Articles

65th IPC Plenary - Vashets, Bulgaria - Day 1 28th January

Day 1 of the Open meetings which precede the formal Plenacy. These meetings are an opportunity for the Bureau and Committees to present their plans for changes and the future – and the meeting is then open to general discussion and allows the Bureau and Committees to formalise their presentations for the actual Plenary.

Welcome to the various sponsors of the Plenary meeting – local dignitaries. The Mayor of Vashets then welcomed the delegates to the 65^th Plenary meeting.

Graeme then welcomed everyone to the meeting, and Graeme told us about his busy year – which is covered well in his report. He started the year with a trip to Moracco and then to Tanoy in Russia – followed by a quick trip home and then to Lausanne and the FAI to learn that the World Air Games would happen this year – in Dubai. Graeme then covered the World Championships this year starting with Banya Luka, and publically thanked Patrice Giradan for helping beyond his role as FAI Controller, when the Meet Director could not attend due to ill health. Graeme then moved on to the World Championships in Prostejov.   He thanked Martin for all his work in such a successful World Championships. The busy year then continued with the CISM and ASIANA and wonderful competitions.

Graeme then moved on to the General Conference of the FAI and commented on the new personelle in the FAI and looks forward to a really good future working together. At the end of the General Conference two of the IPC Bureau members were elected onto the Executive Board, Gillian Rainer and Niels-Christian Hansen.

Then onto the USA for the Canopy Piloting World Championships with an impressive scoring system which allowed everyone on the drop zone to keep track of the results as they happened. Next was the 1^st Indoor Skydiving World Cup in Austin. Graeme spoke about the emotional impact of watching young people (children) flying 4 way sequential in the tunnel.  

The last big competition of the year was the trip to Dubai for DIPC – impressive as always and now he was in Varshets for this meeting.

He then moved onto the future – and presented the future and started with the Stategic Plan a living document and always being looked at and reviewed. In view of the changes that will happen to the bureau and Graeme set the priority to review and revise the Strategic Plan. He then referred to the FAI Vision Statement, and expressed the concern of IPC to the use of “safe” air sports, and although parachuting will continue to work at making the sport as safe as possible, but this cannot be certain and is why the IPC is not totally happy with this statement.

Graeme moved on to Media Presentation and Marketing and the committee needs to be resurrected from the Marketing point of view and IPC needs to expand on this area, IPC needs to find sponsors and there is a need for someone to take hold of this and work. Graeme asked the delegates if they knew of anyone who could look after marketing and promotion. Ronald Overdijk said that there are marketing companies who would be prepared to do this for a no fee basis.

Lot of events taking place and we need to watch the timing of these events so they do not clash, even with other large events outside our sport.

Graeme moved on to the fact that young people were now involved in our sport and it is necessary for the FAI and IPC to look at the child protection measures taken by other sporting bodies.

Graeme to finish he talked about the new media and promotion from Skydive TV and have already been welcomed by USPA, a company of skydivers with experience in this field. Internet TV coverage of events, and they came to IPC to present the World Championships at Z’Hills, Canopy Piloting.