Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, April 14, 2010 – The first day of the three-day FIVB Board of Administration meeting in the Dominican Republic resort town of Punta Cana was completed on Wednesday with the highlight seeing members receive key activity reports from each of the five FIVB Confederations.

Under the new direction of the FIVB, responsibility has been put on the individual confederations for Volleyball and Beach Volleyball development and general operations so each Confederation took the opportunity to explain the excellent work done over the past year including a new ball donation system from the Japanese Volleyball Association (JVA) where clubs in Japan send any old equipment such as balls or nets to the JVA which then distributes to developing countries.

The opening of the meeting saw the members observe a minute's silence for the casualties of the recent Polish airline tragedy and FIVB members Mr. Tom Omongole (UGA) and Mr. Baba Sy (SEN).

FIVB President Mr. Jizhong Wei then opened the meeting by explaining that the FIVB has to work for the national federations.

"One of the goals of the FIVB is to lead and to share," President Wei said. "Starting this year we'll put a lot of financial resources for development and reserve a development fund which will be available to all national federations and confederations. If a member has a good idea, send the project to the FIVB for approval. All profit belongs to the national federation members so we have the obligation to serve all our national federations and all our players. We have to go to the origin, the players are our first priority."

Key decisions on the first day included the approval of the 2009 Accounts Report, the external audit report by Ernst & Young and the budgets for 2010-2013.

Day two will open with the remaining part of finance before receiving reports from each of the FIVB Commissions.