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FAI’S NEW ERA: SECOND INSTALMENT In my editorial in last month’s issue, I wrote about the watershed decisions that would be made by the Paris Council meeting 28th and 29th of May: the award of the 2001 World Air Games, and the decision about the future location of FAI. Now those decisions have been made, and they are indeed of monu-mental importance for FAI. It is no exaggeration that they will change the future of the organisation. The World Air Games: Invitations to bid for the 2001 World Air Games were issued in June 1997, with a deadline of October 1st. Four submitted their initial bids by the deadline. After FAI’s Rio Conference in October, the World Air Games Co-ordinating Committee (WAGCC) started contract negotiations with Austria, Poland, Spain and Turkey. After three negotiating rounds in January, March and May respectively (where Poland and Turkey withdrew their bids), WAGCC presented their evaluation at the Council meeting on May 29th. The 2001 WAG will take place in Andalusia –more about this elsewhere in the magazine and on FAI’s web pages. The emphasis on PR development and publicity is strong, and the next three years are likely to see intense marketing by the Spanish organising committee and FAI in joint effort. Moving House: For 93 years, ever since its foundation in 1905, FAI has been based in Paris, France. The first 85 years, through two World Wars and many vicissitudes, FAI was housed by the Aéro Club de France in Rue Galilee. When expanding needs required more space, FAI accepted an offer of free office accommo-dation by the French Government in 1988. So, over the past 10 years FAI has been at two different locations in Paris, lastly in Bvd. du Montparnasse. Over time, this arrangement has proved unsatisfactory, but it has not been possible to arrive at new arrangements with the French government. Clearly, this could not last, particularly since FAI gradually became more and more of an air sports organisation, with interests reaching into the Olympic family. We needed a better business environ-ment, better facilities and better access to our kindred souls in the world of sports. The ’97 Rio General Conference entrusted Council with the decision to move to another country with better conditions. At the Council meeting in Paris, no less than four important cities presented FAI with offers of special conditions and arrangements to host the FAI Headquarters: Geneva, Lausanne, Monaco and Vienna - all with impressive, well designed bids. After due deliberation, the Council decided to break with tradition and relocate the organisation and its Headquarters to So, air sport friends - in a matter of months we will pack up FAI’s Golden Treasure (93 years’ archives and documentation of records and achievements - including Lindbergh’s original transatlantic record flight documents) and move into a new future!
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| OTHER ARTICLES OF ASI JUNE'98 ISSUE | News In Brief | Letters To The Editor | World Records | | 1998 Free Flight World Cup | | Flying With The Birds | | Baltic Cup 1998 | | Some Rare Kind Of Guts | | Did He Actually Fly Before The Wright Brothers ? | |
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