The future of INF-FNI is at stake
The Word Congress 2020 of the INF-FNI (International Naturist Federation) takes place in Slovenia on Thursday 7 and Friday 8 October 2021. The congress should have taken place in the beginning of last year but has been postponed twice because of Covid-19.
The focus is on the presidential election on Friday or - if the debate drags out - on Saturday. The current president Sieglinde Ivo is running for her third re-election. She is challenged by Stephane Deschenes, the delegate for Naturist Association Thailand.
NAT is proud to have Stephane as our delegate. There is no doubt in our mind that if he wins the election the INF-FNI will be a more democratic organisation.
On Thursday, a major debate erupted over whether or not France should be allowed to vote. The French president had not signed up as a delegate because another member of her Board of Directors would attend the meeting and she expected him to represent France. The INF-FNI Executive Committee refused, however, to accept that. The other person was attending the meeting as EU Assessor and could as such not represent his country, the INF leadership argued. The attempt to prevent France from voting - presumably against the current President - was supported by the President of the Legal Council, but since he was a member of the French naturist federation himself, he was not allowed to rule in the case. The question was therefore passed on to the Vice President of the Legal Council who took the opposite view to allow France to vote - but asked for his decision to be put to the vote. In this vote, an overwhelming majority supported France and accepted that the EU Assessor could leave the podium and take up the function as the delegate for France.
Later, another critical issue came up around the website of the INF-FNI which had been renovated for well over 1 mill Thai Baht. The critics asked, why the substantial contract had been given to the Hungarian company without a round of bidding and why the decision had been taken by the narrow three member Executive Committee alone and not by the Central Committee of the INF-FNI.
Naturist Association Thailand has proposed a number of motions that are on the table for debate on Friday. The most far reaching is a proposal to form a Non-European fund to support activities outside Europe, modelled over the same template as the current EUNAT. The proposal anticipates that the Congress will decide to make the member fee the same world wide and when that happens, part of the increase in payment to the INF-FNI from countries outside Europe will then be allocated this fund to be managed by the Non-European federations.
Another more practical proposal is a suggestion to establish a committee to completely overhaul the statutes of the organisation.
Ça commence à devenir vraiment compliqué pour les profanes…
Looks becoming more and more complicated to be a naturiste
The delegates debated other issues all Friday, so the elections will now take place today, Saturday.
BREAKING NEWS Stéphane Deschênes elected president of INF by 104 votes to 68. There will be a role for outgoing President Sieglinde Ivo in the transition, not yet fully defined. More follows.
Congratulations for this outcome for which you have devoted so much energy. Gregers, you were right and I was wrong. The INF was worth saving. The farce has ended. We have a new beginning.
I feel that hours spent has now been rewarded. I am anyway exhausted and have announced that I will leave at the Congress next year.
What is most frustrating is that the old President was given permission to stay on as a kind of honorary president for THREE years to “help with the transition”. Just go to the bank and change the signatures on the accounts should not take that long. Are more tricks up her sleeve once Stephane returns to Canada?
Three months perhaps but three years is worrisome. Suspicious. Something is wrong. Maybe she needs three years to scrape together enough to put the books back in balance. Maybe she has no other source of income and needs three years to feed from the trough. Maybe its political and not financial and she thinks she can subvert from within and crush Stéphane’s efforts. Whatever, use your investigative talents Gregers to get to the root.
In Singapore we have a very simple abbreviation to define this kind of situation; “DDSS”. It means Different Days, Same Shit.
So, I will continue to follow my own way and just getting naked at any opportunities given by life with respect for others staying aligned with the sense of the word nudity.
The King is dead, Long live the King!
I have more breaking news. Here is the translation from the Portugues naturists posting from the same event.
“Today in Slovenia, during the 37th World Congress on Naturism, the INF-FNI showed great growth and appreciation of the values promoted by Naturism as a philosophy of respect and sharing.
Its president Sieglinde Ivo will remain in office until 2024, when the next World Congress on Naturism will take place.
In these 3 years the Canadian candidate Stephane Deschênes will have all the support for an apprenticeship that will make this period a transition period.
After this period Sieglinde Ivo will be named Honorary President of the International Naturist Federation, as proof of recognition of all the work developed and all dedication to the Naturist cause.”
I can predict the next news:
The tapes …? Oh, we did not record this meeting, we just did simultaneous translations.
Now that is a horse of a different colour. It would be most interesting to see which of the two is actually listed as president on the organization’s records.
That will be Sieglinde, for sure. I just saw the official.email they have given Stéphane: co-president. Guess if Sieglinde has kept her old email!
For me, this would be my sign that it is time to withdraw.
I think they should have called the bluff instead of this messy arrangement.