Season's Greetings President FIVA

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When I gave my election speech to the General Assembly in Cyprus as the future captain of a team of 11 – the number of players in a soccer team – I didn’t yet realise how true the soccer image would turn out to be. Especially for the 11th member of the team, by which I meant everyone outside the 10 General Committee members, including you who read this, representing our members or other interested stakeholders. In the three weeks since my election, I’ve been busy discovering just how multi-faceted this number 11, and so our movement, actually is. How many players there are on the field. And how important it is to get the right signals from everyone on the field who can help us, the General Committee, to follow the best route in an ever-changing environment.

While writing this I’ve been listening to some inspiring songs – John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ and ‘Voyage, Voyage’ by Desireless – both about a world without frontiers. But I’ve also drawn inspiration from my first experiences as your new president. After Cyprus, my wife Marianna and I flew to Athens, an ancient seat of civilisation and democracy, a hub of culture. What better place to start, now that FIVA’s efforts are focused more heavily on the cultural aspects of our motoring history? As with the Parthenon temple at the Acropolis of Athens, currently surrounded by scaffolding, our efforts are very much a ‘work in progress’. Strong national FIVA members are a prerequisite for success, and it was encouraging to see how well established is our ANF, FILPA, in Greece. My visit was the perfect opportunity to learn more about the challenges our ANF and other members in Greece are facing, and to emphasise the importance of unity and a common approach in our policy-making.

The first ANF to invite me officially to visit was our ANF in Italy, ASI. At its impressive stand at the AutoClassica fair in Milan, I experienced the second important ingredient for the future of our movement, after culture: passion. It was wonderful to see so many different, but all passionate, people being honoured by ASI for what they achieved on the historic vehicle scene in Italy this year: it’s clear that ASI is not just an organisation, but the home of Italy’s historic vehicle family. One lasting memory is from a presentation to celebrate 100 years of Zagato, when a designer drew four simple circles to begin a sketch of one of Zagato’s first designs – the circles drawn to ensure perfect proportions. So many good ideas have begun simply, from scratch, on a blank piece of paper.
While in Italy, I also visited our office in Turin, delighted to see the good work being done by FIVA’s only permanent employee, our General Secretary, Gian Mario Mollar.

In conclusion, let me thank all of you for the support I received in the election, and subsequently the generous congratulations from many sides. I am excited at the prospect of driving forward the many projects to which the General Committee has committed itself in 2020 and beyond, each one in the interests of our movement.
 

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