MEETING OF WBF CONGRESS

THURSDAY, 15 JUNE 2006 IN VERONA, ITALY

The meeting was called to order at 09:45 a.m. by the President, Mr Damiani, who welcomed the delegates to this Congress meeting and thanked them for their presence. The meeting then proceeded as follows:

1. Roll Call to Determine Quorum

Mr Dan Morse, Secretary, called the roll. The following member NCBOs were represented by their President or his accredited representative, or by that representative’s proxy:

The President declared the meeting open, a quorum having been obtained, there being 58 NBOs represented.

2. Approval of the Minutes of the 2004 Meeting

The minutes of the 2004 meeting of Congress, held on 30th October 2004 in Istanbul, Turkey, which had previously been circulated to all NBOs, were approved and ordered filed with the official records of the Federation.

3. President's Report (click here for full report)

The President asked the delegates to stand for a minute’s silence in memory of Mr Ralph Cohen from USA who had died the previous day and Mr Amran Zamzami from Indonesia, who died at the end of 2005.

The President then thanked and congratulated the Italian Bridge Federation on the wonderful job they have done in organizing these championships and made particular mention of its President, Gianarrigo Rona, as well as all his team for their incredible hospitality.

He went on to introduce Mr Marc Hodler to the participants, as the President of Congress and asked him to say a few words.

Mr Hodler made a short speech congratulating the President on all the efforts he has made for the promotion of bridge and particularly in obtaining official recognition for bridge and other mind sports. He underlined once again the importance of teaching bridge in schools and universities as it was with the youth of the world that the future of bridge lay.

Mr Damiani then read his report which is filed with these Minutes as Exhibit 1. He expressed his disappointment that the NBOs were still not using the Code of Practice for the Appeals nor the requisite bridge equipment, whether this be screens, bidding boxes and duplicated hands at high level competitions or the new symmetrical cards with their distinctive colours.

He went on to emphasize the need to promote and develop bridge and the difficulty that the WBF faces with insufficient funds to do this, particularly if the national federations are not doing their part. He made a presentation on Bridge Promotion and Development and urged the members to instigate the actions suggested.

He also mentioned a proposal he had made to the Executive Council on changing the number of Zones from 8 to 5 in line with the 5 rings of the IOC and also revising the Constitution and By-Laws with respect to how many members should be on the Executive Council and the way in which they should be elected. However, he informed the Congress that, so far, no decision had been reached.

He went on to say that, following the decision of the Congress in Maastricht in 2000, he had kept his word about not increasing the dues until 2006. However, the Treasurer would be outlining an increase in the dues structure that he hoped would be approved by the Congress.

4. Treasurer's Report (click here for full report)

Mr Derivery presented his report which summarized the financial position of the WBF at end 2005 and is attached as Exhibit 2. This also explained the revised dues that would become effective in 2008 and would result in the WBF receiving $1.00 from each player by 2010.

The President thanked Mr Derivery for his report and then put a motion to the Congress to increase the annual dues from the current $0.50 to a total of US$1.00 which increase will be implemented commencing in 2008 and completed by 2010. This motion was ratified by the Congress with Canada voting against.

Mr Harry van der Peppel was invited to make a brief presentation on the FISU and the forthcoming University Championships that will be taking place in Tianjin, China from 21-27 October 2006. Despite the best efforts of the FISU and the WBF, the level of participation for this event is still poor and must be improved. He asked all countries to try to send at least one team to this event. Mr van der Peppel noted that the university students would be the leaders and deciders for the future of bridge, which is a sport of internationalism that can be played in any country in the world and in all languages.

The President then said a few words about the 2007 World Bridge Championships that would be held in Shanghai. These will be held in the Oriental Riverside Hotel and Congress Centre which is a splendid venue.

He went on to present a short slide show on the venue for the 2008 World Bridge Championships which will be held in Beijing. The slides showed the new venue that is being built by the Chinese for the Olympic Games and which will be available for us to use. The President said that the WBF was willing to finance 100 Youth Teams under the age of 25 and urged all the countries to train teams so that they could send one to Beijing.

The President asked if there were any questions and Mr Patrick Jourdain of Wales suggested changing to language of the proposed changed to the Constitution by replacing the word “female” with the word “women” so as not to offend the latter. He further suggested that it might be better to put ‘at least 4 members of each sex’ so that in the event that women took over, it would guarantee that there would at least be some men on the Executive Council!

5. Unfinished Business

There was no unfinished business.

6. New Business

There was no new business.

Before closing the meeting, the President invited Ms Maureen Hiron and Mr Gilles Cohen to make short presentations.

Ms Hiron offered all the members a copy of her new game ‘aBRIDGEd’ which has recently been launched, with great success, at the Toy Fair in New York. The idea is to try to bring more people to bridge by providing them with the opportunity to buy this game off the shelf.

Mr Cohen said that he would be making a presentation at 12:45 p.m. on his new concept on testing bridge skills called ‘Bridge International Certification’ and invited all members to attend.

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned sine die at 11.45 a.m.