A group of Badminton Europe’s historic personalities gather for a meeting once a year to recollect and remember the history of the confederation. The same hotel where the confederation was founded back in 1967, Park Hotel Frankfurt, was the meeting point this year, on 28 October 2017.
BEC Director João Matos proposed to the, then, council to create a History Working Group back in 2008. The working group obtained printed original photos from the past and made them available on the website, and was behind of a lot of the content for the 50th Anniversary Booklet of Badminton Europe.
- Nowadays, we look after the past memorabilia and support the BEC Awards by gathering data for, mainly, our Hall of Fame, the President’s medal and the Honorary Vice-President, Matos explains.
The group consists of: Gisela Hoffmann, past General Secretary and committee member, Horst Kullnigg who is the longest serving BEC Council Member, Torsten Berg, past BEC President, and, the current Vice-President and member of the BEC Board, João Matos.
Recently deceased Tom Bacher, former BEC President, was also a member of the working group for many years, and was greatly missed by the group members.
Back where it all began
Park Hotel Frankfurt was the location for the foundation of the European Badminton Union (EBU) in September of 1967. EBU now goes by the name ‘BEC’ and the hotel is now called Le Méridien ParkHotel Frankfurt. This particular hotel was chosen because it was in walking distance from the main train station, which was the main choice of transportation back then.
The main topics during the recent meeting was BEC and BWF nominations, the future work for the working group, and also, the activities surrounding the 50th Anniversary.
- It was unanimous in the group that we have all received praise on how well the commemorations went all through the year, and, especially, during our Annual Delegates’ Meeting and Awards Gala. It was also mentioned that we all got a lot of requests of copies for our booklet that was very well received by everyone.
The working group also took the opportunity to present a copy of the booklet to the hotel, which is now an official part of their own records that they have saved since their opening.