1.12.2004

MEMORANDUM

 

THE WORKSHOP OF THE NORDIC BALTIC DEAF SPORTS FEDERATION NBDSF

ON 27-28.11.2004 IN VILNA , LITHUANIA

 

 

BACKGROUND

 

The Finnish Athletic Association of the Deaf (FAAD) was elected to lead the activities of NBDSF for the years 2003- 2007 in the official meeting of NBDSF in 2003 in Reykjavik , Iceland .

Because of this honorary task SKUL applied for 20 000 € funding from the Ministry of Education

to develop the NBDSF activities for the four year period in question.

The Ministry of Education in Finland granted 5 000 € funding for the activities in 2004.

 

In connection with the EDSO Congress in June 2004 in Slovenia , Finland invited the NBDSF member countries, which were present, to discuss the possibility to organise a joint workshop for the NBDSF member countries with this funding from the ministry. Finland would pay the meeting-, accommodation-, and meal expenses of the participating countries. Those participating in the workshop would only be responsible for their own travelling expenses.

In Slovenia , Lithuania was chosen to be the host country for this workshop. Finland would be responsible for the organisation, programme and publicity of the workshop. The practical arrangements on the spot in Vilna were left for Lithuania to organise.

In Slovenia it was decided that the most important objectives of this workshop in question would be in addition to assessing the present situation of NBDSF, to draft a joint plan of action. This plan of action would function as an outline for the funding application for the years 2005-2007, when Finland will apply additional funds for the activities from the Ministry of Education.

 

Summary from the workshop on 27-28.11.2004

 

The objectives of the workshop were fulfilled extremely well. Especially gratifying was the fact that all the NBDSF member countries were represented in Vilna. The activity of participating was a clear sign on that the continuation and development of the NBDSF activities were felt to be a very important issue for all.

 

It should be noted that the workshop was not an official meeting of NBDSF in its nature, but the next ordinary meeting will be held on 28-29.5.2005 in Riga , Latvia . This is why this document is not in the form of minutes, but is some kind of a memorandum of the event carried out.

However, this original memorandum will need to be approved with a signature of the president of every country, after which this memorandum with its appendices will be sent to the Ministry of Education in Finland together with the funding application. Only the president of the Latvian organisation was not present himself.

These principle decisions, which were made at the workshop, will be officially approved at the meeting in Riga .

 

 

At the workshop the activity situation of each NBDSF country was first mapped out. After this, the SWOT analysis was drafted for the organisation for the first time in NBDSF history, in other words, the strengths, weaknesses, possibilities and threats in the NBDSF activities were viewed. This SWOT analysis was also as the base for the plan of action for the years 2004-2007.

FAAD was given the authority to make this plan of action more concrete to be the basis for the funding application for the Ministry of Education, especially from the point of view of the SWOT analysis.

 

In addition to the above mentioned issues, lively discussion was carried out, for instance, on the valuation of the exercise and sports of deaf people in comparison to the Paralympics activities, if Deaflympic Games should be joined with the Paralympics activities in order for it to receive more media coverage?

 

Further, plenty of discussion was carried out on the identification of the implanted hearing-impaired and hard-of-hearing people with deaf sports activities in the future; if the implanted hearing-impaired persons are a threat or possibility for deaf sports? If the organisations of deaf sports should change their names in order for the hard-of-hearing and implanted deaf/hearing-impaired people could identify themselves with the activities of the deaf sports organisations? Does the number of sign language user sportsmen decrease in the deaf competitions? Who do the deaf sports organisations serve in the future? Also many other questions were discussed, some of them received clear responses and solution models, some not.

It was difficult to find an unambiguous response or absolute truth to the questions mentioned earlier or even to take a standpoint in them. However, it was important to have the possibility to discuss these issues together and in a way to stop and think how the NBDSF member countries see the present situation and the future of deaf sports.

 

It was noted that the financial and activity resources of the deaf sports organisations in the NBDSF countries vary greatly even when compared with each other. In addition, the political and societal situation of each NBDSF country, and through that, the status and appreciation of the deaf sports organisations vary very much in the different NBDSF countries. From the member countries Norway has closest co-operation with the paralympic activities of its country, from the other countries Latvia , Lithuania and Estonia receive funding for their activities through their paralympic association, where also deaf people are represented. The funding in Sweden has been channelled through the Olympic committee of the country and the funding in Finland comes directly from the Ministry of Education. The sports activities in Iceland are mainly under the organisation of the deaf in the country.

 

There was consensus on that every deaf sports organisation should inform about its objectives and activities to all levels of society more than before, in other words to the political decision-makers, officers in the ministries, responsible directors, media, sponsors and other co-operation partners, paralympic organisations, different kinds of hearing sports organisations, and also to the general public as far as it is possible. Through the general awareness on the deaf sports activities the attitudes and appreciation of hearing people will increase towards deaf sports.

 

 It was jointly felt that the increased appreciation of the paralympic sports activities recently is not a threat in deaf sports activities, but a possibility.

However, the self respect of the deaf sports has suffered, in a sense that without deaf sports activities there hardly would be any paralympic activities either. Deaf people have first founded their own national and international sports organisations already 40-50 years before other sports organisations of people with disabilities were founded. Viewed from this background, deaf sports activities should not be drowned in the shadow of paralympic activities and into oblivion, as it has been felt in the deaf sports organisations lately. In addition, the decrease of financial support for deaf sports activities, compared to the paralympic sports activities, is felt to be a big threat. In spite of all threatening images, the sports organisations should concentrate especially in the quality of their activities.

It was also emphasised that the paralympic movement is not aware of the activities of CISS either. Arne Lundqvist told about his experiences in the Paralympic Games in Athens , and mentioned that very few people knew about the international sports activities of deaf people.

The possibilities for deaf advocacy work compared with other sports organisations and paralympic organisations are more limited. Deaf people have the only sports organisation, including the sports organisations of people with disabilities, whose language is something else beside the language of the majority, in other words the spoken language. Deaf people use sign language as their mother language. The representatives of the majority language users, in other words the users of spoken language, naturally have more possibilities in influencing advocacy work and information activities than the representatives from a minority language.

 

It was felt at the workshop that it was a very positive issue to be able to discuss about the status of deaf people, the situation in society, and new changes as truthfully as possible and with open eyes – without extreme fanatism and absoluteness.

At the end of the workshop every participating country had a possibility to inform the others about their own issues and there is a separate memorandum on these issues, which will be appended.

 

 

 

OTHER ISSUES AND NOTICES OF THE WORKSHOP

 

New logo for NBDSF

 

SDI introduced a new logo model for the NBDSF. After voting, almost a unanimous decision was made to choose, by a so-called principle decision, the second from the top alternative out of the five different logo-alternatives. Urban Mesch will be responsible for the purchase of the chosen logo model and will send them to Finland . Riina Kuusk informed that she is volunteering for designing the diploma, and that printing offers will be asked also from Estonia . In the first phase, the NBDSF diplomas, envelopes and letterheads after the new logo model will be made to be available as soon as possible. In the second phase, after the meeting in Riga , preparation and place of production of the NBDSF medals will be decided after a competitive bidding.

 

Sports festival for deaf people from the NBDSF member countries

 

The SDI motion of organising a sports festival every fourth year in the summer and winter sports was noted and approved in principle. In the first phase, the sports festivals in question will be organised in Åland , Finland jointly together with SDI and FAAD. The event is for people of different ages and would have an emphasis on the sports clubs of the NBDSF member countries. The sports clubs would mainly represent themselves and naturally their own country. The following would be the summer sports: basketball, table tennis, bowling, football, track and field, handball, marathon, orienteering, swimming, shooting, cross-country running, volleyball and international games for young people. The games would last for five days, from Friday to Tuesday. About the winter event a decision will be made later. The winter sports would be: the Alpine sports, ice-hockey, snowboarding and cross-country skiing. The winter sports events would last for four days, and in connection with them, for instance, a sports seminar and NBDSF meeting could be held.

 

NBDSF WWW-pages

 

It was decided that the activities of the www-pages will be continued in spite of the rare updating. The meaningfulness of the homepages was also discussed. Because of the NBDSF own image and profile the continuation of the homepages was felt to be important.

It was decided that the address of the NBDSF homepages will stay the same, in other words www.skul.org/nbdsf.

Finland and Sweden will investigate the different price alternatives to create completely own homepages for NBDSF by the meeting in Riga .

Urban Mesch hinted that, when developing the NBDSF homepages, the address www.engso.com could be used as a model.

 

As an idea for development it was decided to include in the homepages all the NBDSF record lists of all sports, different kinds of NBDSF history information, minutes, agendas, invitations, press releases etc. All member countries promised to give their input to improving the updating of the homepages.

 

 

It was noted that especially the NBDSF women’s swimming records had improved much. Members were satisfied with how the NBDSF record statistics were made. Björn Roine praised especially Denmark for its good and clear record statistics.

 

It was noted that the last minutes of the EDSO Congress in Slovenia have not yet been finalised.

 

Björn Roine brought regards from the EDSO Board meeting, which had been held in October in Athens .

 

Kliewer does not continue his work as the EDSO sports director, but has stepped down from the activities completely. The EDSO Board is delegating Kliewer’s previous tasks among themselves.

 

Poland and Spain have not taken care of their obligations, and that it why they do not have the right for representation in the EDSO activities for the time being.

 

The EDSO General Secretariat is in Manchester . General Secretary Edward Webb is also responsible for EDSO bookkeeping and finances.

 

It was noted that the licence responsibilities and information activities to EDSO, of the games the sports clubs of the EDSO member countries organise, are badly taken care of. Björn Roine mentioned that the results made in these so-called illegal games will not be approved in the EDSO record statistics.

 

NBDSF decided to make a proposal to the next EDSO Congress that, on part of the NBDSF own games, these game licence fees would not need to be paid to EDSO. The justification is that the NBDSF countries pay the participation fees directly to the organising country.

 

It was noted that the EDSO Hungarian Board member, Bela Panyi is responsible for these game licence fees. He should also be informed separately about these games.

 

Denmark will organise NBDSF swimming competitions for young people and adults in the spring or autumn of 2005. The competitions will possibly be carried out in connection with competitions for hearing people.

 

Estonia will organise NBDSF competitions in table tennis and indoor football for young people in October 2005.

 

Sweden reminded again that all the NBDSF member countries should seriously aim to that the proposal from Sweden on the NBDSF sports festivals for the member countries and sports clubs in 2008 in Åland could be fulfilled for sure.

 

Latvia assured that the next official NBDSF meeting will be held on 28-29.5.2005 in Riga .

 

 

Iceland hoped that Greenland could be accepted in the NBDSF activities because Greenland has approximately the same number of deaf people as there are in Iceland . However, it was noted that Greenland should be active itself in this matter, if they want to be included in the NBDSF activities. Denmark and Iceland could inform deaf people in Greenland about the NBDSF activities. Greenland should also found its own sports organisation or something equivalent to that.

 

It was hoped that in the future NBDSF could organise as many-sided seminars and workshops with different themes as possible. The participants of the above-mentioned events should change as much as possible in order not to have the same group meeting all the time.

 

Information was received on the summaries of travel plans of the NBDSF member countries for the forthcoming 20th Deaflympic Games on 5-16.1.2005 in Melbourne . From the NBDSF countries a total of approximately 287 persons, with 178 sportsmen will travel to the games.

 

At the end of the workshop every participating country thanked the host country Lithuania and the organising and funding country Finland for extremely good organisation and quality of the workshop.

 

NBDSF President Jarmo Järventausta closed the workshop by thanking the leader of the workshop Juha-Matti Aaltonen and all participants for a very successful and appropriate event.

 

In witness thereof the memorandum

 

Jarmo Järventausta                                                           Juha-Matti Aaltonen

President                                                                          Secretary

NBDSF                                                                             NBDSF

 

 

APPENDICES:

NBDSF SWOT

NBDSF BUDGET AND PLAN OF ACTION FOR 2005-2007

NBDSF APPEAL TO THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION IN FINLAND

PROGRAMME OF THE WORKSHOP

PARTICIPANTS OF THE WORKSHOP

THE NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS AND TEAMS FROM THE NBDSF COUNTRIES IN THE DEAFLYMPIC GAMES IN AUSTRALIA

 

NBDSF SWOT

 

STRENTGHS

·        The history of NBDSF: founded originally in 1912 (NDI), the oldest sports organisation of the people with disabilities, traditions, culture.

·        Regular joint seminars and meetings

·        Respect and equality of the member countries towards one another

·        Know-how and regeneration

·        Functional possibilities

 

WEAKNESSES

·        Status in society, attitudes and valuation, note: Paralympic activities, media

·        NBDSF is lacking a clear and stable administration

·        NBDSF own fundraising and financial possibilities + personnel resources

·        Financial possibilities of the NBDSF member countries themselves to increase co-operation

·        The status of NBDSF in EDSO should be clearer (licence fees, joint advocacy work)

·        Decrease in the activity of deaf people in the field of sports competitions

·        The functional activity and know-how of the sports clubs in the member countries

·        Strong regression in the individual sports

·        The organisation is not very well-known in the sports clubs

·        Information work on the NBDSF activities in the member countries

 

OPPORTUNITIES

·        To organise joint seminars, workshops and meetings with different themes for deaf people and other hearing-impaired people with different ages – exchange of information

·        Youth activities; sports camps, sports competitions

·        Increasing activities at the club level

·        Information work, Internet, www-pages

·        NBDSF 100th anniversary in 2012, a year with a special theme

·        Raising the NBDSF image with quite a small input

·        Sports festivals in summer and winter sports every fourth year. The sports clubs of the member countries as a special target group

 

THREATS

·        The identity of deaf people, compare the socio-cultural and medical viewpoint on deafness

·        Decrease in the activity of deaf sports competition activities

·        Decrease in the valuation of deaf sports

·        Decrease in the self determination of the federations and clubs – integration in the paralympic activities (this can also be seen as a possibility)

·        Continuation and funding of the NBDSF activities

·        The know-how in deaf sports activities and lack of training in the tightening competition in society

 

NBDSF BUDGET AND PLAN OF ACTION FOR THE YEARS 2005-2007

 

Background:

 

Finland functions as the leader in the NBDSF activities till year 2007. That is why the budget and plan of action are made until year 2007.

The total budget of the plan of action below for the period in question is 60 000 € , in other words 20 000 €/year.

On bigger part the fulfilment of the plan of action in practice is dependent on the views on the Ministry of Education in Finland on the funding application for the NBDSF activities.

If the Ministry of Education in Finland has a positive approach to our application, the possibilities of functioning of NBDSF will improve greatly already in that respect that the new leader country for NBDSF, which will be elected in 2007, will have realistic possibilities to receive funding from its own government.

As justification for the above we could mention, for instance, that the government of the previous leader country has had a positive approach to the funding of the NBDSF activities, so the government of the new leader country could see that the funding for the NBDSF activities is justified.

 

The Ministry of Education granted NBDSF 5 000 € for the activities in year 2004. We hope that the memorandum of the workshop would be a sufficient document to the Ministry of Education in Finland of the reliability of the NBDSF activities.

 

It is difficult to make a more detailed plan of action before we know the final decision on the funding for NBDSF activities. After we receive the final word, the FAAD Board will confirm and approve the budget. The final approval of the budget will be made in Riga in 2005.

 

The frame of the budget would consist of the following items annually:

 

NBDSF administration/Finland                                             4 000 €

NBDSF information activities, materials

Internet, fundraising                                                          2 500 €

One seminar/workshop/year

(Accommodation-, meals of the participants

and meeting expenses)                                                      3 500 €

Individual training for the member countries

(expert presentations, visits)                                              3 000 €

Medals, diplomas, record statistics                                      1 000 €

Youth festivals                                                                   5 000 €

Other expenses                                                                 1 000 €

 

THE APPEAL FROM THE NBDSF TO THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION IN FINLAND

 

 

Distinguished Ministry of Education in Finland ,

 

We, the Presidents of the NBDSF member countries appeal to You that you would take a positive approach to the 60 000 € funding application for our activities for the next three year term.

This would be very encouraging for the continuation of the NBDSF activities.

The leadership country of the NBDSF changes every four years, and the possibilities of the next leader country to receive funding from its own government would be much better after the Finnish example.

NBDSF has not previously applied similar kind of funding for its activities separately.

 

The sports of deaf and hearing-impaired people, as well as the NBDSF activities, are undergoing a period of transition. Financial support is of utmost importance to the sensible continuation of the NBDSF activities. The objective of NBDSF is to get the oldest organisation of the people with disabilities in the world to the level which the modern age requires by its 100th anniversary year in year 2012. Viewed against this background, our funding application for 60 000 € is not unreasonable in our opinion.

 

Sincerely yours,

 

Jussi Raisio

Finnish Athletic Association of the Deaf

 

Riina Kuusk

Estonian Deaf Sport Union

 

Ragna Magnusdottir

Icelandic Deaf Sports Association

 

Varis Strazdinins

Latvian Deaf Sports Federation

 

Aleksas Jasiunas

Lithuanian Deaf Sports Federation

 

Björn Raine

Norwegian Deaf Sports Association

 

Jessica Rohde

Danish Deaf Sports Association

 

Arne Lundquist

Swedish Deaf Sports Federation