Dear Family of Archers,
Today, the sad news reached me that we have lost one of our finest family members to COVID!
Gustav Wessels, the President of the Field Archery Association from Zambia, the Chairman of the IFAA Africa Region and Member of the IFAA Technical Workgroup passed away and I still do not accept that this is really true!
Last time I talked to him, just a couple of weeks ago, he was so energetic, funny, and full of plans – next thing is to learn that he left us and moved on…
This is not about an anonymous individual being another datapoint to the Covid statistic – it is about our friend, our well-respected mentor, a father and a husband, a man of many talents and a real supporter of our sport.
Gustav was so keen to become Instructor and he pushed us to host the first online course in Africa for Instructor Training. It goes without saying, he was in the front row in that course, together with his family and we could physically sense how he absorbed every piece of information we gave to him.
And he was so much looking forward to having the face-to-face sessions once the pandemic situation would be over – it is heart-breaking to accept the fact, that we must now do this session without him. Even so, the only comforting certainty to this is, that I am convinced he will follow it from a distance…
But as much as we feel this big loss, we shall not forget his family – and in these dark hours all our prayers and thoughts are with them. Dear members of the family of archers, set a sign and give him a last greeting on his Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Gustav.Wessels
To the Field Archery of Zambia: Dear friends you´ve lost a great man and a role model and it will be hard to carry on – but please carry on – not only to honour Gustav´s hard work to develop Field Archery in Zambia, but also to make his visions becoming true!
Martin Koini
President IFAA
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