Date: 30 April 2020
Entry into force: The Steering Committee has issued this charter on 30 April 2020
Purpose and scope: This charter describes the organization and responsibilities of the Steering Committee, which is overall responsible for the collaboration between nations around a Lowlanders Team of alpine ski racers. All members of the Steering Committee are subject to this charter.
1 Purpose and scope
The purpose of the Steering Committee is to be a decision-making forum, but also ensuring transparency,coordination, monitoring of the Trainer Group and task forces and reporting back to the national federations.
The scope and purpose is also to make the new Lowlanders alpine cooperation the best of its kind, develop racer to compete on highest international level and make more racers stay longer in the sport – with higher quality. It is also an ambition to prepare racers for the life after skiing.
2 Membership
The members of the Steering Committee are representing and appointed by the national ski federations, the Trainer Group representative is appointed by the Trainer Group. The membership is personal. Each country must have a representative in the Steering committee and each country has one vote. The appointments shall be reviewed/confirmed at least annually as part of the annual review of the charter.
Further participants shall not have voting rights. It is suggested that the Steering Committee invites a representative from any Dual Career and Safe Sports work to attend meeting minimum once a year.
The Steering Committee currently consists of the following members:
Voting members
– Representatives for Royal Belgium Ski Federation (Christophe Lemeire)
- Representative for Danish Ski Federation / Alpint Kraftcenter Danmark (Kim Skov Jensen)
- Representative for Snowsports Ireland (Derek Bolger)
- Representative for Icelandic Ski Federation (Jon Vidar Thorvaldsson)
- Representative for Federation de Ski Luxembourgoise (Monique Bachner)
- Representative for Netherlands Ski Federation (Pepijn van Schjindel)
- Representative for Trainer Group (Eric Stappers)
Other committee participants (no voting rights)
- Project Coordinator (Henrik Oksholm) acts as Secretary for the Steering Committee
2.1 Chair
The chairperson is to organize and lead the work of the Steering Committee and ensure that it is conductedefficiently and characterized by good dynamics. The chairperson is overall responsible for the Steering Committeefulfilling its duties. The chairperson can also invite guests to participate in the Steering Committee meetings.
The Chairperson is elected within the Steering Committee for two year periods. The Chairperson may be reelected for an additional two year term. Following two successive terms (4 years) the Chairperson may only be reelected for further periods if it is agreed unanimously in the Steering Committee.
Treasurer
The Steering Committee also annually appoints a Treasurer, ideally among the people in the Steering Committee.
2.2 Project Coordinator/Secretary
It is the Steering Committee that appoints the Project Coordinator and Secretary of the Steering Committee
The Secretary is responsible for planning, facilitating meetings and distributing material. The Secretary coordinatesthe agenda with the chairman and other relevant contributors. The Secretary is also responsible for taking, storingand distributing minutes and verifying them with the chairman.
3 Quorum
A quorum shall exist where more than half of the appointed voting members of the
Committee are present.
All decisions are preferably adopted unanimously but may be adopted by majority. However, decisions may not beadopted unless, to the extent possible, all members have been afforded the opportunity to participate in theconsideration of the matter and/or have received satisfactory information on the decision item.
4 Duties
It is the responsibility of each voting member to ensure that the following topics relevant for their respective nations are brought to the attention of the Steering Committee. Within its mandate, the Steering Committee then decides on:
- Collaboration agreement
- Strategy and action plans
- Budget, economic reporting, bookkeeping/administration structure etc. and authorizations in connection to financial transactions
- Sending in applications for funding from other organisations and follow-up reporting if funding is received (e.g. to FIS and EU)
- Engaging / employing trainers and other expert resources in the setup
- Pricing, quantity and quality in the setup
- Overall principles for season planning and operation
- Selection criterias of racers
- All proposals brought forward to the Steering Committee from trainer group and task forces
Any critical issue and decision linked hereto must be accompanied by an action plan (to be followed-up at the following Steering Committee meetings) with clear descriptions and deadlines that normally should be maximum 6 months for implementing permanent solution to the identified issue.
The committee receives regular reporting from Project Coordinator and also from the Trainer Group, potential task forces, surveys and questionnaires among racers etc.
5 Meetings and minutes
The Committee meets 6-8 times pr. year, minimum two meetings are physical (autumn and fall), or whenever needed.
The agenda and all meeting material shall, if possible, be distributed latest 2 days before the meeting. Meeting materials with regular reporting on the development of the collaboration and the Lowlanders Team will be standard input at the meetings.
Minutes of meetings, documenting decisions and recommendations, is to be made by the Secretary and to be verified by the chairman. Following each meeting and within 3 working days, the draft minutes of the meeting shall be distributed to the members of the Steering Committee. Minutes will be presented for approval at the following Steering Committee meeting and be stored and appropriately shared in order to secure full transparency of the collaboration.