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One of the main advantages of sitting here in Lausanne is that we have an opportunity to exchange views and experiences with all the other 15 international sporting federations based here, as well as with the International Olympic Committee. The FAI is sometimes accused (perhaps not entirely without justification) of being a remote, slow-moving bureaucracy, wedded to the ways of the past. However, FAI is surprisingly advanced compared with some of our sister organisations. We have moved a long way down the roads towards exclusively electronic transmission of information for example. Compare this with one of our sister organisations, which systematically makes 3 paper copies of every email they receive and files them in three different places. Or with the other federation that excitedly reported to a recent coordination meeting that they had found a company that would send out multiple faxes to national members for a reasonable fee, eliminating the need for them to stand by the fax machine for hours on end sending out 150 individual faxes.... But of course we still have a long way to go. There are still a (very) few FAI office-holders who do not have an email link and are still unversed in the mysteries of Internet access. We still have to ship around the world large quantities of paper when it comes to distribution of agendas and minutes. There are even still a few people who have never read Air Sports International on-line... But we have nothing to be ashamed of in the community of international sporting federations. Many look to us to give a lead in matters of application of communications technology. All this seems very remote from the real preoccupations of you, our readers. But is it? As I have written before, the 21st century is going to be (is already) a very competitive place. Only organisations that remain in the vanguard of change will survive. Communication between people is vital to the protection of our interests, and ultimately the survival of air sports. We have a fight on our hands and communications are the key to success. This magazine, as well as being lively and entertaining, can also become a forum for debate on the serious issues that face us. As spring hits the Northern hemisphere, aircraft are fettled and pilot skills refreshed, we here prepare for the next FAI Council meeting (25/26 May 2000) in the hope that those who represent the international air sport community will deliberate with wisdom and courage to lay the foundations for air sports in the new millenium.
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