Duration: 6:03 mins

Narrator: Craig Crowley
Caption: ON
Transcript: ON

Source: YouTube (ICSDChannel)

ICSD President, Craig Crowley, gives statement regarding current situation with Deaflympics and other issues.

Hi – I’m Craig Crowley and I’m President of ICSD

I am happy to give you information as regards progress made by ICSD since the last video message in December last year:

Deaflympics remain our number one priority. We are working on resolving situation with Hungary 2013 and other possible options by end of May 2012. Please see that video.

Rome Congress provided ICSD Board & staff crucial mandate to work on ICSD review. Again, please see separate video.

After difficult 2011 we have a shoestring budget for 2012. Same as many countries after failure of Deaflympics. David Lanesman, our vice president has made a financial video.

All of these videos can be found on our website, on our facebook page, on my twitter feed and on our YouTube channel.

Continuing dialogue and re-establishing relationships/MoU with ISFs & IPC to advance Deaf Athletes movement. We are pleased to have the support of international federations including FIFA for football.

Regular and continuing support from IOC is important. The IOC has increased our financial support by 35% this year and is now helping us look for new hosts for the Deaflympics.

We have also started discussions with potential sponsors with help from IOC.

We have restructured all our operational systems to make it more accessible and modernized. All audiograms are now stored electronically.

Thanks to the help from IOC we are getting closer to funding for a new Sport Director.

5 countries have chosen to call for Extraordinary Congress, and I am disappointed about this.

WHY?

Congress voted only six months ago. Congress told ICSD to put athletes first and go forward.

With due respect to those 5 countries I simply must ask majority of ICSD member countries to oppose/reject this proposal.

Members need to be aware that commitments were made before I started to host Deaflympics in Slovakia, in Greece and in Canada. But they all failed because of bad contracts and lack of government support. First, we had to win back the trust and support of the sporting world. Now that we have done that, we can go forward to work with new hosts.

We must all engage with the sports world. Not just ICSD. All members can help. Did IOC members come to your competitions last year? Please invite them. Together we must raise the visibility of our deaf athletes.

Sometimes, we are working so hard on so many problems and priorities, that we do not communicate our progress to members well enough. I’m sorry for that. We need to do a better job of showing you our work. There will be regular news and more social media. We will also remember to use email and you will see a lot more video in ISL.

Remember that we have to repair the damage of one deaflympics. We have to find hosts for two more. We have to review our governance. And we have very limited time, money and resources. Please allow us to get on with our work, showing us the same confidence you showed only six months ago at the Rome congress. And we will keep you regularly updated about that work.

See you again soon.

Thank you

Good day. I am the USA Deaf Sports Federation president. I am here today to announce USA’s support of the Swedish Deaf Sports Federation’s call for an Extraordinary Congress of ICSD to take place 3 months from now.

The issue of focus here is not the 2011 Slovakia Deaflympics. We are now more concerned about what has been happening after the 2011 Slovakia Deaflympics.

Two respected ICSD Executive Board members, Josef Willmerdinger (Germany) and Dwight Benedict (USA) resigned. Why? They did not like or support what was happening behind the closed doors of the ICSD Executive Board?

Were the member countries happy with the Rome Congress? USADSF was not happy with the way the Rome Congress was poorly managed. Member Federations know I often stood up and spoke at the Rome Congress several times during the proceedings.

There was no workshops set up during the Rome Congress. It was all reports presented by the ICSD Executive Board and guest speakers. These reports are important for us, yes, but we must have time to discuss pertinent issues regarding international deaf sports. There was none.

The Congress facilitators were well-respected individuals but they did not run the Congress well because they were not familiar with the ICSD Constitution and Bylaws. There was confusion at different times during the Congress when the facilitators made some procedural errors. It should have been handled professionally.

In several cases, the Constitution and Bylaws were ignored and not followed during the Congress.

No one from the ICSD Legal Commission was present at the Congress. There are also many other issues that concern USADSF greatly.

The financial reports were poorly presented. Many questions were asked regarding operating budgets. The ICSD Executive Board did not satisfactorily answer questions regarding salaries, and other financial matters. We must have documentation regarding ICSD finances.

Draft meeting minutes distributed from ICSD contained many errors. At least one action item was fabricated. That item was never discussed or voted on at the Rome Congress. USADSF sent in their response with corrections as to what actually happened at the Rome Congress. ICSD President Craig Crowley (“C.C.”) responded back stating, “only the United States had a problem with the draft meeting minutes, no other countries responded.”

I question that statement because I know other countries have expressed to me their concerns about the meeting minutes, but they may not have spoken up because they do not possess the necessary knowledge regarding the items in the minutes or they have a language barrier as English is not their first language?

We appreciate the fact that Hungary tried to put together a successful bid package for the 2013 Summer Deaflympics but did not come through due to a lack of financial support from its government.

For several months we have waited patiently for a report from Hungary or ICSD. We kept getting reassurances from ICSD that everything is fine, that they are working with Hungary on logistics and operations. We don’t know what is happening right now.

Last month, the German Deaf Sports Association sent in a letter urging ICSD to stop operations of the 2013 Summer Deaflympics in support of having a stronger, better planned event, than having a poorly managed one.

We felt ICSD would have learned its lesson from the cancellation of the 2011 Deaflympics in Slovakia. We still see the same problem.

Also, the ICSD CEO, Mark Cooper (sideburns name sign) has been doing a good job in some areas as the CEO, but on the other hand, he seems to prefer to work with his hearing counterparts in ICSD member country organizations, often bypassing deaf leaders in their federations — that is oppression! Not acceptable.

One clear example is how the World Deaf Athletics Championships in Canada has been handled with struggles on both sides.

We must meet to have a dialogue on whether the ICSD Executive Board is well prepared to do their job, or must they be replaced?

We need to have a workshop and dialogue, so I ask all member countries of ICSD to support this need for a meeting.

Thank you.