Thursday, 21st January 2016

This morning the open meetings continue.  We have changed the Conference room and everyone is hopeful that the Internet connection will be improved - but for the moment it is being "worked on".  I must give a personal note of thanks to Mohammed Al-Delayel, the Qatar Delegate, for the use of his G4 mobile without which I would not have been able to file the live reports yesterday.  I had to continue with it today, as the problem of an internet connection still exists.

9.00 am  Accuracy Landing and Freefall Style

Günter Berendt opened the meeting by thanking the IPC Bureau for their work during 2015 and then he introduced the members of his committee.

Two FCE events in one year create problems for NACs - but over the two competitions there was a total of over 1,000 competitors taking part. Gunter then talked through his report which is attached to the Agenda (Annex 13) for this meeting. He thanked the Bulgarian organisers personally.

He spoke about the WAG in Dubai - there had been a problem in verifying the ages of junior competitors, as some of those invited to attend the WAG had had a birthday in the meantime, but an individual's date of birth is not included in the Sporting Licence registration system. This is something that must be addressed. There were problems in Dubai with wind conditions and as a consequence it had not been possible to complete the accuracy event. At the prize giving there were no medals for individual male and female competitors. This has been discussed with the FAI and they have agreed to award the medals retrospectively, as soon as possible.

Gunter then moved on to the proposed rule changes and there were a few questions, but there were no objections, so these proposals will be put to the Plenary for a final decision. He then asked Bulgaria to present their bid for 2018 World Championships.

The representative of the Egyptian Parachuting Airsports Federationwas invited to take the floor, who opened his presentation by wishing everyone a Happy New Year before making a presentation of the 2nd Egyptian International Parachuting Championships. He then showed a video to the delegates which he hoped would encourage attendance during the proposed Meet 1-10 March 2016. He was followed by Dr. Mubarak Alswilim who was really pleased to encourage participation and the expansion of Parachuting throughout the region.

Gunter closed his part of the open session by thanking the committee for their work.

09.50  Formation Skydiving

Trude Sviggum – In her report of the activities in 2015, spoke of the 20 teams in 4-way Open, but only 4 teams in 4-way Female as the USA team had to withdraw. The USA team also had to withdraw from the 8-Way, but 8 8-Way and 6 VFS teams did compete.

The 1st Indoor windtunnel Championships was well attended with junior teams as a trial event. Good attendance at the WAG was also noted. The new chair will be Mark Szulmayer (Australia) and Kirk Verner (USA) will be vice chair.

She then presented the housekeeping rule changes they wish to introduce, and also Annex 23 which introduces several new VFS blocks which will mean they can re address the number of rounds.

They also proposed that the junior event should have an easier dive pool and less flights. She went on to explain the other proposed changes.

There are no bids for competitions in 2017 or 2018. Whereas for indoor there are three bids for 2016 and two for 2017.

The committee also proposed that everyone would jump all 10 rounds in competition.

They also propose to remove the side body definition - and on an Absolute call to allow a majority decision. After discussion from the floor it was decided that the proposed change would be a super majority, i.e. 4-1 not simple majority of 3-2.

10.30  Wingsuit Committee

James Hayhurst, the Chair, opened his presentation by asking for 1 minutes silence in memory of Jan Andersson, the former delegate from Finland. He then went on to say it had been a very memorable year for Wingsuiting and thanked all those involved in facilitating courses, so they now have 16 FAI Wingsuit judges. He also congratulated Jackie Harper on the successful conclusion of the 1st World Cup at Netheravon.

He then moved on to the various changes to the rules which combine both aspects of Wingsuit competitions into one document.

He added that discussions had been held in the committee regarding the proposal that Wingsuit Acrobatic be included with Wingsuit Performance at the World Championships in 2016. They have decided as a committee that the discipline is not ready yet for a World Championships and propose that this year Wingsuit Acrobatic have a World Cup. Next year both disciplines will do a World Cup and in 2018 a World Championship.

He then brought up what they consider to be a real contentious issue and the discussion that followed proved he was not wrong. The proposal for the first World Cup is that International teams be allowed to compete as at the moment the top teams are international teams. International Teams would give us 18 or 19 teams if Nation-only teams it would be 8 or 9 teams.

We then moved on to the proposal to allow an increased deviation with the use of a photograph of a record with the grid overlay. After the explanation he said the committee had decided to leave the rules as they are for this year and monitor it. The larger the formation the more difficult it becomes.

He concluded his report by discussing the bids for 2016 and explained why we had two on the agenda. At the meeting Skydive Chicago stated that they were withdrawing their bid to host it at the Mondial. The alternate bid on the table from Zephyrhills, USA. which the committee is supporting.

We then had a much needed Coffee Break.

11.30 The Indoor Working Group

Mohammed Al-Delayel welcomed all and introduced his working group. He then presented his Annual Report and highlighted the objective which is to establish better communication between the IPC and Tunnels around the world. They have produced a "How to Bid" Guide and start the initial communication with commercial tunnels.

He then invited Sarka Blaskova from the Czech Republic to explain their proposal. They would like to change the timings of Tunnel Competitions, changing from the autumn to the spring which would fit better into the skydiving calendar. This presents several problems - it would mean to remove the bids for 2016 and move these to 2017 early in the year and then does it become a World Championships or World Cup? There was a lot of discussion from the floor and the Chair suggested it could be up to the bidders. Suggested by the committee after the discussion was that 2016 and 2017 remain as present, but that for 2018 we reconsider the dates and discuss it next year.

The other proposal from Sarka was that 8-Way be introduced as a discipline, however this would restrict the number of tunnels who could make a bid.

Report on the 1st World Indoor Championships in Prague – in formation skydiving 4-Way there were 16 Open and 9 Female teams, 2 demo Junior teams and 10 VFS teams. In Dynamics there were 16 teams in 2-Way and 7 in 4-Way, with the Freestyle event having 10 Open and 6 Junior teams. In all there were a total of 222 competitors. Jiri Blaska then gave a short presentation on the Indoor competition 2015. Jiri gave an impassioned talk about the future of this discipline.

He thanked Graeme Windsor for his support and as a result they achieved the support and recognition from the Czech Republic Sports Ministry and the Czech Republic Olympic Committee. He also presented flowers to Gillian Rayner, Sarka and Ron with thanks and in recognition of their contribution to the IPC's acceptance of this new Discipline.

He ended an excellent presentation with his hope and belief for the future that Indoor Skydiving will become an Olympic Event and Dynamic Flyers will be seen winning Olympic Medals.

Three bids for 2016 World Cup were received from Poland, Belgium, Slovakia and 5 bids for 2017 from Canada, Germany, Poland, Belgium and Slovakia.

The first bidders were from Poland, introduced by Aggie Solomon and Tyler Baird and they talked about the experience they can bring to the competition using Flyspot Tunnel. They have learned from these experiences which they believe they can bring to the World Cup or World Championships. Tyler explained to the audience how their tunnel deals with the problems of heating by being ventilated through the roof. Apparently the tunnel noise is so low only background environment noise is detectable.

The second bid was from Belgium and they too gave details of their tunnel which was built in 2014and is an ISG tunnel which means it is very quiet. The flying area of the tunnel is on the ground floor, with all the mechanics underground. Belgium would prefer to be considered for the 2017 only early in the year. The third bid was presented by Sarka who was asked to present all three bids from the Hurricane Factory in Slovakia x 2 and Germany. She started by saying that these bids would benefit from the lessons they learned during the 2015 competition. Slovakia is a similar tunnel to Prague, but there is a greater viewing area. The heat in the tunnel that they had as a problem they now know how to avoid. The Berlin tunnel is currently being constructed and will have a 17ft diameter. It will have better technology than Slovakia and from the plans shown it too will be spacious for competitors and spectators alike. The tunnel should be completed by August 2016 - which is why this bid is for 2017 only.

We now had the bid from Canada made by Melanie Guerin and Catherine Carignan. Their package is an all-inclusive package or an event only package and in their bid both prices are detailed. They have 4 years experience in organising championship competitions.  

They then explained what arrangements they would make to increase the space available for the competition. Located 15 minutes from an International Airport, surrounded by restaurants and hotels and they are offering free transportation between the airport and hotels to the tunnel. We can accommodate up to 125 spectators. They will also have a good live-stream facility.

They too showed a video about their bid and the tunnel.

After all the bids had been presented we continued with the work of the Working Group. They made a proposal that there should be a point of contact within the IPC for all tunnel managers and manufacturers, to help establish good relationships, better cooperation and encourage more events. For these reasons they recommend turning this working group into a committee, leaving the rules to the FS and AE committees, but they would be represented on the Indoor Skydiving Committee.

There was some discussion from the floor on the proposal and they answered questions regarding the bids which they felt were all presenting the same options. Dr. Rainer 'Exi' Hoenle suggested that the working group did not consider a facility that does not yet exist.

Graeme thanked the working group for their work and supported the suggestion that they become a committee for this fast growing aspect of our sport.

At 13.30 it was time for lunch, to return to the open meeting at 14.30.

14.30 hrs Judges Committee

Pia Berggren, Chair - introduced her committee by name. She advised attendees that the list of FAI Judges were displayed on the wall at the back of the room and need to be checked. She added that they were going to show a demonstration to the meeting of the Judges' database so there was better understanding of what was required.

During 2015 there had been 16 judge training courses, a total of 72 participants from 20 countries, all highly successful.

She was sad to report that competitions this past year had issues with the scoring equipment. The committee proposed to issue an annual list of approved scoring systems and advised they would appoint someone to visit and approve a system that had not been used during the year and would establish with the system providers that they had been maintained with regard to the current rules.

Pia answered a question from the floor, that should a new system appear this too would be checked by an experienced judge before it was added to the list.

Pia spoke about the CoJT Workshop and the objective to bring about universal training in judging and having appointed Karla Cole as the Chief of Judge Training Course Coordinator, all future courses would be organised through her.

Currently for 2016 no courses had been arranged. Courses can be run in your own country, even when there is no competition, just approach Karla. If countries are proposing to organise such courses in the future, do feel free to ask for advice. All courses will be publicised on the FAI/IPC Website under the Judges' information page.

Pia then talked through the proposed rule changes. There were questions from the floor about some of the proposed changes and after discussion Pia said that the committee would look again at those before the presentation to the Plenary.

Rina Gallo was introduced to show to the audience what goes into producing the list of approved/qualified judges who went on to emphasise that details/nominations must come from the NAC. Rina used screen shots to show the database and explained just what sort of information is held and how easy it was to check a judge's qualifications.

Online training: In addition to the existing comprehensive Online Training Courses, Susan explained how a new online training tool can be used for judges and trainee judges alike to practise their scoring/judging skills against previously judged competition videos on Formation Skydiving, Canopy Formations or Artistic Events. However this tool will require IPC to pay for on-line video storage. Thanks to the designer of the tool, Shlomo 'Yoyo' Matichin, the necessary research had been done and the committee are proposing to seek a budget for the video storage. The website https://fiery-fire-1232.firebaseapp.com/ is where this training aid can be used. The website is still in development but is usable in its current form.  Once it loads, select one of the six events down the left hand side. From here select the Round number, then whichever team you wish to score using simple keystrokes. 

Karla took the floor to emphasise that NACs must verify the suitability of a candidate to attend a Training Course and that they needed formal approval from them.

Pia then announced her retirement as Chair of the Judges' Committee and proposed Bernard Nicholas as the replacement Chair. Graeme then thanked her for all her work over the many years she had lead her committee.

The Last Presentation for the day was the Rules and Regulations Committee.

Ronald Overdijk opened his presentation by thanking the previous chair, Buzz Bennet for all his support in this transition year. He had nothing but praise for Buzz and the committee members. He had started with the intention of making the rules easier to understand; shorter and simpler; it was only when he started to receive comments like "have you considered this – or that – leads to – or what about" that he realised the task was much more difficult than he had first thought.

He went on to say that he did not intend to read through every proposed change and was working on the assumption that everyone present had read Annex 57  and 58  (his report, and proposed changes). The expression RTFM comes to mind "Read the F..... Manual" to those who questioned and had not.

He started with the proposal from France to clarify the function and definition of Team Leader, Teach Coach, Team Manager across all regulation documents. There was some discussion from the floor and the proposed wording changes for Section 5 are given in Annex 58. There was also a proposal for a new definition of Drogue as there had not been one in the past.

Other proposed changes, housekeeping, tidying up and included in the Annex 58.

There was considerable discussion from the floor at the suggestion of re-inserting the Diplomas to be awarded at FCEs. This was a request from the CP committee. After many different views had been aired and considered. it was decided that the wording would be altered to allow Diplomas to be issued on request. The committee will come up with suitable wording for the Plenary.

The committee agreed to look at the wording of the section on the Bulletin 2 procedure for the Plenary.

The issue of the Assistant to the Chief Judge was also discussed, at the moment it states that they must be an FAI Judge – it was felt by some delegates that this placed an unnecessary burden on the Organiser (particularly for smaller NACs) – again the committee agreed to return to the previous wording as "should be" not "must be".

There were other small rule changes which were generally agreed by the delegates at the open meeting and so will be presented as such for a vote at the Plenary.

The committee then asked the room to consider and discuss the various agenda items for changes to the committee structure within IPC proposed by Dr. "Exi" Rainer (Annex 61 ). Exi spoke for his proposals and answered questions from the delegates. He agreed that 6.2.2.1 was the current situation; 6.2.2.2 he would withdraw, but after considerable discussion he wished 6.2.2.3 to go to the Plenary.

Ronald explained the background to the proposed word change from Observer to Appointed Observer and this was understood and accepted by all at the meeting.

Ronald ended his presentation by thanking again his committee for their work during the year.