POLAND – On 2 July 2019, the fifth DIBF World Congress was held at the Arche Hotel in Lublin, Poland. 24 delegates from 14 countries were present.

The DIBF thanked Polish Deaf Sport Association for the excellent organization.

In the morning the DIBF Workshop was first held with great excitement, as the DIBF Central Board is offering the workshop for the first time. Above all the reasoning is that we have a great need to discuss many motions for our DIBF General Statutes, as well as other points, e.g. new DIBF Logo Design, new Event 3×3 and new DIBF Museum.

President Aleksas Jasiunas thanked for great collaboration

After the workshop and the lunch, the DIBF Congress was opened by President Aleksas Jasiunas. He made an impressive opening speech and thanked the Central Board for the great collaboration in the last four years.

Secretary General Jürgen Endress led the Congress

Jürgen Endress, DIBF Secretary General led the congress excellent. Some important points of the agenda were impressed reports from the board and the zones, many important proposals for the general statutes and the election of Central Board for the term of 2019-2023. Positive was that all proposed paragraphs from Central Board were agreed with a full majority.

The delegates voted at the congress

As expected, the Central Board has asked former Secretary General Kjell Gunna and long-time President Aleksas Jasiunas to the stage and honored with loud applause as honorary members.

Kjell Gunna and Aleksas Jasiunas honored as honorary membership

Newly introduced with “DIBF Hall of Fame”, by the first class of 2019 has been honored Aleksas Jasiunas, Kjell Gunna and Yaakov Keren, all as contributors.

Yaakov Keren, Kjell Gunna and Aleksas Jasiunas in the DIBF Hall of Fame

New elected President is Ioannis Stoufis from Greece. Secretary General, Jürgen Endress, Germany and Treasurer, Yaakov Keren, Israel were re-elected. Alexander Bochkov, Russia and Dario Pignataro, Italy were elected as Members in the Central Board. There were different interesting discussions, also about bid procedures, activities plan, etc.

New elected Central Board 2019-2023