2007-2009
On 31 st of June 2 years will be passed since the last General Assembly Meeting of Balkan Speleological Union when the new Bureau of the Union was elected. After the discussions with full majority we elect Petar Beron (Bulgaria) - President; N. Mitsakis, Greece - Vice- President; Alexey Zhalov (Bulgaria) – Secretary General ;Meltem Pancrachi (Turkey) and Oliver Gitchevski (Macedonia) – Members..
We are glad to present you the General Report of the BSU for the period since last GAM in Bulgaria. Two years have passed since Teshel and it seems it was yesterday. Two years, and a lot of things have happened in the Balkans Speleological Community .
The Situation in 12 * Balkan Countries is the following :
Full Members Countries – State XGAM – 2008
1. ALBANIA - Gezim Uruci / Ahmed Osia
2. BULGARIA - Peter Beron/ Alexey Zhalov ;
3. GREECE - Nicolaos Mitsakis/ Lambros Makrostergios;
4. ROMANIA - Tuberiu Tulucan/ Mihaela Sopincean
5. SERBIA - Urosh Aksamovic/
6. TURKEY - Meltem Pancarci/
7. FIRO MACEDONIA – Josip Zmajzek / Oliver Gicevski
Not Yet Members :
1. Bosnia and Herecegovina;
2. Croatia - in negotiations ;
3. Montenegro – declare formal interest ;
4. Slovenia - join their events to the 2009 Calendar of BSU
* Kossova is not recognized by all Balkan counties – we have contacts with SC”Aragonit”- Peja
To give you a short summary of the meetings that the members of the BSU Bureau have made together or separately :
Bureau meetings – 2 :
- During 10 Pan-Hellenic Meeting – Loutra-Ariedea- Greece 1-3 November 2007;
[by P.B&A.Zh, NM, OG (substitute)]
- During the Celebration of 80 th Anniversary of Organised Speleology in Bulgaria
21 March 2009; (NM,MP,PB,AZ)
Other evens with Bureau members participation
1. Extra ordinary GAM in Kokinogia – Greece : Jun 2008; (PB,NM,AJ,MP)
2. Forth Speleological Simposium – Ankara , Turkey - 19– 25 February 2008 (by A.Zh)
3. Informal meeting of Balkan Countries during the European Congress of Speleology – Lans en Vercors – August 2008 (MP, NM, OG,AZ) – participate cavers from (BG,GR,TR,SLO,SR,RO,MK;)
4. Congress of Romanian Federation of Speleology – 24-27 September 2008(by A.Zh)
5. Meeting with the President of Albanian Speleological Association – Shkodra, Albania , 2-3 April 2008; (by A.Zh)
The idea about the initiating of the First Assembly of the cavers from the Balkan Peninsula appeared in the autumn of 2006 and it belongs to the Vice-Chairman of the Bulgarian Federation of Speleology (BFS) and General Secretary of the Balkan Speleological Union (BSU) – Alexey Zhalov. The Bulgarian Federation of Speleology undertook its organizing of the First Balkan Cavers’ Camp wich took place in the village of Teshel, Smolyan district, from 27 June to 1 July 2007. Totally 187 cavers from Albania, Bulgaria , Greece, Macedonia, Romania, Turkey took part in this important event. The first step was successful and give us the hope that the Balkan Camps will turn traditional.
During the Camp took place the General Assembly of the Balkan Speleological Union with participation of the leaders of member speleological organizations. Mr. Tiberio Tulucan from Romania participated as an observer.
The members of the Assembly listened and accepted the Report of the Activity of the Union for 5-years’ period since it was established, as well as the Financial Report for this period. The Agenda continued with election of new executive body of the Union, due to the expiration of the mandate of the pervious one. was elected the Protocol for Cooperation among the federations of the Balkan countries were signed. After lively discussions and voting was accepted a change of Article 7 of the Statute of the BSU. The new article 7 states: “Вalkan countries – members of BSU is represented by one delegate. In case that there is more than one national speleological organization (federation or association) in the country, the national delegate is elected among them according mutually accepted rules”. In addition, the matter of discussion is solved also by Art.10 of the current Statute: “The General Assembly is composed by delegates (one each member per country).
The host of the s2nd Balkan Speleological Reunion Camp was given to Greece. The Hellenic Federation of Speleology (FHS) undertook its organizing, encouraged by the readiness of the Greek Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Macedonia - Trace, the administration of Drama Prefecture and the mayors of the Municipalities Prosotsani and Alistrati.
From 13 to 22 of June, “En Limni” performance area near by Kokkinogia Village, Drama County gathered the representatives of Bulgaria , Greece ,Romania , Turkey ,Cyprus , Hungaria , Ukraine –In total – 274 cavers. During the Camp Extraordinary General Assembly Meeting (GAM) of the BSU was held . Albania was represented officially (by proxy) from Alexey Zhalov. Mr. Martion Kucsera and Gabor Loshonci from Hungaria participated as observers.
The members of the Assembly accepted the brief Report of the Activity of the Union for last year. Romania was accepted as new member of the Union. The project for reduced annual membership fee on proportional principle was approved. There was decided that the amount or the Annual subscription of country members will be arranged into 3 categories as follows:
National organizations under 100 cavers: 50 Euro;
National organizations between 100 and 500 cavers: 100 Euro;
National organizations with over 500 cavers: 150 Euro.
The Bureau of BSU received offer from the Turkish Cavers Union to be the organizer and host of the next 3rd Balkan Cavers Camp on 2009. This offer was accepted with great pleasure. The Romanian colleagues declare their intentions to be a hosts of the Balkan Camp in 2010 but the official decision on this subject will be taken during the of National Congress of Romanian Federation of Speleology in September 2008. During the GAM was discussed also the project of the Written declaration of European Parliament on Cave Protection as a cultural, natural and environmental Heritage, and the construction of new more interactive web page of the Union. It was recommended to the delegates of Romania, Bulgaria and Greece to lobby before the National Deputies of these countries in the European Parliament for signing the offered declaration.
The Camp was very successful as a result of the several months’ efforts of all members of the Hellenic Federation of Speleology, especially of its President, Mr. Nikolaos Mitsakis, its General Secretary, Mr. Lambros Makrostergios and Mr. Nikolaos Diafas .
Since 2007, it has been a constant concern to inform on a regular basis all the BSU delegates and national federations in Balkans , with the now called « BSU’mail ».
We suppose that in the future time the creating of BSU newsletter will be very useful for all of Balkan federations.
Something that has also been helping the delegates or federations is the renewing of our website and the updating of the address details of the Speleological federations in Balkan countries so to make easier the contacts among Balkan cavers.
The BSU website is administered by Atanas Russev - Bulgaria and is our « window » towards the cavers community of the world. But bacaus of personal problems o the administrator and some other reasons it is not absolutely open for the cavers. For example the Forum is not working ! The creating of new web in Bulgaria cost 1200 Euro but because of not regular payment of annual fees we haven’t so much money. In the same time we didn’t make nothing to find some volunteers to make new site and to administrate and moderate it. Nevertheless some of the BSU achives are store on it : reference documents, meetings reports, calendar of events etc …
In the period we continue the creation of Annual Calendar of the speleological events of BSU. On the background of the Calendar for 2008, the Calendar of present year is more affluent. Even more Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina , two countries which are not members of BSU join it. But because of the poor participation of cavers from different countries in the proposed events it didn’t assist the rising in of the relationship between Balkan cavers.! Probably in the future the responsible factors of national speleological organisations will try to stimulate the cooperation more active .
Here we want to inform you about the way that the Bureau is working. In order to follow the rhythm of its activities, the internal BSU functioning had to be more efficient. The Bureau must take its decisions by email which procedure works well. But the yearly Bureau meetings are not enough for the progress on the most sensitive issues and to progress on more complex general themes. So the Bureau gathering must to be more frequent.
It is time to discuss also the creation of different BSU commissions as a subsidiary organs of BSU Bureau. Some of the most important directions in this case are the cave training and cave rescue.
After all what was mentioned in our report we have to conclude that BSU is useful and muss continue to work in the future in order to achieve the aims, stated in the regulations:
• To promote sport and scientific Speleology in the World and especially on the Balkan Peninsula by exploration, training, publications, mutual information, etc. BSU is particularly concerned with cave rescue and cave preservation;
• To support the institutions of each country member of BSU in matters,concerning karst, caves and Speleology;
• To work for better connections between the cavers and the speleological organizations of the Balkan countries by sharing information, experience, mutual visits, joint expeditions, etc.
It is necessary to unite our efforts and to help (according to everybody’s abilities) for their fulfillment! We think, that BSU is necessary and could play very important role for the development of speleology in the region! We should not forget, that at the Balkans were established one of the first speleological organizations in the world, here were born and worked world famous speleologists, in all 11 Balkan countries the speleology is developing (better or worse). But what knows the world about our activity? Apart from that, the Balkans are the place where are thousands, still unexplored caves. In other words, we all have endless quantity of work, which we could not finish alone. Let`s work together!
After we agree on general questions – about the existence of the Union and its future activity, we should elect new Bureau, because according to Art. 13, the maximum duration time for each member of the Bureau is 2 years.
I deeply hope, that the future will be more successful for the Union and this will happen due to the participation and efforts of all national speleological organizations in Balkans.
Finally I would like to thank sincerely to all, who dedicated their efforts and time and cooperated with us in fulfillment of our mission.
To finish this general report we hope to see you all next year, 2010, at the 4th Balkan Cavers Camp in Romania , and we wish you a good General Assembly Meeting.
Reported by Alexey Zhalov
Secretary General
