International Committee of Pipe (smoker) Clubs / Comité International des Pipe Clubs
To: national presidents and the pipe smokers of the CIPC community – From: the CIPC president. Regarding: up-date information and actions – newsletter 10 / Autumn 2019.
Dear friends, I would like to bring the following points to your attention:
* LVIV 2019 / World Cup CIPC championship.
On behalf of the CIPC Board members, the national CIPC presidents and all the pipe smokers / participants at the World Cup 2019 for teams I want to express my sincere gratitude to the Pipe Club of LVIV, all their volunteers and Ukrain president Konstantin. They did a fine job to welcome over 250 participants from 22 countries on Sunday and everything was running well, so THANK YOU for having us in LVIV, that beautiful and friendly city we will remember well! Nice pictures and a great movie to share at the website of the LVIV pipe club: http://pipeworldcup2019.lviv.ua/en/ and of course at our CIPC Facebook & website.
* CIPC meeting of the General Assembly (G.A.).
Not every pipe smoker knows that all the national presidents come together for a meeting on Saturday morning to discuss all kinds of issues. Sometimes there are very important decisions to make so here are the most important elements of the meeting in LVIV. Two new vice presidents for the CIPC Board: mr. Hohenauer (president from Austria) is the new vice president EU “Nord” and mr. Stanislav (president from Slovakia) is the new vice president EU “East”. They were elected unanimously by the G.A. like the re-elected CIPC president, mr. Crans. Many thanks for the leaving vice presidents, mr. Eggemann and mr. Rogalski.
Important to know is the fact that there was a request from the PCI (= Pipe Club of Indonesia) to become a member of the CIPC. The G.A. approved unanimously their membership! Now we can tell everybody the CIPC is a world organization with over 10.000 members in 30 different countries.
On the agenda of the G.A. was the issue of the IPSD 2020. The CIPC president announced as well the celebration of the 50th. anniversary of the CIPC (1970 – 2020). Let’s make it a special event on February 20th. in all the CIPC member countries and celebrate on your own national scale this special moment by making pictures of your pipe smoker club members and the sign 50. Be as creative as possible and come foreward with your outstanding products!
At the end of the meeting the national CIPC president from Turkey told us the exact date of the next CIPC (EU) Championship in ISTANBUL and showed us a beautiful movie of the magnificent city. So, pick up your (electronic) agenda and write down: Sunday October 11th. Start saving your money and come with great numbers to ISTANBUL next year!
Finally, we had a very intense discussion in the G.A. about “the culture of pipe smoking” being a cultural heritage. Everybody agreed that the regulation of national governments about “smoking” have nothing to do with our fine and historical hobby. But, using the more neutral content “the culture of pipe smoking” opens doors for a more objective discussion. So, PLEASE, continue the Intangible Cultural Heritage project on your own national level. The Netherlands and Denmark are already on their national heritage lists, but we need more countries. Therefore (one more time) concrete material to start your research on your national level: as a starting point here is an overview of the countries that did sign the UNESCO convention. See: https://ich.unesco.org/en/states-parties-00024. To give you an idea how to find your own country, the West European countries are in Group I. So for Belgium the best option is Flanders: http://www.kunstenenerfgoed.be/nl/wat-doen-we/immaterieel-cultureel-erfgoed . When you want to find the institute that is responsible for the heritage route in your own country look at: http://review.memoriamedia.net/index.php/map-of-e-inventories-of-intangible-cultural-heritage
It is crucial to know which countries want to start the proces. If I’m well informed for this moment: Ukrain, Slowakia, Belgium / Flanders and France. But what about Italy with so many pipe makers and Turkey, with their special history of meerschaum? So, please let me know what you are doing and if you need a helping hand “just call”!
To come to a conclusion: there are a lot of very nice events showing our fine hobby and tradition of pipe smoking. PLEASE share your pictures at our face book page and /or CIPC website. THANKS a lot!
Strong advice: please, do not keep this info only for yourselves but communicate this newsletter with your pipe smokers friends by using all kinds of social media / sharing info on facebook.
Cornelius C.N. Crans MA. / CIPC president.
