News

IFMAR registered as International Non-Profit Association.

Last year IFMAR remarked that the registration of IFMAR as legal entity in Australia was no longer valid. Also the one done in the past in Australia was based on a company profile witch was not quite suiting for IFMAR.

To get IFMAR properly registered and to protect all involved in running IFMAR our former president together with the board absolutely agreed to address the situation and register IFMAR as an Association.
Finally Belgium seemed to be the fastest way to obtain this status so the board requested sanctioning by a Royal Decree from the Kingdom of Belgium in order to be registered as an International Non Profit Association. This required a new constitution in accordance to the governing rules.

Now that we are officially registered again as an International Non-Profit Association the regulating bureaus require us to fulfil a number of tasks by law.

One of the requirements is to change our bookkeeping system and present evidence of our financial statements every year to the authorities in Belgium. Another requirement is that our members, which are the Blocs need to be registered as well, either as a company or sports Association in their own country or Bloc, including a bank account that shows the tax number of the federation, (today, EFRA ROAR, FEMCA and FAMAR)

The Royal Decree forming IFMAR as an INPA (International Non-Profit Association) was given legal entity on October 16t 2018 by publication of the statutes (Dutch) in the National Journal and can be found here: http://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/tsv/tsvn.htm IFMAR is registered at the Cross Reference Databank of Belgium (KBO) under the number: 0707778811
An English version of the constitution can be found here under the "About us" tab.
Four Directors are registered by notary at the deed of creation: Jeff Parker, Carlos Gomez, Frank Mostrey and Sander de Graaf. In accordance to the governing laws it was obligatory to expand the IFMAR board with one person so to avoid a tie in the voting. Mr. Masami Hirosaka from FEMCA was nominated as the 5th Director.

As everything was based in Sweden it was not facilitating communications, we are now transferring hosts, Domain, accounts and working on this new website, a Facebook page and how to improve services to the world wide RC racing community. This can include the formation of a fifth Bloc so to have an odd number of votes. Looking into the possibility of involving the bonafide RC industry and more.

Furthermore we have new classes to consider: 1/8th GT was accepted last year, we have a set of rules and we are working on organizing the first event in 2019. The last electric event in South Africa has shown that there is an interest in other electric classes and/or other specs for certain classes. Also the strong callout for attracting the younger fans is heard.

We had a first world cup in drifting, which might become an official IFMAR class as soon as we have sorted out how we can gain them to existing prerogatives.

As regards IFMAR events, including the commitments up till now responsibility was direct between IFMAR and the organiser.

Changes are under study, simply to bring the events to a greater level. The active members of IFMAR are the blocs, these will be responsible and not accept each application simply because it is their turn. (another hot item to be tackled)
Running a proper WC event costs money and only if one has resources and an adequate budget backed up by an active member and a number of sponsors one will be able to meet the expectations.

The contracts for World events are being rewritten together with a new time line for information, payments, a reporting after the event to see what needs to be changed for the future etc.
We already started with a Risk Management Officer and a release of liability as the world of responsibilities is changing at high rate
The events this year will be evaluated to improve further events rapidly
All this involves a lot of efforts and time of the few volunteers at hand so later the creation of commissions and project leaders from outside the board of directors is a possibility under investigation as well as attracting help from the trade under form of associated memberships aiming to improve the racers experiences above financial interests



IFMAR is on the way ..... be part of it!



On behalf of the IFMAR board,
Jeff Parker / Carlos Gomez / Frank Mostrey / Sander de Graaf.