From the WE Organizing Committee Girona 2008 to Mr. Bruno Schmäling, Mr. Carsten Abel, Mr. Michel Seitz, Mr. Conrad Schulte and Mr. Markus Eckmann:
With astonishment we have read on the internet Forums your letter. Let us say that we are really surprised about the way you express value judgements concerning us and our work on the WE2008 because we have never meet each other and you don’t have idea how things are going on for the next WE2008.
Find below our official answer without intention of controversy, arguing or future dispute:
FIRST:
El Baluard has not received any complaining e-mail from the gentlemen that sign this letter. We are answering all the e-mails, one by one, that we receive. The direction to contact us is:
[email protected] or by regular mail to Plaça del Vi 8, 17004 Girona, ESPAÑA.
SECOND: we had news coming from Mr. Bill Horan about your being upset. We answered him immediately explaining the criteria we used when electing the juries. We don’t understand the word “discriminative”:
In the BOD (Board of Directors) of El Baluard, there is a member with German passport, married with a lady from Girona, extraordinary collaborator he and his family. To whom it may not know, we tried to create teams of people very well-known by us, with a common criteria but using different pictorial techniques and of course, without any discrimination of language, nationality or race. In our web page (
www.elbaluard.net) you can find the juries that will mark the Historical category a part of collaborating in organizational tasks.
THIRD: The only category that has the Juries completed is the Historical; the others, Fantasy and Military vehicles and Dioramas are not completed (for the last one we haven’t published any name yet) but
there will be German modellers among them (none of the letter’s signees that we are referring to). We are finishing these teams for these categories and we will announce them very soon (we are waiting for the final confirmations of some of them)
FORTH: Many partners of El Baluard have participated in the Ingolstadt and Kulmbach Shows, having a great time there because of the show, the people and the atmosphere. Resides this, we announce that some members of the Organizer Committee of the WE2008 (10 persons, five of them from the BDO of El Baluard) will be in Kulmbach to give information to all the German modellers that wish. There we can discuss any point of this letter or the one we are answering.
FIFTH: El Baluard will celebrate this year 2007 the XXVII Exposición Internacional Soldat de Plom, where we have been very lucky to have hundreds of European collectors, some of them assiduous to our Contest and to our city. We haven’t had the pleasure to know the persons that are signing the referred letter, but we are convinced that, if you knew Girona and the members of El Baluard, you wouldn’t write what you wrote.
Girona is a city with a history of more than two thousand years that, because of its strategic situation has suffered thirty-two sieges. It’s a land with an strong European vocation and in the year 785 was part of the Carolingian Imperium. The Girona area welcomes every year more than six million tourist, being the people here a model of hospitality.
SIXTH: At the end of August, all the final list of juries, people making masterclasses, lectures, workshops,… will be announced. The will be collaborators of ten different nationalities and, as you may understand, there will be a lot of countries that will not have any representative on that lists. We are lucky to count on more than sixty persons that will collaborate with that organization but we have a list of more than six hundred that would deserve, because of their prestige and enthusiasm, to be there. But we have chosen the ones that are in our web, following an strict criteria in order to make a god job and as FAIR as possible. We believe that all together have to direct our efforts in the same direction, and try to support this hobby.
SEVENTH: We think it will be a great idea that you present a team in order to participate and compete in the WORLD NATIONS TROPHY 2008 that, as you may know, will be held in Girona during the WE2008 the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th of July 2008. You will be very welcomed.
EIGHTH: We repeat again that we are at the disposal of all modellers that need any information, and particularly to the German collectors that will be present in Kulmbach. We will have the official presentation of the second WE2008 magazine and some great news concerning the WE2008.
WORLD EXPO GIRONA 2008 ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
EL BALUARD
Plaça del Vi 8
17004 Girona
ESPAÑA
[email protected]
