The Story of IAWLS

The Story if IAWLS and what we are

The International Association of Worldloppet Skiers (IAWLS) is a non-profit, registered association with a double goal:

• to help XC skiers interested in Worldloppet races with practical advice,
• to serve as a link between the skiers and the race organizers in view of improving the quality of the races.

Our basic philosophy is that we are enthusiastic WL skiers but also consumers who wish to get the best possible service for our money. There is a mutual interest between skiers and organizers which can be stated shortly as:

“no organizers, no race – no skiers, no race!”

Some historic notes

The predecessor of IAWLS was the association with the same name founded in 2000 by Jan Jasiewicz (SUI), Hannes Larsson (FRA) and Lech Milewski (AUS). This non-registered association was welcomed by the WL General Secretariat in Tartu who gave us an appreciable support, in particular by including a IAWLS web-page on the WL web site. Mid-2005 the proto-IAWLS had grown to some 240 members from 22 countries.

It became gradually more and more advisable to give IAWLS an official status. The big step was made in August 2005 when seven persons fixed the statutes of the association and agreed to register IAWLS in France according to the Law of July 1, 1901. The declaration including name, address, statutes and first officials of the association was deposited at the Préfecture de la Drôme, France, on September 13, 2005.

The Founders

The founding members of IAWLS, registered association, are:

• Bengt Karlsson ( USA)
• Hannes Larsson (FRA)
• Minoru Matsuyama (JPN)
• Lech Milewski (AUS)
• Blanka Nedvedická (CZE)
• Robert Palliser (CAN)
• Piotr Szkarłat (POL)

Structure

IAWLS is run by an Executive Committee elected by the General Assembly. The Executive Committee members elect the officers: president, secretary and treasurer. The current Executive Committee members are shown under “The Team”.

Working method

The Statutes of IAWLS mention the membership fee. Don’t be afraid of that. We drafted the statutes in a very general sense, in order to avoid changing the statutes if the need for collecting membership fees should arise at a later stage. For the foreseeable future, the amount of the membership fee will be zero.

This is possible because we operate by e-mail and because all Executive Committee members are volunteers who spend a lot of time for the association. Even the web site is privately funded by our webmaster Bengt. With this working method, the Treasurer’s job is simple, the annual balance sheet will state 0 = 0.

Communicate

You can write to the Executive Committee, iawls at worldloppetskier.com . All questions, comments and suggestions are welcome. The Executive Committee can read e-mails in 12 languages: Czech, Danish, English, Esperanto, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish and Swedish. We have also main correspondents in Russia who can help us with the Russian language.