Dear friends,
I wish your summer was full of enjoyable and enriching sailing experiences.
Para Sailing
We have just received the sad, disappointing, and enraging news that Sailing shall not be included on the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games sports programme. The sailing community, including EUROSAF, has put quite some effort to secure the now failed inclusion. Beyond the failure, we deplore the situation of the sailors, who are deprived of such a motivating competition.
At the Executive Board we feel the sailing community has to remain committed to offering the best possible opportunities to all para sailors in terms of enabling participation, providing training, and keeping on with competitions. We will of course continue and expand EUROSAF’s involvement in Para Sailing. We strongly encourage our Members to keep up with the development and support of Para Sailing, regardless of the Paralympic status of our sport. We will also seek more information from World Sailing about how can EUROSAF be of more help in gaining inclusion in the future. Our clear goal is to activate European sailing in all disciplines and to raise the bar of our beloved sport for all.
European Sailing Academy
Find enclosed (http://www.eurosaf.org/esa-west) a brief description of the ambitious project EUROSAF plans to develop for the benefit of its member MNAs and sailing in Europe. In short, this European Sailing Academy project shall dramatically bridge the gap between knowledge producers and its users in the field of sailing in a dynamic, challenging, and rewarding environment.
The project is based on a successful model implemented in the field of space studies (http://www.isunet.edu/news/feet-tapping-and-hands-clapping-at-isu-ssp18-closing-ceremony/576) and has already received relevant shows of interest from credible potential partners and contributors. As you will promptly notice, some areas need further development, especially to confirm its commercial viability and to introduce compelling branding, to name only two.
By promoting the project, the Executive Board is ambitious but not reckless: be assured we remain determined to develop it without putting EUROSAF’s financial stability at risk.
Assign your most passionate, committed, forward-looking crewmember to this project and challenge them to improve it (easy!) and to contribute towards its success. All hands on board! May I suggest, as a first move, that they contact me? I feel confident doubters shall be converted: the benefits in terms of improving the attractiveness of sailing as a field of study, and thus of enlarging the body of knowledge about our sport, and of putting such knowledge within easy reach are overwhelming.
I fondly look forward to receiving your feedback and your involvement to jointly make this project a success for your MNA and for sailing.
Best regards,
Josep M. Pla
President
EUROSAF