For the first time since February 2020, the situation made a personal meeting possible and thus most FEIF committee members met for a weekend full of discussions in Malmö, Sweden from October 29-30, 2021! And also for the first time, all young committee members could join the event.
The FEIF committee meetings are an annual meeting where the different FEIF committees discuss activities in their departments and prepare proposals and ideas for the Annual Meetings that will take place in February 2022.
Breeding
The participating members of the Breeding Committee, Breeding Judges Committee and the FEIF Registration Group discussed a wide range of topics. Among them different ideas for seminars for ringmasters, breeding judges, breeding leaders as well as WorldFengur registrars – as online but also as in -person events. In addition, there the exam for new breeding judges in spring 2022 has been discussed as the countries already pre-registered several candidates. The weekend was also used to prepare information on the guidelines for breeding shows and the BLUP calculation as well as proposals for the Delegates’ Assembly and the Annual Breeding meeting 2022.
Education
The FEIF Education Committee had a constructive work meeting with good input and discussions on different items. The group prepared the “Trainer of the Year 2021” award, discussed the different CPD seminars that were offered in the different countries and reviewed and updated different documents. Several equipment related questions were discussed together with the breeding and the sport committee in a joint meeting.
Leisure Riding
The participants in the meeting of the Leisure Riding Committee analysed the various activities that took place in the past year, among them the photo competition where more than 500 pictures were sent in, the Tour Rider Cup and the Virtual Ride. The feedback to these activities was great and therefore they will be offered again next year, partly with revised and improved procedures to make participation easier. The group also discussed new projects, the importance of World Championships and WorldFengur for leisure riders and the idea of seminars for leisure riders as well as the possibilities for the FEIF Rider Camp that will hopefully be possible next year.
Sport
After several online meetings during the past 1.5 years, the members of the sport committee and the sport judge committee finally could meet again in person and to discuss a long agenda with a broad variety of topics. The participants talked among other topics about rules on equipment, the clearness of the description of certain rules, reasons and descriptions for elimination and disqualification, the possibility to participate in more than one tölt test, the solutions for preventing too many horses in the finals and adaptations of judging of the entry-level tests to make them more approachable and better fitting to the training scale. It was a constructive meeting and many of the topics will result in proposals for the annual department meeting in 2022.
Youth
Over the weekend in Malmö, the Youth Work Committee discussed the upcoming Young Leaders’ Seminar. The event is divided into two parts, the first one as an online event with the topic Digital Networking in the equine sector that will take place 21st of November. This will be followed by the second part of the event that takes place in beautiful Vienna, 1st – 3rd April 2022.
We are also happy to announce that the planning for FEIF YouthCup 2022 is in full swing! The date is set to be 23-31 July and the host country of the Cup is Switzerland! The group had a rewarding meeting with the Swiss organizing team who shared pictures of the venue, and were discussing which classes will be offered, program proposals and other practical details.
Next time the committee members gather will be at the February conference in Oslo. We are looking forward to meeting many national Youth Leaders there! It feels good to finally be able to meet each other again and make plans for interesting Youth Events!