Thursday 24 January 2018

The final day of Open Meetings began with the IPC President describing the Strategy Workshop that had taken place on 21/22 January 2019. It's been a long held belief that whilst we meet for the annual Plenary, we spend little time in forging our future.  Steered by an experienced facilitator, the attendees - comprising the extended bureau and a few invited guests - were able to identify four main areas that were seen to be of primary importance. These were: Communication, Governance IPC / Relationship FAI & IPC, Disciplines and Indoor. Principle needs are to set an overall action plan, identify owners for key actions, provide a complete list of all relevant materials to committees/WG and Owners, with a 2 month check, a 6 month meeting then reporting back to next year's Plenary.  The IPC Bureau can be confident in the knowledge that there is consensus from the workshop on the direction and that the bureau has the mandate to take key priorities forward accordingly.

The Para-Ski Committee above, Ulf Tingnert, Mark Potatov, Henny Wiggers (Deputy Chair), Michael Egger (Chair) and Gunter Berendt.  With the 17th FAI World Para-Ski Championships 2019 in Vrchlabi, CZE (Feb 26th – March 3rd 2019) a matter of weeks away they have so far received registrations from 62 competitors representing 8 NACs. Whilst the 9th FAI World Cup and 6th European Championships in Para Ski 2020 and 18th FAI World Para-Ski Championships 2021 may seem to be an eternity away, the Committee is anxious to receive bids to host these competitions.  It comes as no surprise that once again there are no proposals  for changes to any Para-Ski rules.

The members comprising the Freefall Style and Accuracy Landing Committee, above, Ulf Tingnert, Michael Egger, Gunter Berendt (Chair), Ani Staminova (Deputy Chair), John Smyth, Peter Pfalzgraf and  Gustavo Eduardo Reyes.  Gunter reported on the very successful 35th FAI World Freefall Style and Accuracy Landing Championships and the 9th FAI Junior World Freefall Style and Accuracy Landing Championships in Erden, Bulgaria, held between 24 – 31 August 2018.  He went on to extend his many thanks to the organisers, especially Ani, Angel and Vesela Stamenova for the successful running of the Championships. Rain not only stopped play on one day, but its ingress into the electronic scoring system necessitated it being dried out and repaired. Gunter went on to express his belief in having a back-up scoring system.

This year sees the 14th FAI World Cup of Freefall Style & Accuracy Landing taking place in Cordoba, Argentina between the 18 - 26 May 2019.  It was also proposed that a European Championship be included in Cordoba, subject to bureau approval.  The next major competition will be the Mondial in 2020 hosted by Tanay, Russia. Future competitions may be hosted by Czech Repubic in 2021 and China in 2022.

Dennis brought us up to date with a presentation pertaining to the Mondial, with his suggestion that they put the accuracy competition in the city Kemerovo with an hourly shuttle service between there and Tanay.  They are also looking to have a swoop festival centered around an island in the middle of the river in Kemerovo as a way to bring in added interest for the Mondial.

Once again Jiri Blaska felt it necessary to reiterate the requirements of the rule 6.1.1.1, proposing that judges respect the rules as they are already written. To further emphasise this point, he showed a video to demonstrate differences between judges making independent decisions and simple majority and those who don’t. With this in mind, he donated a camera system to the IPC.

The next Committee to present their 2018 report was that of Canopy Formation. Seen here with their full complement of members, L-R, Bernard Nicolas, Henny Wiggers, Marylou Laughlin, Natasha Higman, Rina Gallo (Chair), Julia Sotnikova, Peter Pfalzgraf and Pasi Pirttikoski (Deputy Chair).  The World Championships in Australia exceeded the Committee's expectations with 12 Nations entering and 2-Way Sequential fielding 16 teams.  Possible rule changes are still to be discussed.
Some suggestions on how CF may well develop include the possibility of:
- 6-Way speed event followed by accuracy landing
- 3-Way test event combining rotation & sequential
- 2-Way fastest team completing a sequence Future events include the 10th FAI World Cup in Canopy Formation and the 8th FAI European Canopy Formation Championships to be held in Strejnic, Romania between 16 - 21 August 2109. At the Mondial in Tanay Russia we will hold the 19th FAI World Championship of Canopy Formation World Air Games, 31 July - 12 August 2020. Beyond that the CF Committee look forward to the WAG in 2022.

Following last year's presentation by Jim McCormick and Dana Engelstad on behalf of the National Skydiving Museum, Jim returned to this year's Plenary to update everyone on the Hall of Fame. Accompanied by Marylou Laughlin, one of the Museum's Ambassadors, Jim informed us that last year saw 10 new inductees, 4 of whom were from outside of the US, bringing the total to 63 members. The 2018 Hall of Fame presentation weekend was attended by in excess of 430 people - the largest ever.  They have introduced a new International Affiliate programme with Australia becoming the first country to take Affiliation, with provisional International Affiliation being granted to Finland. The Hall of Fame exists to honour those individuals who have made a significant contribution to the world of skydiving and nominations are welcomed from any quarter. All nominations are kept on file indefinately, so should a nominee not be selected in the year of nomination, it will not exclude them from any future selection process. This year's Hall of Fame induction ceremony will be held at Skydive Perris, Ca from 17-19th October 2019 - to which everyone is invited - to enjoy a 10-Way Meet, a Swoop Meet, unique demos and much more.

Some of the members of the Canopy Piloting Committee, above, L-R: Philippe Schorno, Nina Engel, Marylou Laughlin, Mike Teauge, Alberto Martin Paracuellos (Chair) and Dr Rainer 'Exi' Hoenle. During 2018 two major CP events were held - the 7th FAI World Canopy Piloting Championships & 1st FAI World Canopy Piloting Freestyle Championship in Wroclaw, Poland and the highly successful FAI World Championship Swoop Freestyle which took place at two venues, Copenhagen and San Diego.  The forthcoming 10th FAI World Cup in CP to be held in Pretoria, RSA will now include Freestyle.  A proposal by Australia to increase CP judge numbers was firmly rejected by the Committee, however they do support the notion that the organiser must assign 4 additional people to assist the judges (including qualifications required).  

TBC