New faces in CIVL

The 2012 CIVL Plenary, held in Chinese Taipei, came to a successful close on Sunday afternoon with the election of a new President, Agust Gudmundsson (ISL) and a new Bureau. The elected vice presidents are: Chris (Calvo) Burns (GBR), Goran Dimiskovski (MKE), Igor Erzen (SLO) and Stéphane Malbos (FRA). Joining them are Jamie Sheldon (USA) as secretary and Hamish Barker (AUS) as treasurer.

In a bold move just prior to the elections for the Bureau, Gudmundsson appealed to the Delegates: “We need to make many changes in the way things work, including the bureau, the subcommittees and the Plenary. We need a winning team and that means people who are prepared to work.”

This was the first CIVL Plenary to be held in Asia and supports the broader FAI initiative to encourage airsports throughout the continent. There were 23 delegates present with many Asian representatives attending their first CIVL Plenary, as well as delegates from Europe, North and South America and Australia.

A considerable amount of work was achieved by the subcommittees in the two days prior to the Plenary, and minutes of all the meetings will be published in due course. Safety initiatives have been agreed, including stepping up the collection and analysis of incident data, improving pilot education and further consideration of a higher level qualification for competition pilots.

In paragliding, key actions are the tightening up of entry qualifications for Category 1 events, and the formation of a working group to investigate several proposals and recommendations for new competition structures. In hang gliding, discussions centred on encouraging more competitions: including sport class into multi-discipline events, reducing the minimum numbers to validate Cat 2 events and reducing costs for Cat 1 organisers. Badges for landing accuracy have been introduced for Paragliding Accuracy. A new competition format has been agreed for PG aerobatics events.

Category 1 competitions awarded for 2014 are: European Paragliding Championships and European Paragliding Accuracy Championships both to Serbia; Panamerican Paragliding Championships to Argentina; and Asian Paragliding Accuracy Championships to Malaysia.