ILSE - International Life Saving Federation of Europe

The ILSE Board Meeting 2010 was organised by the Danish ILSE Member, the Danish Swimming Federation, in a very harmonic atmosphere in the Marriott Hotel in Copenhagen, 4th – 6th June 2010.

Main topics on the agenda were the decision on applications submitted by the ILSE Commissions concerning the European Qualification Framework, Beach Risk Assessment Programmes, the participation in the European Year of the Volunteers 2011 as well as applications for the organisation of the next European Championships. These will be

The ILSE commissions meet regularly in January – this year in the DLRG Headquarters in Bad Nenndorf at 17th and 18th of January 2010. The meeting took place in the well equiped meeting rooms in a very good atmosphere. President Dr. Klaus Wilkens and Secretary General Dr. Detlev Mohr informed the 50 representatives of the member federations about new strategies and programs of the European Union like the European Qualification Framework and the European Year of Volunteering.

For more information about the topics of the discussions in the commissions please read the full article.

For the second time our Dutch Member Association, the KNBRD Reddingsbrigades Nederland organised the European Championships for Juniors in Eindhoven, the event took place from 4th to 6th September 2009. Teams from 14 ILSE Member Associations (Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland) participated in the competitions. Winner was the team from Italy (619), followed by the teams from Germany (612) on the second and the team from Spain (501) on the third place.

On 28th July Hans-Joachim Bartholdt deceased in his hometown Hannoversch Münden at the age of 81. DLRG’s long-standing President, Vice President and finally Honorary President committed himself to his organisation in an voluntary capacity until the end of his life. With Hans-Joachim Bartholdt, the lifesavers lose a great personality and a likeable person with outstanding specialist competence, while his family loses a devoted husband, father and grandfather.

The ILSE Board of Directors came from 8th till 10th of May 2009 to Paralimini (Cyprus) for its annual meeting in the spring. The meeting took place in a very good atmosphere. The Board of Directors decided unanimously

The European Championships for Juniors took place from September 9th to 13th 2008 in the remarkable swimming pool of Eindhoven and at the broad beach of Scheveningen in The Netherlands.

"The event was perfect organized by the Dutch Lifesaving Federation KNLRB. 13 teams took part. The spectators have seen exciting high level and fair competitions. Seven European Records for Juniors were broken." The Italian team was the winner in the pool (591 points), followed by Germany (580 points) and Spain (455 points).

The General Assembly of ILSE was organised in conjunction with the RESCUE 2008 World Championships in Lifesaving (see www.rescue2008.com) and the ILS General Assembly in Berlin/Germany on 18th July 2008.

After 34 years of duty, the Senior Vice President Bertil Werner (Sweden) stepped back from his position. The Secretary General, Dr. Dirk Bissinger (Germany) left to take over a new position within ILS.

This year’s Board of Directors (BOD) meeting of the European Branch of the International Life Saving Federation was held once again in Cavtat, close to Dubrovnik in Croatia from April 18th to 20th. The last BOD-meeting in Croatia took place in 2001; last year’s BOD-meeting took place in Belgrade, Serbia and in 2009, the BOD will meet in Cyprus. Great thanks have to be given to our Croatian Full Member for all preparatory work before and the efforts and hospitality during the meeting.