EASS :: The European Association for Sociology of Sport

The year 2009 has proved that the eass is on the right track. In addition to the ejss as the existing hallmark of our association we took the first step to establish another one: the eass Young Researcher Award.

Furthermore the eass started to give assistance to joint European research projects as well as to improve the relationships between eass and other institutions.

The eass newsletter is published twice a year. Now we have the fifth issue. Proposals to include information are welcome. They should be sent to the Secretary General.

Looking back at the successful Conference in Rome 2009 we remember many interesting and inspiring contributions of the participants. Therefore, a publication of a documentation of the contributions seems to be a good idea. In the past we succeeded in having proceedings of all our eass Conferences.
The eass appreciates the initiative of Wojciech Cynarski, Kazimierz Obodynski and Nicola Porro to edit a documentation of papers presented in the Rome Conference and supports their call for papers which they have submitted to all participants.

Our conference in Porto, May 5th – 9th, comes in sight. The organizers work hard to make the conference a success. They composed a comprehensive scientific programme: 6 plenary sessions, 29 parallel sessions, a poster session, a workshop, and the young researcher award prize-giving ceremony. Six keynote lectures will be delivered by:

Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinrich Bette (Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany) „X-treme: Sociological reflections on modern adventure and risk-taking sports“
Prof. Dr. Andrew Sparkes (Exeter University, United Kingdom) „Inhabiting different bodies over time: Narrative dilemmas and pedagogical challenges“
Prof. Dr. Alexandra Lopes (University of Porto, Portugal) „Commodification of the body in contemporary societies: Having a body and being a body“
Prof. Dr. Rui Gomes (University of Coimbra, Portugal) „The visible body: Health representations in a consumer society“
Prof. Dr. Pascal Duret (University of La Reunion, France) „Self and construction of identity coherence in sports“.
Prof. Dr. Antonio Costa (University of Porto, Portugal

In addition participants can look forward to an interesting social programme at the university and in the city of Porto.
For current news please visit the website http://eass2010porto.fade.up.pt
Email: eass2010info@fade.up.pt

The board of the eass hopes to meet many eass members and new colleagues at the conference.

Due to the commitment of Davide Sterchele the 2nd eass Young Researcher Award can be granted. The selection committee has just completed the selection process. The prize-giving ceremony will take place on Saturday, May 8th, at noon.

The initiative of Remco Hoekman, Koen Breedveld and Jeroen Scheerder meets with lively response. With about 25 persons out of 15 countries interested in international sport participation research represented in Porto they have managed to get a promising group of experts together. In the upcoming eass conference 3 sessions are devoted to this topic. A meeting of the project group is scheduled Friday, May 7th, in the afternoon.
To give the sessions and the meeting a stimulating follow up the idea of arranging a special issue of the ejss on international sport participation rersearch is under consideration.

Issues are in view: No 2 of Vol. 6 and No 1 and No 2 of Vol. 7. It is intended to distribute these issues before the conference in Porto.
Starting this year the ejss becomes a quarterly. Therefore already in 2010 4 issues are in preparation. Subscription of the ejss is included in the membership fee of the eass. But to cover the costs of a quarterly more members are needed as well as more subscriptions by institutional libraries. So please support our efforts to gain new members and institutional subscribers.
There will be a change in the editorial staff of the ejss this year.

The European Non-Governmental Sports Organisation ENGSO is an important European organisation very well settled in the sport and sport political networks. The youth organisation of ENGSO is engaged strongly in subjects as health among children and young people, fight against doping in sports especially in the field of prevention, anti-discrimination and antiracism. The action plan of ENGSO YOUTH 2009-2011 stresses the points „To increase the health, safety and well-being of young people“ and „To promote participation and active citizenship“.
As these objectives fit with the topics of the 7th eass conference and as there is a great potential of collaboration between eass and ENGSO YOUTH the chairman Jan Holze will deliver a word of greeting and a short statement in the opening ceremony of the conference in Porto, May 5th.

The Executive Board of the eass is inviting you to the General Assembly in Porto, Friday, May 7th, 6.45 p.m. (see Article 7 of the Statutes).
Agenda

Following the Statutes (Article 4.5) only members in good standing can vote. Members in good standing are those who have paid the membership fee for the year 2010.

Participants: 20 eass members in good standing, about 20 guests
1. Welcome and Introductions
Welcome by the president O. Weiss. The president thanks all those who took care of the eass stand and were successful in gaining new members.
2. Approval of the Minutes of the 2nd General Assembly held in Jyväskylä 2006.
The minutes were approved by the members.
3. Report of the President
O. Weiss gives a report on the development and recent situation of the eass. He reminds the audience of the very successful conference at Münster in 2007 and stresses that the actual conference in Bled is also very successful, attracting participants from all over Europe and also from several non-European countries. He mentions the development of the eass newsletter as well as the new eass homepage (www.eass-sportsociology.eu). Finally he thanks Jerzy Kosiewicz and Joachim Mrazek, who will leave the eass board at the end of the conference. The formal goodbye will take place during the closing ceremony.
4. Report of the Secretary General
J. Mrazek also stresses the positive development of the eass. The number of members has been continually increasing since 2006, when the eass started to count separately eass conference participants and eass members (who pay the membership fee). At present there are more than 100 members, the biggest groups are coming from Germany, Poland, Belgium, Spain and Italy. Some non-European countries are also represented, most members from Japan. In that context he mentions a problem which occured during the application for the conference in Bled. There was a reduced conference fee for eass members. And for some participants it was not clear if they were members – if they had paid the membership fee once or every year. For the future it must be clear that only those persons are members who have paid the membership fee for the current year. Next he mentions the start of a cooperation between the eass and the ISSA beginning with the exchange of newsletters, available for all members. Finally he suggests taking special care of younger scientists in the field of sport sociology, i.e. offering special sessions for them and preparing a special award for them in future conferences.
5. ejss – Report of the Editor in Chief
D. Juetting, the Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal for Sport and Society (ejss), could not participate in the General Assembly. The Co-Editor B. Schulze takes his place and describes the situation and development of the journal. Primarily this development depends on the development of the eass, because an increase in eass members means an increase in sold copies. So in general there is a positive trend. But nevertheless at the present time the number of the members cannot guarantee the future of the journal. More university libraries are needed who take out a subscription for the journal. In addition the ejss needs more sponsors.
6. eass Conferences in Bled (2008) and Rome (2009)
M. Doupona Topic, the organiser of the conference in Bled, suggests giving a short conference report during the closing ceremony. N. Porro, who is ready to organise the next conference in Rome, gives some general remarks on the preparation of a conference. More details will be given in autumn by email.
7. Election of Board Members
J. Mrazek, who is leaving the board, and S. Licen take over the function of scrutineers. Results of the elections by secret ballot (20 members in good standing):
President Elect:        Paul de Knop/Belgium (18 yes, 2 no)
Secretary General   Andrzej Pawłucki/ Poland (19 yes, 1 no)
Fellows:                     Mojca Doupona Topic/Slovenia (20 yes)
                                  Hannu Itkonen/Finland (20 yes)
                                  Bernd Schulze/Germany (17 yes, 2 no)
                                  Irina Bykhovskaya/Russia (15 yes, 4 no)
O. Weiss and J. Mrazek congratulate the members of the new board.
8. Other Business
There is no contribution.
J. Mrazek                                               O. Weiss

The organizers of the 8th eass conference 2011 in Umea (Sweden) and the 9th eass conference 2012 in Bern (Switzerland) will give informations during the conference in Porto.