11 March 2008 - Archery World Plan Update

Archery World Plan Update Lausanne – 11 March 2008   The Steering Group that is heading the Archery World Plan’s implementation met on 8 March 2008 at the European Indoor Championships in Turin, Italy. The Group was pleased to see that the work on the Archery World Plan is progressing on schedule and the input they have received in these first six months has demonstrated high quality and focused thinking.   The first two years of the Archery World Plan are focused on examining Archery’s identity and its events. The focus is on ensuring that International Archery has a unified and simplified identity and that there are concrete plans to make the international events more attractive for athletes, spectators, partners, and television viewers. From here, the plan will then move on to concentrate on its promotion, its partnerships and its expansion.   The Archery World Plan consists of 24 different focus areas. Since the start of the plan in August 2007, five working groups have been created. Two final reports, from the group examining Archery’s identity (Focus Area 1 of the Archery World Plan) and the group examining the idea of implementing a common branding system throughout FITA and its continental and member associations (Focus Area 4), were presented to the Steering Group this past weekend. The Steering Group has the task of examining these reports, and finalising a proposal to be passed on to future working groups or to the Council at their next meeting.   The other three groups, who are looking at the image of Archery (Focus Area 2), the differentiation of competitions (Focus Area 5) and the organisational structure of FITA (Focus Area 20), are all working hard and are expected to submit their reports for the next Steering Group Meeting which will take place in May. By then, another two working groups will have been started.   Many people from within FITA Member Associations have taken a leading role in making these groups productive. As well, many external parties have become involved in the working groups. This brings a much needed external view to the sport. Representatives from organisations such as Olympic Solidarity, IOC Sports Department, UEFA, International Basketball Federation, University of Lausanne, among others, have all contributed in a working group. The mix of external and internal perspectives gives a lot of added value to the work being done on the Archery World Plan.   Commenting on the Archery World Plan, the President of FITA, Dr Ugur Erdener, said: “After six months the Archery World Plan is showing results. The ideas that were presented at the Steering Group meeting this past weekend demonstrate the high standard of structured and creative thinking that we hoped the plan would promote. This is just the beginning. Over the next five years, together, we will make the future of Archery strong.”   The Archery World Plan was adopted at the FITA Congress in 2007 and will run from 2007–2012. It focuses on key changes that should be made to Archery over the coming years to strengthen its recognition as an important Olympic sport. The plan is designed as a change project which will instigate and manage substantial change in the sport and feed this back into the daily operations of Archery. The plan describes a total of 24 Focus Areas within Archery that will be examined over the duration of the plan.   The implementation of the plan is structured in a way that a Working Group is formed for each of the 24 Focus Areas. This Working Group is responsible for examining the key issues at the core of each area and making concrete proposals for improvement. Once these proposals are finalised they are passed on to the Archery World Plan Steering Group and then to the FITA Council for approval and implementation.   Hafize Khachab FITA Project Manager