| Eurovision Song Contest News - 2009 Moscow, Russia 

Martti Immonen

I am Martti ( Mara) and coming from the swedish speaking part of Finland. Eurovision Song Contest came into my life in 1971 for the very first time and then I just sneaked out from the bed and tried to watch the eurovision song contest with my 6 years old eyes. Liked what I saw, music and languages, which still are big part of my life. Sure while growing up this hobby brought travelling and what could be more interesting than travelling around, buying music and meeting pals. Internet made world even smaller and it was finally possible even from our country to reach all kinds of stores and naturally keep in touch much easier and faster, so suddenly I turned to be also a tiny collector of Eurovision stuff.

For a very long time I thought I was the only eurovisionfan and in 1993 I finally got the chance to join OGAE Finland. I was pleased to read the magazine and get more eurovisionfans from abroad mainly and so the videos,cds etc. kept on coming and this opened and changed my eurovisionhobby. Since 1999 I was in the board of OGAE Finland and 2001 I got the presidency of the club. Finally it was possible to "work" around eurovision and bring pleasure for others. I had a call, that eurovision in Finland needs for a period of time strong motivation and making it active. So there was suddenly newsletters for members, parties with artists and certainly co-working deals with the media ( radio and print media) which goes on even today. OGAE FINLAND grew from less than 40 members to almost 130 during this time.
Since 2002 have had various memberships in different project groups inside Ogae International and also with broadcasters by consulting 2002 ETV- presscenter; 2003 LTV-legal departement and 2002-2004 NTU - eurovision expert, which was for sure the most important part of this eurovision lifestyle and being assistant head of delegation for Ukraine, opened eyes to see the contest from the "other side" and do the best possible job. Also a memorable time was hosting Sakis Rouvas and Ruslana in Helsinki 2004 and I wouldn´t trade those moments to anything.
Since 2004 consulting composers, whom willing to participate in Finland or elsewhere in Europe and this kind of consulting by taking care of the running matters from selecting artists to sending songs in ... has been very interesting time and also running the club of ours and planning the big surprises for the members and big audience, something which at this point is wise to be silent about..

New goals... In life there is always goals, new projects and I am always interested and hard working guy for any of those, so do contact
Always open for new friends everywhere in this world.