2020

Belgium 17 december 2019

Dear ship modelers the World over. Another year is rapidly coming to it’s end, a year that has brought some serious changes for our boating
Community and in particular for myself too. This is my first new years resolution i make as newly elected Naviga President, and in so i want to express my thanks and gratitude for the trust and believe put in our new Team at the last Assembly General Meeting. Our task is by no means an easy one, but i m sure we will do our very best to deliver on the promises we made.

It is our Team’s ambition to further expand our community by attracting new member Countries and to stop the decreasing number of participants in the different classes. By showing ourselves more trough the available media, we must become better known to a broader public. Especially what Juniors is concerned we have to stimulate all ideas and suggestions made to promote ship modeling in all it’s forms. So far we have been able to reduce the basic membership fee from 400€ to 300€ as per 2020, we realize that off course this is only a first step, but the circumstances Naviga is in now do not allow us to further reduce that fee just yet.
This Presidium also wants to stimulate the organization of major Championships, but felt that the current system of financing such events was not favourable towards the Organizers. A system where the left hand gives a grant, but the right hand takes away seems far from profitable towards those who put in an enormous effort to host such an event. Therefore we decided to no longer charge the 10%, respectively 30% of all entry fees at Continental/World Championships.
However for a WC there will still be a 1000€ grant towards the Organizer.
Again this being the best we could do under the current financial situation.

I am not the person to put my head in the sand towards certain issues Naviga faces. We all know what happened over the last years in the FSR-V section, and i also realize that certain things cannot be on-done no more, but i do believe we simply just cannot give up on those people who still want to participate in Naviga FSR-V events either!
I urge on all concerned people to come forward with any idea they might have to revive this class. Naviga does not appoint people to be Section Leader, the people themselves do. But as long as no one steps forward and takes that responsibility, how can Naviga events take place? From talking to several people of the last year and more, i know there is still an interest, so i urge upon those concerned to help us in finding a solution.
In both NS and M classes new Section Leaders have been elected, so long term stability in those classes is guaranteed. I am fully convinced of all the Section Leader’s commitment towards their function and offer the Presidium’s full support and cooperation in their job ahead.
In all, 2019 has been a successful year with several Continental and World Championships in all our classes, and several Championships have already been secured for 2020.

Communication being the solution to a lot of problems, i can assure all of you that this Presidium will listen and respond to people’s questions and demands. Trough dialogue and mutual respect lots of issues can be resolved. Those who have known me longer know that my door is always open for everybody and all relevant matters are debatable.

In the name of the whole Naviga Presidium i want to convey our best wishes for Christmas and wish you all a healthy and prosperous 2020!

Geens Walter
Naviga President