International Council of Archives

The Section on Sports Archives (SPO) within the ICA became permanent during the congress in Kuala Lumpur in 2008.

The first member meeting (general assembly) of the section, which was held during the congress, confirmed the election of bureau officials for the first quadrennial period 2008-2012, according to the results of the election held among the members of the section.
According to the new statutes of the section, adopted by the ICA Executive Board in Panama 2011, the bureau consists of one chair, 1-2 vice chairs, 1-2 secretaries, a treasurer and at least four other members, which means a minimum of 8-10 officials.

Among the members of the current bureau of the section, the following have expressed their interest to continue, if elected:

Kenth Sjöblom, chair (Finland)
Sabine Christe, secretary (Switzerland)
Laurence Ward, secretary (England)
Fina Solà, member (Spain)
Gersende Piernas, member (France)

Consequently, the Bureau for 2012-2016 would need to be supplemented by at least a treasurer and at the most by 6 new members.
The section is constantly seeking to enlarge the geographic spread of its membership and the bureau, which means that candidates should preferably be nominated from all continents.
Bureau members must be able to travel to bureau meetings at least once a year, sometimes twice. It may also be necessary to be able to participate in online meetings in between the face-to-face meetings (through Skype or some other media). It will be an advantage to have good connections to sports organisations, sports archives institutions and/or authorities, and to be able to find sponsors for the activities of the section etc. It is also necessary that bureau officials can communicate in either of the two official working languages of the ICA, namely English and French.

You can read more about SPO on the ICA website, and if you are not an ICA member and do not have access to the members only section of the website you may contact the current Chair for further information.

We hereby open the nomination of candidates for bureau officials of ICA-SPO, and wish to have your nomination not later than 31 May 2012, so that the election could be carried out among the members of the section in June.
The newly elected Bureau will meet in September-October 2012.

Please send your suggestions for nominations to the section chair, Mr Kenth Sjöblom, by email at

On behalf of the bureau of the section,

Mr Kenth Sjöblom
Senior Research Officer
National Archives of Finland/Private Archives Unit