Saturday 23rd January 2015 - First Day of the Actual Plenary

The internet problem has meant that instead of delegates receiving the revised documents from the Recording Secretary the office of German Federation have been printing off all the papers - this shows how quickly we have come to accept electronic mail and how bereft we feel when we no longer have it.

As 9.00 am approaches delegates arrive to a pile of papers at each place allocated to each delegation.

The meeting was opened with a speech from Dr. Henning Stumpp, the President of the German Parachute Federation.  He welcomed over 40 Countries with their Delegates to this IPC Plenary meeting, he also extended the welcome to the representatives of the FAI, Secretary General Susanne Schoedel, Markus Haggeney, Sports and Marketing Director, Gillian Rayner and Neils-Christian Levin Hansen from the Executive Board.

Graeme Windsor, IPC President, thanked Henning and also welcomed the representatives from the FAI.   He also commented on the sad loss of two of the Delegates during the last year and called for a minute's silence.  Markus then conducted the roll call of all Delegates present and the countries they have a proxy for. He finished the roll call with an explanation of the position of Saudia Arabia is yet to be determined, and he noted he had to add India, Poland and Romania.  He then stated he would later announce the percentages required for the different voting requirements.

Graeme then took the microphone and started on the first item on the agenda, approval of the Minutes of 2014 - these were approved by everyone.

Susanne Schoedel and Markus Haggeney, F.A.I.

Susanne Schoedel started her speech with a video presentation from the WAG.  On Membership Development there are a total of 114 members in total.  She welcomed Algeria to the family and to this, their first IPC Meeting.  Air Sports Development with focus of the FAI Head Office and their support for all air sports.   

She commented on the increasing number of FCEs and the need for all results to be logged with the FAI for them to be part of the historical record.  For 2016 they expect 34 World Championships 14 Continental and 676 2nd Category events for all air sports.

Promote air Sports to the Benefit of our Air Sports Persons, FAI Member Organisations, FAI Air Sports Commissions and ... the General Public!  This was the closing slide of her informative and excellent presentation.

She gave many examples of the support the FAI office in a large variety of ways and ended a very good report and then answered questions from the floor.

Graeme then moved on to his report which he hoped all present had read - as it ran to 5 pages.  He said he would like to start with an apology as the end of the IPC 2014 Plenary had been very rushed and he had failed to thank Richard "Buzz" Bennet when he retired from the IPC after 40 years of service.  His contribution over the years covered all aspects of administration and support for IPC's work.  He called for a belated vote of thanks.which was very readily given.

Graeme also reported on the work of IPETA and a very posative future, witht he excellent work of MaryLou McLaulin as Events and Marketing officer, and the support of Markus Haggeney in introducing IPETA to a very hopeful Professional Tour and this should be clear after the meeting early in February.

Graeme then covered the interim decisions that are listed in the Agenda (Annex 3), no one against, and so they were accepted.  Following discussion about an Interim decision taken after the agenda was published regarding the appointment of the FAI controller for the CP Competition in Farnham Canada 2016.  There was considerable discussion on this issue and a seperate vote will be taken.  Dr. "Exi" Hoenle called for a secret vote.  We then broke for a coffee.

Before the break Markus confirmed the roll call - 34 countries were present + 7 proxy votes, giving us a simple majority of 21 and 2/3rds majority of 28.

With the Coffee Break over, everyone returned to the meeting room and there was discussion as to what they were actually being asked to vote for.  The vote was whether or not the Internal Regulations had been correctly followed by the Bureau in making their Interim Decision as to the appointment of the FAI Controller for the competition in Canada 2016.  So delegates were asked to vote "accept" or "not accept".  The result of the vote is of the 40 cast, 12 accept, 27 not accept and 1 abstention.  So the interim decision was not accepted and the matter will be put back to the committee.

Graeme then moved to the Strategic Plan - this was covered fully during the open session and Graeme then gave a brief description of what had been discussed at the interim meeting of the Bureau.  The buz words are ATTRACTIVE and DYNAMIC and this is the whole idea of the plan to meet these aims.   There was a unanimous vote to accept the modified report.  This will be available on the Web site soon.

I then made my presentation as Media Liaison Officer and in addition to my report I gave an explanation of the workaround to the solution of being able to view the FAI website on a smartphone. 

CISM Report

Col Gernot Rittenschober, President, CISM Parachuting Committee, presented his CISM report for 2015, annex 5 in the agenda papers.

Gernot reported first that CISM has changed the website to www.milsport.one and continued to report on 6th Military World Games and 39th World Military Parachuting Championship, Pohang, Republic of Korea, Oct. 2015 and on the AL display used there.

He also mentioned the joint CISM/FAI judges seminar which was held in spring 2015 at the same venue. The future CISM World Championships for 2016 and 2017 were presented;

The 40th WMPC will take place in Kubinka, Moscow, RUS 17-29 July 2016, the invitation file is at http://www.milsport.one/sports-2/sports/parachuting/ and the local contact is kdn@cska.ru

The Preliminary Entry is due 1st April 2016 and each team needs to nominate a valid CISM or FAI FCE qualified Judge by this date latest then; "No judge-no team" rule applies

CISM will have a Judge Training Course with limited number of students during 40th WMPC and IPC Judges Committee is invited to send students and use empty slots.

The 41st WMPC will be held in Warendorf, GER 11-20 July 2017 contact is gedelegationcism@bundeswehr.org

Gernot closed with inviting nations with a military parachuting team to participate in next WMPC as observer or if they are one of the 134 CISM member nations as full participant with a team or individual competitors.

Graeme then asked Susan Dixon to speak briefly about the Rankings - which she did, explaining where the 2015 Rankings, by Discipline, could be found.  She also spoke about the Rolls of Honour also displayed on the FAI Website.  However these were only for Freefall Style and Accuracy Landings and Formation Skydiving.  She asked other committee chairs to look at preparing similar Rolls of Honour for their disciplines.

Sammy Vassilev was introduced by Graeme and he asked for the Plenary to agree to the appointment of Skydive TV as an official Media Partner.  There were no objections and Susanne Schoedle agreed once the terms of any contract had been clarified and agreed.

Sarka Blaskova on behalf of the Czech Republic asked that bids be presented well in advance of competitions, not in the same year it is proposed.  Sarka asked that there be some way of showing on the FAI Web Site what competitions could be bid for in future years.  Graeme responded by saying this was a good idea and would be looked at.

He then moved on to the position of an IPC Records Officer to assist the FAI at their initial request.  The Treasurer confirmed that this would not be an expense item for the IPC.  Ronald Overdijk also confirmed that there was also a Job Description included in the proposed changes to the Internal Regulations.

Doris Merz-Hunziker, Financial Secretary - she also had problems with the overhead projector, but everyone has the Balance Sheet on paper.   She then explained various details of late entries, but could show the position at the end of 2015.  Doris answered one question and then called for adoption of the Accounts by the plenary.  No objections - so they were adopted, she then moved on to the Budget and after her explanation this was approved by the plenary.

We then had a break for lunch and further committee meetings!

14.00 hrs The Afternoon Session commenced with a report from ASIANA.  Faye Cox presented her report taking various points from the report, covering the membership, the 17th ASIANIA Parachuting Championships and this was an excellent competiton.   At the same time as the championships they conducted a Judges Training Course and also a Video competition, with medals awarded to the best videos as judged by the judges.

In 2013 ASIANIA was recognised by the OCA as the official body to assist with all air sports and the Olympic Committee.  Mubarak Al-Swilim will report on that aspect. 

He commenced with talking about the development of ASIANA and encouraging membership of FAI.  In all 29 countries.  He went on to explain how the Asian Air Sports Federation was formed and its involvement with the Asian Olympic Committee.  Susanne Schoedle explained the FAI position and how followng an approach from the Olympic Committee and Japan NAC.  Unfortunately at the end they were not successful in getting an air sport accepted. 

He then moved on to a report on the WAG, as the World Air Games as our liaison officer and thanked all for their support and help particularly Graeme Windsor, Dr. Rainer EXI Hoenle, Liam McNulty, all the judges, officials and participants.

Graeme Windwor then welcomed Helmut Schlect to the meeting and then Exi proceeded to pay his respects and thanks for all his work.  There was a standing response and clapping from all delegates.  Without the work he had done in previous years with building the DIPC and the standard of parachuting competition in Dubai we would not have had a World Air Games.  Helmet then gave his thanks to those who helped make it work.  The Higher Organising Committee, the FAI staff and the staff of Skydive Dubai and his staff who worked together to create the team he worked with since 2008 (the first DIPC).  He stated that 4 of his staff members were present, Dr. Exi Hoenle,  responsible for the judges, Helmut Bastuck, Gunter Bernhart and Gernot Rittenschober for their contributions.

COLPAR.  Gustav Reyes introduced himself and The Latin American Sydiving Federation - shortened to COLPAR.  Accepted as an FAI International Affiliate member in 2012 and in 2015 confirmed 12 members.  In the World Games athletes for both Brazil and Argentina competed meeting on of their objectives.  Unfortunately in their Latin American Championships neither Formation Skydiving nor Artistic Events attracted enough national teams to qualify as an event.  For this year they plan a Latin American Championlships in Accuracy Landing and Canopy Piloting Championships in a different country.  Both will be open events and they encourage other counties to send teams.

The World Games

Elisabet Mikaelsson made her report and she started by stating that she was asked to take on the Liaison officer roll and she requested an assistant Aggie Solomon, as she realised the need for local assistance, and she also asked Jasper Williams on the technical side.  She also thanked Markus Haggeney and he then presented the report on the World Games, the largest International Sporting Event after the Olympics.  More than 3500 athletes from over 100 countries. 

For 2016 they are working on a test event 28.06 to 03.07 2016 Pre World Games Wroclaw CP Cup.   Three days for training and last three days of competition. 

Graeme thanked Elisabet for her work and for taking on the job.

Rook Nelson of Skydive Chicago who spoke about the proposed Schedule change to the Mondial 2016 he spoke about his memory of the first World Championships he attended and the excitement of being part of that team, and he believed other athletes should have the good memories of being part of something large.  The wish to change to one additional day and run all events concurrently was then put to the vote - there were 3 against so the proposal was accepted.

Graeme thanked Rook and confirmed that they were withdrawing their proposed bid to include Wingsuiting in the Mondial.  Australia, as a result of the Bureau decision to only hold a Mondial every 4 years was altering their notice of intention to host a Mondial in 2018 to a World Championships.  The Delegate, will present which discipline(s) later in the programme.

We then moved to the Freefall Style and Accuracy Landings Committee.   Gunter Berendt said the European Championships was a very successful event.   The second event was in WAG, where the competitors were invited - there was a problem due to high winds and only allowed 7 rounds.

He then detailed the competition rules and showed the proposed changes.  There were no questions from the floor on any ot the proposed changes.

He then moved to the Bid for 2017 from Montenegro but no one is present to answer questions on the bid, and Gunter says he is prepared to visit the site and put in a report.   A new bid was actually on the table with more information than that included with the Agenda. The bid was accepted.

The bid from Bulgaria for 2018 which had been presented at the Open Meeting was also accepted. 

Marcus then came to the podium with a special announcement that unfortunately at the end of the World Air Games medals were not awarded to the Individual Male and Individual Female Accuracy Champions.  The FAI had already apologised to the athletes for this omission and he had with him at this Plenary meeting  Gold, Silver and Bronze Medals and these were handed to the Delegates to take back to their countries for presentation to the Athletes.

Annexes 17 and 19  had been covered by the committee, and so there was no need to present them again.

Formation Skydiving was the next Committee to present - Trude Sviggum - her report in Annex 20 talked about the activities in 2015 - three events. 

She wished to introduce her new Committee with Mark Szulmayer taking over the Chair, Mathieu Bernier will replace Jeremie Rollett, Laura Daview replaces Eric Heinsheimer and Karla Cole was the new member (announced as the "spy" in the judges committee!)

Mark then stepped forward to propose the Rule Changes.  He thanked Trude for all her work over the previous 5 years and this was supported by applause from the floor.  Mark talked through the changes and these had been discussed at the open meeting, and a modification to one suggestion regarding the absolute rule, this now requires a 4-1 majority to allow a change to the score as opposed to the existing rule which calls for a unanimous decision.  The proposal of the USA to expand the VFS Dive Pool had been discussed by the committee but they decided not to go with this at this Plenary.

All the rule changes were accepted unanimously.

Gail Bradley then came forward and would like to present the Letter of Intent to host a World Championships in 2018.  She explained the background and then said the bid would be for Formation Skydiving, Canopy Formations and Artistic Events and she asked if the Plenary wished her to go ahead - it is up to Australia.  Gale replied that she would go forward with preparing the bid and when asked if they would include Speed she said they would

The bid for 2017 from Germany had been presented at the Plenary and Graham called for a vote and the result was over the 2/3rds majority so it could be accepted into the Agenda as there were no other bids for these disciplines for 2017. The Bid was for a European Championships and World Cup in Formation Skydiving, Artistic Events, Canopy Formations and Speed at Saarlouis on the 7 - 13 August 2017.

In response to a question regarding the change to the FS rules, this may change the entry fees, Markus stated that he thought it might but not in all disciplines. It was suggested by Graeme that the committees involved might like to discuss this proposal before taking a decision and he suggested the vote on the bid be moved to tomorrow.

Sweden thanked Germany for including Canopy Formation as a discipline as competitors did appreciate being able to compete each year. This drew applause from all delegates.

Graeme thanked Trude for her work as Chair over the last five years,.

We then moved to Canopy Formations and Rina Gallo presented the rule changes that the committee had agreed upon and these would be put to the Plenary after her explanations. She ended by thanking Lindy Roche-Williams for her work over the years as the Chair. There was a question from the floor regarding the Omission rule change, which she answered. A vote was taken on all the other changes which was passed unanimously. A vote was taken on the Omission rule as proposed by the committee and that was carried unanimously.

Ron Miasnikov, Chair of the Artistic Committee, then took to the podium and started by thanking Germany for their bid for a competition in 2017. There were several questions on the clariification of the rule changes proposed. Graeme suggested that the coffee breaks be used to tidy up the rule changes proposed.

After a tea break the rule changes were represented by Ron and they were approved by the Plenary and in addition she asked for a new Judges Rating for Indoor Artistic Judges and this was also approved once she had answered a couple of questions satisfactorily.

Alberto Martin Paracuellos, then presented the work of the Canopy Piloting Committee.  He first asked for acceptance of the bid presented and agreed last year for 2016 CP World Championships in Farnham, Canada.  The changes are small, an earlier leaving date which did not affect the actual competition days, and also different hotels.  These changes were put to the Plenary and accepted unanimously. 

He further confirmed the bid from Dubai which had been presented last year, there were no changes and he confirmed that the UAE still wished to host this competition in 2017.

He then went through all the changes proposed by the committee.  Trude, Norway ,asked a question from their competitors about the wind speed for accuracy and Alberto confirmed that this has been changed and is now 5 m/sec limit.  He also confirmed the marker stike penalty stays.  When put to the Plenary all the rule changes were accepted unanimously.  Graeme thanked his committee for the work they had done and for including the rules in the Agenda so that people had time to read and consider them.

Elisabet Mikaelsson, went quickly (in line with her committee name) through the few changes they wished to make to the Speed Rules.  Once she had gone through the rule changes she spoke of the Training Judges Course they had planned for  5-8 May in Leutkirch, Germany for National Ratings.  All of the competition rules would be voted on immediately, no objections, so unanimously passed.   One of her proposed changes was to Sporting Code 5 and the question was it presented a problem if applied for this year as it could affect competitions already accepted for 2016.  So that has now been moved to next year's agenda. In concluding her report she took a moment to unveil the Tim Mace Memorial Trophy to the audience, which will be handed over to the next World Champion in Speed Skydiving. The contemporary trophy was designed and made by Paul Fletcher from the UK.

James Hayhurst, Chair of the Wingsuit Committee, stated that their proposed rule changes had been covered in the open meetings. He then went through the actual finalised changes and explained each one.  He then came to the bids that were on the table for 2016, but Chicargo had withdrawn their bid and so the bid they were recommending was from Florida.  The bid from Z-Hills has been amended to include a World Cup in Wingsuit Acrobatic.  The rules were voted on and accepted unanimously and then after a couple of questions had been answered satisfactorily the bid was also accepted unanimously.

He then went on to announce a planned National Judge Training course conducted by Kate Charters at Netheravon during the UK Nationals May 27-30 2016.

James finally made and explained his recommendations for the Committee going forward.

Michael Egger, Chair of the Para-Ski spoke about the competition last year and thanked the organiser for an excellent competition.  He then moved on to the next world competition which will take place in Austria in 2017 and the organisation is already working on this.  They propose to return to Female Teams of 2 and in harmony with S & A, that wind speed and direction error from 10 to 15 sec.  The other change proposed was purely a housekeeping rule. 

Michael then thanked his committee for their work and asked countries to consider bidding for competitions in either 2017 and/or 2018.

Mohammed Al-Delayle, then presented the work of the Indoor Skydiving Working Group and he started by thanking the Czech Republic for their excellent competition during 2015.  He then asked for a vote from the floor to be changed from a Working Group to a Committee - the vote was unanimous in its support. He then presented his proposed committee.   there are two bids on the table for 2016 (Belgium withdrew their bid for 2016).  Ron did explain the bids as she had done most of the work on them.  She was asked to present all the bids including those for 2017 which she did.  There were several questions from the floor which were answered by the committee. 

Graeme then asked for a vote on the bids for 2016 and as a secret ballot had been called for, Graeme asked delegates to write either Poland or Slovakia.

The vote was taken and Poland was the winner.  We then moved to the vote for 2017 between all four bids, as the committee did not put the bid from Germany forward as the tunnel was not yet built.  Poland announced that they were withdrawing their bid for 2017.  So we then have the choice between Belgium, Canada and Slovakia.  Canada won.  Graeme was then asked to read out the results 32 - 10 for 2016 : and for 2017 Canada 18, Slovakia 15, Belgium 8 and 1 spoilt vote.

Graeme then congratulated Mohammed for the work of his Working Group in bringing together different communities and presenting such an exciting new discipline which seemed to have an enormous growth potential.

Mohammed in turn thanked Ron for all her support and work during the year.

We then closed for the day to prepare for the evening Gala Dinner.