As in many organisations where democratic decision making procedures have to be adopted, there was considerable debate with a variety of opinions and views being expressed on a number of issues but, in keeping with the traditions and roots of FESPA, everbody was able to contribute and put their point of view across. Many of these issues are not for the public domain but in good democratic style, virtually all of the issues concerning procedures,rules and constitutional issues were accepted and formal votes will be taken on these issues in the next few months.

In his Presidential address, Gyorgy Kovacs spoke deep from his heart about the values that had always existed in FESPA and the need to retain those values in our enlarged community. He said "the FESPA spirit has always been indomitable and has always provided for friendship, trust, love and tolerance so it is so important to ensure that we all retain these values as we together build on the FESPA of tomorrow". This was received to much acclaim.

Some of the issues we can report on here are that Enrico Steijn, Board member and Treasurer from the Netherlands, was overwhelmingly voted in as Vice-President. Enrico will work with new President, Gyorgy Kovacs, and full time FESPA staff to deliver even more exciting events, benefits, shows and projects for FESPA members everywhere. I was personally delighted about this decision. Enrico will, I am sure, make a major contribution to the success of FESPA in his role as Vice-President bringing with him considerable experience, business acumen and passion to this role.

The General Assembly also re-elected Hellmuth Frey to serve on the FESPA Board for another three years.

Delegates were also provided with reports on the last two FESPA exhibitions (in Munich and Mexico) and were shown brilliant videos of these two events. You can watch these videos here on the FESPA website under the FESPA TV tab. 

Delegates were also alerted to the two FESPA events taking place in November - the Fespa European Congress taking place in Brussels on 19th November directed to members (and non-members) in North west Europe and the FESPA EMEA Summit in Istanbul on 24th November directed towards Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa. Information about both these events can be found on this website.

We also reported on the proposed Association Development Programme (a way for FESPA to provide more help to all Associations by introducing a range of new initiatives and benefits for them) as well as an Association Reward Scheme which will provide tangible rewards to Associations who can demonstrate successful achievements within their Associations.

There was also an update on FESPA supported projects (over €1.4m has been invested in these since 2004), and Regina Aas (from Finland) and Valerie Vercammen (from Belgium) were elected to replace Ludovit Bartos (Slovakia) and Edo Sternard (Slovenia) on the Committee but for me, the highlight of the weekend, was to see the brilliant presentations made by the Associations of Australia, India, Slovakia and Spain. These are now available below...so if you are interested in joining and getting closer to FESPA, then please contact the secretary of the relevant Association.


We rounded off the formal events with a fun team quiz about FESPA - which I think was well received - with members of the winning team being presented with a small gift following which, after lunch, we went on a short tour of Hamburg. This was followed by a boat trip around the container port. This was quite amazing seeing so many containers stacked so high (some of the ships are able to take up to 12,000 containers), but we also caught a glimpse of the new yacht of Roman Abramovich which was receiving some finishing touches in the port before being handed on to its new owner. The yacht is reported to be worth €350m and has a helipad, submarine, state of the art navigation and warning systems, a swimming pool. ballroom and a crew of up to 100. Quite a nice little weekend launch!

All in all, I feel it was a most worthwhile weekend, but as ever there remains much work to do and FESPA (Associations, Board and staff) will, I am sure, do all that is necessary to enable us to move forward to reach new heights in the years ahead.