Report of the 42nd INF ‐ EuNat Alpe‐Adria Sport Event 18th to 22nd of May 2014 at Solaris, Croatia

The 42nd Alpe‐Adria sport event was once again held at the SOLARIS campsite, but this year with excellent weather conditions. Unfortunately, some registration listings were not received in time and therefore numerous participants had to register lately with Sieglinde and Jean on Wednesday afternoon.

On Thursday morning, a meeting was scheduled with the sport responsible at 10 o’clock, but unfortunately had to be cancelled again as last year, as some responsible had not appeared! Therefore, the amended listings could only be handed over to the responsible just before the start of the respective sport events.

The official opening of the competitions took place on Thursday at 12:30 in the presence of the Director of Solaris, the INF President, Sieglinde, the EuNatCom secretary Jean and many participants.
Meanwhile, the two helpful entertainers from Solaris had prepared the individual sports fields perfectly and the competition could be started.

The present federations were: BN, DFK(+BNV), DNH, FENAIT, FENHU, FLN, ÖNV, ZDNS as well as some members without participating federation who joined the games and were enrolled under INF‐FNI. In total, more than 100 members took part in the competitions. (As no responsible from Ukraine‐Russia was present, the Solaris team took over the supervision for badminton).

After the official opening on 19th of June the various competitions began under excellent weather conditions around 14:30 o’clock: Chess (ÖNV) Table Tennis (FENHU), badminton (animation team), Cross for Children (FENHU) and Adults as well as Tug of War (FLN + János).

On June 20th, around 9:30 o’clock the Tennis games were launched (DFK). (As no sport responsible from the DFK was present, a DFK Member (Klaus Herzog) managed this oversight ‐ Thank you) Because we were unable to finish the badminton competition the previous day, the volleyball tournament (ZDNS) was moved to the 2 Volleyball fields close to the GALEB restaurant to maintain the flow of play.

Because the gala dinner was foreseen from 20.30 till 22.00 o’clock, it was decided at short‐term to hold the award ceremony for the completed competitions on Saturday from 12‐14 o’clock on the sport fields to avoid running out of time at the gala dinner.

On 21st of June, the “Pétanque” tournament was started under the supervision of FENAIT (assisted by Jim) with 19 doublets and the Beach‐Volleyball (ZDNS) started in the afternoon. Both competitions finished well in time.

The gala dinner in the evening was excellent as every year. The price distribution with Cups and Medals for the remaining competitions (pétanque and beach volleyball) was held after dinner in the restaurant SOLARIS.

The trophy for "pétanque" this year went to the ÖNV. The FENHU was also honoured with a trophy for the most wins in the sport. The individual ratings (ranked 1‐3) can be found in the INF DOWNLOAD under "EuNat forms and Events ‐> Alpe Adria". At the request of various federations, a complete list of the "pétanque" competition is also available as download there. 

Remains to be mentioned that the youngest participant was five years “young”. A trophy for the oldest participant could not be assigned because much age information was missing on the forms!

At the end SOLARIS donated a giant cake for dessert.

On June 22nd, the final meeting, attended by the Director Solaris, the animation team, Sieglinde (INF), Jean (ENC) and the sports leaders of DFK, FENAIT, FENHU, ÖNV and ZDNS was held by 10 o’clock.

It has to be reiterated that the federations should respect the deadline to submit their correctly filled out listings, as this is a prerequisite for a trouble‐free overall flow of this event.

ZDNS criticized the preparation of the beach volleyball court by the animation team. Jean noticed that it’s up to the sport responsible to check the condition of their sport fields before the start of each tournament and to notice any improvement suggestions immediately to the animation team or to Jean.

Generally speaking, all sport responsible were satisfied with the process and we hereby thank the Solaris Management for this valuable provision of the entertainment team. Sieglinde handed over a small gift to the leader of the team as “Thank You”.

In addition, it has been proposed also to add the Slovenian language to the program in addition to the 3 INF languages (+ Italian and Croatian). Jean will contact ZDNS for this purpose.

In the future, Janos (FENHU) will bring along all cups and medals for the different sports from Hungary.

A survey with the INF members revealed that the new DOWNLOAD CENTRE is unknown to most participants. Our request to federations is to inform their members about this access in their next magazine or on their homepage. Thus, INF members of federations, which are not represented at Alpe‐Adria, could register individually with Jean. (Jean will create a relevant document in the INF 3 languages and deliver it to the federations).

It was also considered to extend the sport activities next year with a “Pedalboat” competition on the beach for all participants. Details will be provided in the invitation form at the beginning of 2015 and after consultation with the Solaris management.

It remains to notice that this INF‐ENC event is open to all EU federations and we hope for an additional participation of other federations in order to spend some beautiful days together with friends, since there are many direct cheap flights to the destination airport PULA. (Istria).

Jean will contact the Solaris Management one month prior to the next meeting to introduce the timely publication of the meeting all over the Solaris campsite to all INF‐FNI members.

Great Thanks to the VALAMAR management, the directress of SOLARIS, it’s team and all sport responsible for their valuable work and we are pleased to inform you that the next Alpe‐Adria meeting will take place again at SOLARIS from the 4th to the 7th of June, 2015.