:
The payment of EUR 2.400,00 (once per year) to cover office costs such as telephone, fax, e-mail, etc. should remain unchanged. The future salary for the ECF Secretary should be EUR 400,00 per month starting in April 2005. It was also proposed that this salary would be paid for an initial test period of one year.
This proposal was accepted unanimously.
12. Next meeting
The Annual General Meeting will take place on Tuesday, December 13, 2005 at 10:00 hours at Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
The meeting closed at 10:55
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