2015 Plenary: What’s Up?

30 nations on site: Albania, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria,  China (Republic of), Chinese Taipei, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, F.Y.R. Macedonia, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, USA.

11 nations gave their proxy: Canada to USA, Colombia to UK, Finland to Sweden, Hong Kong (China) to Chinese Taipei, Hungary to Slovenia, Iceland to Denmark, Liechtenstein to Switzerland, Korea to China, Malaysia to Indonesia, New Zealand to Australia, Romania to Serbia.

Susanne Schödel, FAI Secretary General, reported on FAI today, and Agust Gudmundsson, CIVL President, on CIVL activities on his last term as President.

Reports from all Committees and Officers were also given.

Bureau decisions and financial accounts were unanimously approved.

Section 7 will be reorganised. The 2016 Plenary will implement the new version. What’s common to all sections (mainly the administrative stuff) will be in a Section for all disciplines. What’s specific to disciplines (mainly operative stuff) will be in specific Sections, with a joint paragliding and hang gliding XC section. This will be the occasion of a global clean-up and simplification, hopefully.

Internal regulations, jury and steward handbooks, diplomas, awards, committees… The usual yearly cleaning up and adjustments were done again.

Today, the IPPI Card is sold to NACs or federations by batches. The NACs / federations then sell it to the pilots who wish to buy it. Each card is good for life, you need to change it only when you change levels. The IPPI Card could be sold differently to NACs / federations that wish so. For a small fee, every pilot every year would have on his national licence a updated IPPI rating. But first, SafePro and ParaPro, the reference for IPPI level, will be revised. A new level for Towing could be implemented.

Scoring, tracklogs, GPS – Livetracking logs can be used for scoring. Flight recording device not registering barometric altitude are forbidden. Altitude evaluation to be based on barometric altitude.

Hang gliding – The PG leading coefficient is now applied to HG.

Paragliding – The selection criteria are relaxed a bit: top 500 i.s.o. top 400 or 40 point in one comp i.s.o. 45. Exceptions to qualification criteria are possible. CCC requirements will be simplified when possible to lower certification cost.

HG and PG – All proposals (WPRS “Eurocentricity”, rest day policy, official practice period) were found not convincing enough during the pre-Plenary Open meetings and were withdrawn.

Paragliding Accuracy – Some proposals were accepted (footwear, rest days, documents clean up) and some withdrawn (pilot scores, hill launch minimum).

Paragliding aerobatic – New solo manoeuvres, bonus and criteria for the twisted tricks, twisted synchro tricks, new Synchro tricks… All passed.

Software – No formal proposals this year but a lot of ideas being exchanged in the committees.

WPRS – Date of birth will be included if crossing with the FAI licence database is possible. Current laws in regard with confidentiality of personal information will be respected. This will permit sorting by class of age (requested by some federations) and could lead to “Youth” championships.

The provisional budget was adopted with 25% of participants abstaining or voting against. Not surprising, for CIVL will again be spending more money that it is getting. We could say that we are investing in our future and are lucky to have the means of such investment, but we obviously need to find new sources of revenue.

The Hang Gliding Diploma was awarded to Daniel Raibon-Pernoud (France), boss of the famed Coupe Icare for 41 consecutive years. Through him, all the Coupe volunteers are honoured.

A brain storming on task setting was improvised. Exchanges where very promising. A Working group will be implemented, a handbook published, a seminar organised during the next Plenary in February 2016 in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Championships were awarded and Bureau and Committee Chairs elected. See here.

Stéphane Malbos, the newly elected President, closed the Plenary in these terms:

“We’ve come a long way ! In June 1975, 40 years ago, Ann Welsh (FAI VP) presided the 1st plenary. Anne Welsh was thanked by all for being the one who, almost alone, created the commission.

In these times, plenary reports were in French, the FAI official language. There was a lot to do on the plenary floor… Define a name for the commission. Define what was a hang glider. Define what records should be. Define what badges of pilot proficiency should be. Create an international network of judges. Discuss safety and insurances. Discuss what the first World championships should be : they would take place in Kossen, Austria, the following year (3 classes, flight duration, slalom and landing accuracy). Estimated the number of pilots in the world : 39 620 in 17 countries.

Dan Poynter from New Zealand was elected 1st Secretary General of the Commission (at that time there was no president).

Thirty-six years later, Agust became president of CIVL. He’s been a worthy successor in the line of great people who led CIVL throughout the years to what it is today: a strong and healthy organisation taking care of 4 disciplines, with many ambitious project to realize. This is why I have the pleasure and honour to ask this Plenary to confer to CIVL outgoing President, Agust Gudmundsson, the title of President of Honour.

For now, we have a new Bureau and new committee chairs. The Bureau will appoint technical officers. The committee chairs will choose the people they want to work with. We will work hard. We will have successes. We will make mistakes. We know that we can count on your good will and support. We know also that we can count on your work, once you’ll be back in your country, to face issues and keep building a stronger sport. The CIVL structure will be here to help you and we know that you’ll be here to help the CIVL structure, because CIVL is one and one is us all.”

Thank you to the many and very talented people who worked for CIVL along the past year. They are...

Adrian Thomas (UK), Agust Gudmundsson (Iceland), Alexander Meschuh (Austria), Andika Mountnear, Andreas Rieck (Germany), Andy Cowley (UK), Anton Svoljsak, Audun Etnestad (Norway), Brett Hazlett (Canada), Brian Harris (UK), Claudio Cattaneo (Switzerland), David Wheeler (USA), Dawson Brown (Australia), Denis Cortella (France), Dennis Pagen (USA), Dider Mathurin (France), Eduardo Sanchez-Granel (Argentina), Flavio Tebaldi (Italy), François Bon (France), François Ragolski (France), Gerolf Heinrichs (Austria), Gilles Berruex (Switzerland), Goran Dimiskovski (Macedonia), Gordon Rigg (UK), Hamish Barker (Australia), Heather Mull (Netherlands), Horacio Llorens Fernandez (Spain), Igor Erzen (Slovenia), Isabella Messenger (Germany), J. Walter Vallejo, Jamie Shelden (USA), Jamie Shelden (USA), Jörg Ewald (Switzerland), Josh Cohn (USA), Kamil Konečný, Klaus Taenzler (Germany), Koos de Keizer (Netherlands), Lorenzo Labrador (UK), Louise Joselyn (UK), Luc Armant (France), Martin Scheel (Switzerland), Marvin Ogger (Germany), Moshe Valenci (Israel), Nicky Moss (United Kingdom), Niels Joergen Askirk (Denmark), Nikki Donand, Oyvind Ellefsen (Norway), Paal Hammar Rognoy (Norway), Raymond Caux (France), Reavis Sutphin-Gray (USA),  Scott Barret (Australia), Stéphane Malbos (France), Théo de Blic (France), Thomas Koller (Switzerland), Timothy Bishop (Iceland), Torsten Siegel (Germany), Ugljesa Jondzic, Veerayuth Didyasarin, Violeta Masteikeine (Lithuania), Wahyu Yudha (Indonesia), Yoshiki Oka (Japan), Zeljko Ovuka (Serbia)...

We are probably missing a few, sorry.