Timo Kulcak Reports 07/12/2011

Dear Athletes,

As announced on the WDSF website, another WDSF ATHLETES' FORUM was held on 29 October 2011 during the Russian Open (including the WDSF World DanceSport Championship Standard) in Moscow.

It was yet another occasion to exchange ideas, objectives and views of all athletes with their Commission in order to represent the best interest of all our athletes and to enhance the communication between WDSF, the Athletes' Commission and the dancers.

The most important topics for this meeting:

General Presentation of the WDSF Athletes' Commission

We still feel that not all athletes are aware of the work and the structure of this quite newly installed Commission. Therefore we explained to the audience that the WDSF Athletes' Commission is the direct link between all WDSF registered couples and the WDSF Presidium. We strongly believe that all athletes should play an integral role in the development and organisation of our beautiful artistic sport. Please find attached once more the structure of our Commission. It is organised along the following:

Chairperson - who is also a Member of the WDSF Presidium

Representatives of three different categories (Youth, Senior and PD)

Regional representatives (Africa, Americas, Asia/Oceania & Europe).

The regional representatives will be elected during regional Athletes' Forums. Further regional Forums are being planned for 2011 and 2012.

Please find below the structure and representatives to date (4 November):

The website section of the Athletes' Commission can be accessed here!

Open Forum and Discussion

The purpose of an Open Forum is to give all Couples a chance to give their opinion on whatever they believe is necessary to discuss. It is important for us to collect ideas, wishes and requests of our Couples to provide the WDSF Presidium with useful information in order to adopt those ideas into our regulations. Various Topics were discussed during this Forum.

Election of European WDSF Athletes Commission Representative

One of the objectives of these regional Forums is to elect a regional representative for the WDSF Athletes Commission. As it was an Athletes Forum in Europe, we held an election of the European Athletes Commission representative.

There were two candidates:
Benedetto Ferruggia (GER) and Ashli Williamson (DEN),

Both athletes introduced themselves shortly and addressed their ideas and visions to all athletes present. After counting the votes Ashli Williamson from Denmark was elected by the athletes to serve as their European Athletes Commission Representative.

In due time all contact details of all representatives will be published on the Athletes Commission part of the WDSF website.

Lectures

As a gesture to all attendants and to develop these Athletes' Forums as well as to make them more interesting, two renowned trainers were invited to give a lecture: Mr Frank Venables (UK) and Mr Petr Horacek (Slovakia). Our sincere thanks go to the both of them for giving such wonderful lectures that were highly appreciated by the athletes.

Our special thanks go to Pavel Dorokhov and the Russian DanceSport Federation for supporting this meeting.

The Athletes Commission

4 November 2011

The WDSF Athletes' Commission invites you to visit http://athletes.worlddancesport.org and to leave your comments there.