copanarco@hotmail.com

Panamerican Archery Confederation

COPARCO 2006 Congress Minutes 

Place: Scorial Río Hotel, Río de Janeiro, Brasil.
Date: November 2, 2006.

Attendants:

Officials:

President: Ernesto Díaz Bazán

General Secretary: Mónica de Hernández

Vice-President C.A. and Caribbean Region: Gloria Rosa Berrios

Vice-President Southern Region: Ottón Baquerizo

Represented countries:

1.     Argentina, with proxy granted to Colombia

2.     Barbados, Judith Magras

3.     Brasil, Vicente Blumenschein

4.     Canada, Al Wills

5.     Chile, Roland López

6.     Colombia, Maria Emma Gaviria

7.     Costa Rica, with proxy granted to Guatemala

8.     Cuba, Angel Sánchez

9.     Dominican Republic, Bárbara Hernández

10.                        Ecuador, Ottón Baquerizo

11.                        El Salvador, Jorge Jiménez

12.                        Guatemala, Carlos Díaz

13.                        Honduras, with proxy granted to Cuba

14.                        Nicaragua, with proxy granted to Puerto Rico

15.                        Panamá, with proxy granted to Rep. Dominicana

16.                        Paraguay, Cristina Chamorro

17.                        Perú, with proxy granted to Chile

18.                        Puerto Rico, Gloria Rosa Berrios

19.                        Suriname, with proxy granted to Trinidad & Tobago

20.                        Trinidad y Tobago, Jonathan Kacal

21.                        Uruguay, with proxy granted to Jorge Jiménez

22.                        Estados Unidos, Lloyd W. Brown Jr.

23.                        Venezuela, Aracelis de Chacón

Daily agenda was as follows:

Ø PRegistro de participantes

Ø Verificación de Quórum

Ø Ratificación del acta anterior

Ø Informe de la Presidencia

Ø Informe de la Tesorería

Ø Informe de los Comités

Ø Ratificación de cambios realizados a los Estatutos revisados en congreso 2005

Ø Elecciones

Ø Sistema de recalificación de jueces continentales

Ø Programación de los Eventos de Ranking Mundial 2007

Ø Puntos varios

o   Ratificación del ingreso de Aruba como miembro Coparco

o   Clasificación para los Juegos Olímpicos Beijing 2008

o   Propuesta sobre Campeonato Universitario

Ø Cierre del Congreso

Quorum check:

Arrival of Federation Representatives took place at 3:00 P.M., completing attendance check at 4 PM.

Quorum check of 23 countries present, out of 28 registered took place next.  

Previous Congress minute was submitted to vote and was approved by majority.

With warm welcome greetings and thanking the attendance to the Assembly, the President presented his Administration Report, emphasizing the following activities:

-Coparco missions.

-School missions.

-World ranking events.

-Coaches seminar.

-Athletic equipment donations.

Master coach training in El Cairo, with a team presently made up of three level II coaches (Jorge Jimenez, Aliro Durán and Miguel Flores) and two level I coaches (Lisandra Rodriguez and Rene Peralta).  He also reported the work being done with new countries such as Aruba, which will we ratified in this Assembly and has already been accepted by FITA.

He announced the project of a development center in Puerto Rico, being its main goal to provide assistance and orientation to the Caribbean Region, mainly to countries which have recently initiated archery as a sport.

He spoke, with great satisfaction, of the success of the “VIVA AMERICA” Program, where on behalf of Coparco and great support, 22 spaces for athletes were obtained, all of which took part in the Youth and Cadet World Championship in Merida, Mexico. In that championship a supported athlete from the Americas, Paris Goico, from Dominican Republic, won a Gold medal.

Next event in the Congress was the Treasury Report.  First, the Treasurer’s, Carlos Hermes, excuses where presented, since he couldn’t be present at the congress.  The General Secretary presented the income and expenses report for 2005 and for January to September 2006, with all its attachments.

The report was approved unanimously.  

COMMITTES REPORTS

Judges Committee

Sergio Font, the Judges Committee’s President, emphasized the wonderful work of all judges in every World Ranking event, and informed that on Canada’s request, a Coparco supported Continental Judge Course will be held in 2007 in the city of Toronto.

Mr. Font also informed that up to this date there is a list of 43 Coparco Judges, and that thanks to the level of Judges in the Americas, all events are better and archers know rules more and are better prepared to take part in world class events.

All judges are encouraged to keep on preparing and to maintain their quality for the benefit of the region.

Development Committee

Maria Emma Gaviria, President of the Development Committee, presented a report containing the summary of activities held through out the continent.  She expressed the Committee’s intention of determining the situation of each one of the countries, requesting information through a survey.  Answers received, however, have been very few.  All Coparco members were urged to cooperate on the matter, expecting, therefore, better feedback in the future from all countries.  The President mentioned existing plans for high performance support to all countries, aimed at increasing the America’s technical level.  The project has already been presented to FITA, where it’s still under discussion.  The basic idea is to provide help in a more elaborate manner, which will require a higher investment of both, time and resources, in each planed support visit to different countries, and a monitoring program to boost up the provided assistance.  This high performance projects are expected to start next year, after justifying before FITA the need to make them a short term reality.

Rules and Regulations Committee

Guillermo Jiménez, President of this Committee, was commended for his great effort on revising the COPARCO Constitution.  Mark Miller was also thanked for his contribution, through his knowledge and experience, on revising and approving the Coparco Constitution.  Sergio Font was also mentioned as the mediator through out the agile and efficient analysis and approval process.

The changes made to the Constitution approved in the 2005 Assembly were ratified.

Elections

These were the results of the election for the existing vacancies:

President

One Candidate: Ernesto Díaz Bazán

Voted for and elected unanimously.

South Vice-president:

Candidates:

Otton Baquerizo (5 votes)

Petra Aracelis Padrón de Chacón (6 votes)

Maria Emma Gaviria (12 votes)

Elected Vice-President for the Southern Region: Maria Emma Gaviria.

Council members: 3 Seats

Candidates:

Esteban Valdez (6 votes)

Alberto Sánchez (16 votes)

Sergio Font (22 votes)

All three candidates were elected.

Proposals for 6 world ranking tournaments in the Americas were presented, with the following results:

El Salvador                             22 votes

Dominican Republic      21 votes

Puerto Rico                    19 votes

Colombia                       19 votes

United States                 18 votes

Venezuela                      16 votes

Guatemala                     12 votes

Mexico                           10 votes

The first six were elected.

It was unanimously decided that the last Classifying Championship for the Pan-American Games will be held in Dominican Republic and will be the first event of the year.

It was unanimously decided that the Continental Classifying Championship for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games will be held in El Salvador.

New member of Coparco

The admittance of the Aruba Archery Federation as a member of the Pan-American Archery Confederation was approved unanimously.

Judge Re-qualification System

Sergio Font explained that the continental judge re-qualification system format will be similar to FITA’s.  It will be activated in 2007 with the following terms:

·        Continental judges who achieved their rank in 2005 and 2006 will not have to re-qualify in 2007.

·        Continental judges who achieved their rank before 2000 and have not worked in World Ranking tournaments after 2000, will be excluded from COPARCO’s list.

·        Continental judges who achieved their rank between 2000 and 2004 will take a written exam prepared by the COPARCO Judges Committee in 2007.

·        Judges who pass the exam mentioned above will be re-accredited as Continental judges.  Those who do not approve it will have the opportunity to take a second test.

More detailed information on re-qualification will be sent to the judges involved and their National Federations.

The approval of the National Federations will also be requested, as well as their guarantee of participation of their judges in national events.  

The judge re-qualification proposal was submitted to vote and was approved by majority.  

The importance of development work at college level was mentioned.  Charlie Díaz, from Guatemala, offered to do a full research on the subject and present a plan or proposal for 2008.

The importance of young archers and cadets for COPARCO’s future was also emphasized, and therefore, programs to raise their level must be our priority. 

Otton Baquerizo, from Ecuador, mentioned the importance of having each Federation verify the approval of the National Federation of every participating athlete during international events.  The organizing country is responsible for requesting such approval from all competitors.  As a suggestion, the registration forms should include the signature of the President or General Secretary of the Federation of each participating country.  The idea is to promote respect to hierarchy and authority among the athletes, and to avoid any inconveniences.

It was agreed that the next Congress will take place in El Salvador during the month of October, before the Continental Classifying event for the Olympic Games.  

With no other matter to discuss, all members present were thanked for their participation and the Congress was adjourned at 7:15 p.m.