Magglingen, Summer 2008

Dear Gudrun,

We know each other for more than fifteen years and have met several times at very different places. Our first meeting must have been at the Scientific Congress in 1992 in Malaga before the Olympics in Barcelona. You gave a main lecture on: Deporte para atletas disminuidos: Oportunidades de hoy para una vida mejor mañana (Sport for handicapped athletes: Opportunities of today for a better life tomorrow). As an invited lecturer I presented the results of a study on careers of athletes and dancers. This study was part of a common project with J.B. Dupont of the University of Lausanne and his team on: Cambio de carrera para atletas y bailarines profesionales (Change of career for athletes and professional ballet dancers). The Congress Hotel in Malaga was just beside a new and very noisy highway so we had long evenings to discuss the future of Physical Education, Sport and also the Sport Science or the Sport Sciences. Is PE a Science? For both of us having degrees in PE and in a science - it was easy to argue for both positions, but also to understand both positions.

In the following years, we met at very different places, mainly in connection with ICSSPE meetings that were spread all over the world: in Berlin, in Biel/Bienne, in Helsinki, in Jyväskylä, in Singapore, in Brisbane, in Bejing, in Heidelberg, in Magglingen and in Zurich.

Some of those meetings have been very special. I recall at the end of January 1994 on the occasion of an ICSSPE Executive Board Meeting in Magglingen, my wife Christina invited the Board to a dance performance of the KiJu-Ballett in Biel/Bienne. In February 2005, the KiJu-Ballett then performed in Bad Boll, Germany.

During the ICSSPE Meeting in Lausanne in 1998, all ICSSPE leading officers, as well as representatives from external organisations such as UNESCO, the IOC and the WHO, were given the opportunity to discuss a large number of questions and position statements related to ICSSPE. Financially assisted by the IOC and supported by the know-how and the technique of Group Solutions Inc. from Atlanta, USA. The cooperation with Group Solutions was established through your networks. The technique used was an excellent starting point for the “new” ICSSPE. Participants shared ideas and discussed short-, mid- and long-term goals and activities. Using computer technology to answer and vote, all participants were in contact to each other with the collective answers on a screen, but the votes and comments were kept anonymous.

An artist took note of all the points discussed and draw some kind of a mind map. This mind map was the base for the ICSSPE VISION. It showed an outline of the values and contents ICSSPE stands for:

Gudrun, not only to have visions, but also to realise these is one of your very special characteristics. Your “female” style of leadership is so seldom in top positions, both in business and especially in sports organisations. You did an excellent job in guiding ICSSPE as president in a new century and in a new millennium. Thank you.

In June 2001, a big surprise for me was when you came to Zurich for my “Parting-Lecture” from the Swiss Federal Institute for Technology. You opened the lecture and announced that the General Assembly of ICCSPE in Brisbane had conferred to me the status of an Honorary Member of the Executive Board.

Dear Gudrun, I had the chance to have met you within ICSSPE and to work with you for ICSSPE. I liked to work in the Editorial Board and later to lead the Editorial Board, the Flagship of ICSSPE as Jan Borms called it. Thank you for the long and very friendly cooperation. I am sure we will meet again somewhere.

Guido