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| Foreword | No.62 October 2011 |

President`s Message - English
Margaret Talbot

As ICSSPE prepares for next month`s seminar “Communities and Crisis: Inclusive Development Through Sport”, which focuses on the uses of sport in managing trauma following disasters, our thoughts and prayers are with our colleagues in Eastern Turkey, as the region deals with the aftermath of another earthquake. ICSSPE was first requested to become involved in this work, after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004. Since then, successive seminars have been held to build capacity and share skills among organisations and agencies which respond to natural disasters. This year, there appear to have been so many such disasters. It is very clear that in the immediate aftermath, survival and management of basic services are the priority. But during the recovery process, skilful use of physical activities has been shown to aid victims in dealing with the trauma they have faced, and will continue to face. This month, I will be Chairing a workshop during the Peace and Sport Summit, with a panel of experts who have very different experience of working with the processes of recovery, from major reconstruction through hosting major sporting events, through physical and mental rehabilitation of injured victims, and measurement of the impact of trauma management using physical activities. It is clear that there is growing interest in developing the expertise for trauma treatment – and this is perhaps one of the most surprising applications of our primary business – sport science and physical education.
Next month, I shall be speaking at TAFISA`s 22nd World Congress on Sport For All, on building bridges between sport sciences and sport for all practice and policy. This seems a particularly appropriate topic, given ICSSPE`s role as a global umbrella organisation which covers the whole range of expertise and practice across sport science and physical education. During 2011, many of our partners and members have recognised the wealth of knowledge and expertise which, collectively and separately, ICSSPE member organisations can offer; and we have been able to respond positively to the many requests for information, speakers or sources of evidence or information. Some of our elected officers have supported the Berlin office staff and the President`s Committee, in representing ICSSPE at international events and conferences – and they tell us how much they have gained from these experiences. It is positive, too, that their hosts tell us how helpful this international representation is, in raising the profile of organisations and events, within the host country; and in providing personal and institutional support for the organisations which sponsor events. ICSSPE patronage, in these cases, is more than symbolic.
In September, ICSSPE was hosted for its annual statutory meetings by the Wingate Institute, Israel. We are very grateful for the wonderful welcome, hospitality and excellent facilities which our Israeli colleagues offered us. The Conference which followed the ICSSPE meetings is reported elsewhere in this Bulletin, but I highlight here, the leadership of ICSSPE in managing cross-border relationships, securing inter-governmental and UN agency support, and in identifying both practitioners with experience of working across cultural and political divides, and scientists from the area of sport-as-development, who offered robust critique of policy and practice. This event, too, demonstrated ICSSPE`s unique capacity to bring together researchers, practitioners and policy-makers, and also the value of ensuring that practice and research inform each other; and that in turn, both influence policy.
This ICSSPE recipe is also evident as we prepare for the 2nd International Convention on Science, Education and Medicine in Sport (ICSEMIS) in Glasgow, to be held immediately prior to the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. There is already a rich array of keynote presentations, workshops and seminars which show the value of multi- and inter-disciplinary approaches to the complex challenges and problems facing sport and physical education. The four organisations which comprise the International Coordinating Committee have collaborated with the Local Organising and Scientific Committees, to ensure one of the most exciting opportunities for researchers and scholars of sport science and physical education, ever seen in one place. We look forward to seeing you in Glasgow!

Professor Margaret Talbot, PhD OBE FRSA

President, ICSSPE

http://www.icsspe.org/