ENGSO General Assembly and ENGSO Youth Assembly held in Vienna
ENGSO held its 32 General Assembly, hosted by ENGSO member Sport Austria, in Vienna from 14-16 June 2024.
On the same occasion, 21st ENGSO Youth Assembly, EU seminar and ENGSO seminars on Equality and Sport were held.
The event started on the 14th of June with the welcoming words by ENGSO President Stefan Bergh, in the beautiful hall of Haus das Sports.
Gerd Bischofter, the Managing Director of Sport Austria, also welcomed the participants, highlighting: “At Sport Austria, we are proud to be a part of ENGSO for many years. To learn from each other, exchange ideas and work on issues together.”
The program was then followed by the insightful EU Seminar.
The first presentation was given on behalf of IRIS (Institutions for Respect and Integrity in Sport) which is home of three expert institutions which promote safe and clean sport by fostering prevention in terms of anti-doping, violence prevention, enhanced gender equality and the prevention of betting manipulation.
Michael Cepic, Managing Director of Nada Austria, Claudia Koller, Managing Director of 100% SPORT and Marc Orlainsky from the Play Fair Code, joined to lead a seminar on sport integrity, anti-doping and safeguarding in sport.
The first day was then concluded with the presentation of Lisa Wainwright, CEO of Sport and Recreation Alliance and Ricky Boardman, Head of Research of Sport and Recreation Alliance. They were leading a workshop which explored the UK’s experience of building an advocacy coalition across the sport, recreation and physical activity sector and examined how international comparative evidence can be used to make the case for the economic, health and wellbeing benefits of being active.
After the seminars, ENGSO members had the opportunity to join the tour of the Vienna City Hall where they were welcomed by Omar Al-Rawi, City Council of Vienna and Michael Eschlböck, Sport Austria Vice President.
The next day was kicked off by ENGSO Youth Policy and Projects Manager, Mr Tiago Guilherme, who during the session entitled “Sport in the trending world – are we able to keep youth voices involved?”, challenged the participants with an important question: “are we managing to reach the ones in need and assure that youth voices are diversified from various groups, especially from more vulnerable backgrounds?”. He explained to representatives of the ENGSO member organisations why building mechanisms for youth participation in sport organisations is important and how sport organisations can improve and increase the inclusion of youth in the decision-making process.
Afterwards, an interesting session delivered by Mounir Zok, CEO of N3XT Sports, took place, explaining how artificial intelligence revolutionises various aspects of the sport industry, from athletic performance, training, to fan engagement.
When the seminar part ended, Mr Stefan Bergh welcomed the representatives of the ENGSO Member organisations to the 32nd ENGSO General Assembly. A special welcome was also given on behalf of Alvise Angelini, Senior Policy Officer and Sport Secretary of the European Lotteries, who also welcomed the participants and highlighted the longtime successful partnership with ENGSO.
During the General Assembly, the ENGSO report and achievements, finances, Committees (ENGSO Youth, Equality Within Sport - EWS, and EU Advisory Committee), projects and updates on statues were presented by the members of the Executive Committee.
The General Assembly also approved updates to the ENGSO statues, making ENGSO more inclusive and open to new memberships and opportunities.
The highlight of the 32nd ENGSO General Assembly was ENGSO welcoming five new member organisations:
New members joining are Sports Committee of Ukraine, Belgian Olympic and Interfederal Committee, the Olympic Committee of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Olympic Committee of Montenegro and the Olympic Committee of North Macedonia.
ENGSO Youth’s key moment was the Youth Assembly which followed the ENGSO General Assembly on Saturday, 15 June 2024, and highlighted the main achievements of the Committee in 2023.
ENGSO Youth Chair Ugnė Chmeliauskaitė kicked off the Youth Assembly by presenting the overall impact the organisation had on the European youth and sport sectors, and highlighted the key results related to organisational development, achieved since the election of a new Committee in May 2023.
After the introduction of key achievements, ENGSO Youth Vice Chair Erik van Haaren, Committee members Valentin Doupona, Alessia De Iulis and Marija Leskovec and staff members Tiago Guilherme, Policy Manager, and Polona Fonda, Communication Manager, took the stage to present the activities, events and projects currently being implemented by each ENGSO Youth working groups.
The event was then concluded with a great tour through Vienna and a farewell traditional dinner, joined by a special #BeActive activity, dancing on Austrian traditional folk music.
At the events, EUSA was represented by EUSA Student Commission Member, Franciska Coko.
For more information, please see https://engso.eu/ and https://engsoyouth.eu/