Uppsala, Sweden - On August 19, the World Minigolf Sport Federation (WMF) held its biannual Delegates Conference around the 2023 Minigolf World Championships General Class. This is the first time the regular Delegates Conference was held since 2019. Ten countries were represented at the conference, which discusses and votes on several key measures related to the specifics of the sport as well as the overall governance by the WMF.

A key piece of the event was the election of the WMF Presidential Committee.  This year, Dr. Gerhard Zimmermann announced he planned to step down as the WMF President after holding the position for 12 years. Dr. Zimmermann had a few emotional words for those gathered and the expression of thanks was returned by the audience. However, Dr. Zimmermann would not be leaving the WMF Presidential Committee for long as he had been previously nominated to step into the Vice President - Finance role and was elected to that position moments later in the voting.

Taking over as President is Leif Meitilberg, who was elected unanimously at the conference. Most recently, Mr. Meitilberg served as the President of the Danish Minigolf Association as well as the chair of the WMF Legal Committee. He has a long history with minigolf sport, dating back to his start in 1990 and debut on the Danish national team in 1994.  In his acceptance speech he talked passionately about continuing the groundwork laid down by Dr. Zimmermann and continuing to grow the sport of minigolf.

 Leif Meitilberg with Dr. Gerhard Zimmermann

For the other elected positions, Sandra Walker was re-elected to her position as Secretary General, Pasi Aho was re-elected to his position as Vice President - Sport and Maciej Madrowski was re-elected to his position as Vice President - Youth. The other elections for various committee members went as expected based on the candidates provided.  All committees can be found on the WMF website.

One other significant change to the governance structure was approved as well, bringing in the Director of Development into an Executive position, giving them voting rights on the Executive Board. This change was supported given the integrated tasks of the Executive Committee and developing the sport of minigolf within country federations, as well as developing new country federations.

Left to Right: Ermes Franchini (ITA), Representative- Europe: Pat Sheridan (USA), Chair - Media Committee; Leif Meitilberg (DEN), President; Dr. Gerhard Zimmermann (GER), Vice President - Finance; Maciej Mądrowski (POL), Vice President - Youth; Sandra Walker (FIN), Secretary General; Marc Chapman (GBR), Director Development; Pasi Aho (FIN), Vice President - Sport; Gunnar Bengtsson (SWE), Chair - Athletes Committee

The Delegates Conference also provided an opportunity to discuss the Erasmus Interact Project, performed in conjunction with TAFISA. Maarit Larinen, Chair of the WMF Sport for All Committee and Verners Kirsš, Member of the WMF Youth Committee and Member of the WMF Development Committee made a presentation discussion  the previous Interact project and the on-going Interact+ project. More on those projects can be found on the TAFISA page of the WMF website. 

Maarit and Verners presenting the Interact+ project

The next Delegates Conference will be held with the 2025 Minigolf World Championships General Class, which was awarded to Arnsberg-Neheim, Germany. Results of the 2023 World Championships can be found here.

The WMF is the umbrella organisation of Minigolf sports associations worldwide and continental associations in Africa, America, Asia, Europe and Oceania. The WMF is a member of GAISF (Global Association of International Sports Federations), AIMS (Alliance of Independent Recognised Members of Sport) and TAFISA (The Association For International Sport for All).