IPC Plenary Meeting, Faro, Portugal 2017: Day 4

Saturday 28th January 2017:

Today is first of two days of the actual Plenary. Prior to our official business a number of invited guests were intoduced to the attendees and we listened to welcoming speeches by both the Mayor of Faro and the President of the Portuguese Federation of Parachuting, ably translated by Manuel Almeida. Those officials in attendance were:

Mayor of Faro
Representative Secretary of State for Sport & Youth
President of FAI
Regional Military Commander
President of Tourism, Algarve
Representative Confederation of Sport, Portugal
President of IPC

In his welcoming address the IPC President took a moment to remind us of the loses from our sporting community and asked those in attendance to stand for a moment of remembrance of them.

Dr. Rainer Exi Hoenle, the IPC President (hereafter referred to as 'Exi') then explained that the Agenda had been altered to allow for Delegates who had reports to present, but due to family health problems had to leave the meeting early. Liam McNulty (Ireland) then challenged the protocol of the order of proceedings given in the agenda, as approval of the minutes was scheduled to be heard after the Interim Bureau Decisions which he felt placed the Bureau above the Plenary. There was discussion between Exi and Liam with Exi explaining why it was scheduled the way it was, and then, respecting Liam's experience and called for a vote on the Approval of the Minutes bearing in mind the correction outlined in IBD02/2016 relating to the date change from that shown in the Minutes for the ISWC in Poland 2016. The Minutes of the meeting 2016 were approved.

The business of the morning continued with Exi calling for approval of the all the Interim Bureau Decisions which had been published, as they happened, on the IPC pages of the FAI Website. These were accepted, including the one taken by the Bureau at the start of 2017. Liam queried why the IBDs did not reflect the Bureau decisions to return the Deposit to the Plenary Organiser for 2016 (Germany). Exi explained that he believed the Bureau only needed to make a decision if the Deposit was to be retained, as the obligation was to return the deposit as soon as possible unless there was a problem.

Exi then went on to explain the work of the Bureau and the result of the Extended Bureau Meeting prior to the Plenary. The Extended Bureau consists of the IPC Bureau, Committee Chairs, CISM representative and the Records Officer - and Exi took this opportunity to thank Randy Connell for his work on behalf of IPC in helping to clear the backlog of records and implement the policy agreed by the Bureau, and FAI, to allow faster and easier ratification of records set during FCE events.

Exi explained that a look had been taken at each discipline and whether or not sanction fees from the competitors covered the costs of each competition, as there were some disciplines that were not self funding, but viewing our sport overall with a belief of solidarity, the final balance was positive. However, the Bureau would look at different ways to reduce these overheads, and had considered (along with the FAI) ways to reduce the Jury costs for each FCE. Para-Ski had led the way on this, but their method of using the FAI Controller as Jury President (once the competition was started) and selecting 2 other Jurors (plus a reserve) from the persons present at the competition, worked for them, but Patrice Girardin (1st Vice President) had put together a proposal, on behalf of the Bureau, which would be put to the Plenary later. Exi also explained that the Bureau had asked the Committee Chairs to work to standardise the number of judges they used, i.e. he questioned why FS indoor worked with panels of 3, whilst FS outdoor used 5. Also for CP, some of the tasks carried out by the FAI Judges could be done satisfactorily by Nationally qualified judges. He would leave the committee chairs to look at this and later we would hear their conclusions.

The Bureau still believed in the IPC Strategic Plan, one tenant of which was faster production of scores, and presentation of our disciplines to create a more exciting and understandable product. The first, of faster scoring, he felt was going further away with decisions being taken in the discipline committees (slower replays etc.) but that we were succeeding in the product presentation and this would be demonstrated later in the meeting with the World Games agenda item.

Marcus Haggeney

Marcus Haggeney, FAI Sports and Events Director, took the floor to verify the number of countries present and to establish which countries had proxies and to which country that proxy had been given. The total number of Nations present was 34 with 8 proxies. This gave us a total of 42 votes - giving a simple majority of 22 and a 2/3rds majority of 28.

We then continued with the Agenda and the presentation by Marcus Haggeney of the FAI's year and plans for the future. His full presentation will be published with the minutes of the meeting.

Exi was next, and explained the correction to his original report from the FAI General Conference in Bali, when he stated During the Bali FAI meeting in October 2016, surprisingly IPC received the information, that CASI President and IPC President of Honor, Graeme Windsor, had resigned from CASI at the beginning of July 2016. So had Buzz Bennett. He apologised unreservedly to Buzz, as he had not appreciated that this was a role relating to Buzz's Canadian representation and when that was no longer so, he was removed from CASI. The Report had been republished, but Exi felt Buzz deserved a public apology.

He also spoke briefly about the work being done by EPU to try and counter the activities in Europe to try and restrict parachuting activities and encouraged European Federations to support this organisation and its work.

We then moved on to the presentation by Susan Dixon, IPC Webmaster and Media Liaison Officer. Susan again explained the work she had done during the year, the confirmation that the FAI are developing a new Web Site, which will be rolled out first for the World Games in Poland this year, but that all Commissions would then benefit from a new site. She also spoke about the support and help she had received over the past 10 years of her work in these roles by Fay Kimble and asked for Fay to be recognised officially by the Plenary as part of the Media Liason team and that her expenses be met out of the Media Liaison budget presented to the plenary, within the Finance Secretary's 2017 Budget proposals. As Exi explained this was not an agenda item it could not be voted on but in his view he asked if the plenary would accept that it was the same team, and one could replace the other if necessary. This was approved by the meeting, no one spoke against it.

A vote was then taken on the positions of IPC Webmaster and Media Liaison Officer which Susan accepted. No one else had expressed an interest in taking on these tasks.

As a consequence of her other role of Recording Secretary the reporting here on aspects pertaining to the the two days of the Plenary will be expanded upon at the conclusion of the official business.

It is now the morning after and I will try and build a picture here of a very busy and interesting Plenary Meeting. Made more so by the fact that whereas in the past we have been scratching around and begging organisers to bid for our FCE's we had a phenominal interest from a large number of potential hosts and organisers - particularly from the Indoor Skydiving community, which led to unexpected problems and a rethink of the voting methods used during the Plenary.

This report is a personal reflection on the proceedings during the Plenary weekend. The minutes when published will contain the official results of decisions made at the Plenary meeting.

Unfortunately no representative of SkydiveTV was present to report on their activities at FCEs during 2016. Exi spoke about the hard and good work done by them over the three FCEs they had attended during 2016, Canada WCCP, the Mondial in Chicago and Wingsuit Flying in Zephyrhills. He felt that IPC should continue to recommend and prefer the use of Skydive TV as a media partner, bearing in mind the rights FAI have and their work with Organisers. However, the previous year's financial results reported from Skydive TV showed an overall loss and shows that their hope to be able to share profits with IPC was a long way off. IPC feels it cannot continue to ask them to share money they do not have, but also IPC will not fund them. The decision was to leave the arrangement as it is, not to impede them, not to force them, not to financially support them.

We then came to an item on the Agenda which caused a lot of discussion from the floor and from Exi representing the Bureau's decision to call in the loan that had been made 5 years earlier to IPETA.  IPETA is the Events Tour Management company founded with the intention of creating a money making resource for IPC and skydiving generally. Although at the Plenary 2016, IPETA had reported four very attractive possibilities, none had come to fruition and there was nothing on the cards for the future. Meanwhile around 20,000 Euros of the original 50,000 Euros loaned for the start up of the company had been spent.The Bureau had decided that if things were left to run, the company would drift on and even without doing anything, continue to need to spend money without any real possibility of creating any.

The time had come to put an end to IPETA and this could only be done by the Board of Directors and the Shareholders (FAI). Exi had taken advice which was that the Plenary had to make the decision to recall the loan. This would then be reported to the Board who would have no other option but to close the company.

After further discussion and opinions from the floor, Exi called for a vote from the Plenary, authorising the Bureau to formally write to the Board of IPETA recalling the total amount of the loan. This was put to the vote, there were no objections, 3 abstentions from Australia (and New Zealand proxy) and Hungary due to conflicts of interest - both delegates were on the IPETA Board.

Later in the meeting the new directors will be voted on for the IPETA Board (2 from FAI, 2 from the Bureau and 3 from the Plenary).

Gernot Rittenschober

Col Gernot Rittenschober, President CISM Parachuting Committee, presented his CISM report for 2016. Gernot reported on CISM activities in 2016, including the first AL competition in May 2016 at the North Pole and “Swiss Precision” in June on several dropzones around Zurich/ Switzerland and the 40^th World Military Parachuting Championship (WMPC), Kubinka, Russia, July 2016 which was attended by IPC President as guest of honour. The main differences between CISM and IPC still remain; the same team (of 5) has to perform all three CISM disciplines ST & AL and FS 4-Way in order to win the overall position. Some nations chose to focus only on one discipline which is allowed but medals are of less importance than the individual and team overall. He also mentioned the joint CISM/FAI judges seminar which was held during the championship in Russia and thanked the instructors and mentioned the support of Cypres CEO Helmut Cloth and Para Gear CEO Curt Bachmann.

The next CISM World Championship for 2017 was presented 41^st WMPC will take place in Warendorf - Soest/ GER 10-20 July 2017, the invitation file is at http://www.milsport.one/sports/parachuting and the local contact is gedelegationcism@bundeswehr.org. The Preliminary Entry is due 1st April 2017 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 not have a Judge Training Course during 2017 WMPC as there is a sufficient number of qualified judges after the beginner seminars every year from 2013-16. Obligatory refresher tests will be conducted during all CISM championships.

Gernot closed with inviting nations with a military parachuting team to participate in next WMPC as observer or if they are one of the 135 CISM member nations as full participant with a team or individual competitors at the end he thanked the FAI and IPC Presidents and officials for the good co-operation.

Susan Dixon and Fay Kimble then presented the current Ranking System and explained that for 2016 they had only worked on the Team events as the current system we use is based on NACs and not individuals. They put the question to the floor as to how this was to continue into the future, and the decision was made to create an individual ranking system for individual events - also to remove the inclusion of the Continental Championships within the current system, as this is, in effect, only a European Championships and gives an unfair overall picture.

Randy Connell

Next on the Agenda was IPC Records Officer and Randy Connell got up and explained his role this year and how he had managed, with the support of the Bureau and the IBD4/2016 to speed up the process of Competition Records. This was the first year and he now knew what needed to be 'tidied-up' to make the process even smoother. As he explained his role is not difficult - but tedious and he will have recommendations for the next Plenary, including he hoped, modifications to the FAI Records Database which is not working as it should sometimes it is very difficult to find a record you know exists. He asked the Bureau and the Plenary to give him the authority to finalise a record without it having to be scrutinised by the FAI Office before ratification. There was total opposition to this, including input from Marcus Haggeney (representing the FAI HO). However the Plenary asked that Randy be given the authority to fully prepare a dossier, confirm all documentation is correct and hand the completed dossier to the FAI, endorsed by IPC for their simple final ratification - with a time deadline to complete it.

There was complete support for this from the Plenary and Randy agreed to work with Ronald Overdijk and the R & R committee and the FAI in wording this decision for SCS5.

Randy also asked that Agenda item 5.6.2 be removed as it was included in error.

It was then the turn of Patrice Girardin (IPC 1st Vice President - and Delegate for France) to present the amazing work the French Federation has done, in co-operation with the EU (once they had accepted the FAI definition of Europe), to create a platform for Disabled Athletes to compete as Sport Parachutists. The participants fall into two main categories, those who had skydived and as a result of a disabling accident wished to continue with their sport, and those who came to skydiving after their disability. Both aspects of our sport had been opened to them - freefall using Tandem masters, and parachuting under a canopy using parascending with a large parachute. The FFP had run National Championships over 3 years and last year had arranged a European Competition open to all. This had been a great success and there is an excellent video on both the FFP's Website and on THIS LINK.

Patrice asked for a Temporary Working Group to see where this could go - it is a long way yet before it can be launched, the need to create rules etc., but he asked for support to start. Jiri Blaska, Delegate for the Czech Republic, said that this initiative fulfilled the 3 essentials of sport - "for fun", "for medals", "for the disabled" and thanked Patrice and the FFP for opening the door.

There was unanimous support for the formation of a Temporary Working Group.

Peter Pfalzgraf

Peter Pfalzgraf, IPC Finance Secretary then continued his presentation from the earlier one started during the open meeting, having resolved his presentation problems.  He introduced his Working Group and thanked all for the support they had given him on taking on this new role.  Particularly Doris who was standing down, and he apologised for his report which implied she had not give him the valuable input and support she had.  Gail Bradley, Australia had accepted a place on the working group, as the Deputy Chair.  Patrice Giradin would continue along with Buzz Bennett (the wise old guy).

He then explained his way of presenting the Profit and Loss acount which was a change from the past.  He believed this was easier to understand and how it was made up, given the unusual accounting manner of the FAI.  Primarily the profit came from sanction fees with a very small element from merchandising which went into the FAI account set aside in accounting terms for IPC.  Our expenses were mostly the cost of Judges and Juries at FCEs, with a small amount for Bureau and office expenses, when it was necessary to attend a function to represent IPC or puchase stamps etc.  At the end of 2016 we had a profit of 22,939.00 Euros, partly because by not having a mid-term bureau meeting so that outgoing had been saved plus a greater than expected attendance at the IS FCE.   

In the budgets which he would present, there were the usual calculations based on previous year's income and costs for each FCE and expense payments requested by Discipline Committee Chairs, which they justified in their presentations.  

Doris asked a question of the Para-Ski Committee Chair, as to why, each year they asked for 600 Euros for a judging and scoring system, whilst every other discipline made this a responsibility of the Organiser.  Michael Egger explained that it was necessary to use a system they knew they could rely on because of the special nature of combining the scores from the skiing and parachuting.  

Bernard Nicholas then asked why the request from the Judges' Committee for 5,000 Euros had been refused inclusion in the budget at the Extended Bureau Meeting.  This was to facilitate a Training Judges Course, to ensure that the standard of training being delivered around the world to FAI judges, either new or being re-evaluated, was of the same standard.  Exi responded for the Bureau in stating that there were no objections to the idea or the principle, just that normally in a training situation the beneficiaries of that training pay for it themselves.  He did not want to establish a precedent where IPC money was spent for the benefit of a few.  He pointed out that last year, in Frankfurt, when a similar course had been organised this had been funded jointly by the German Parachute Federation and the attendees.  There was a lot of discussion from the floor, with Randy Connell making the point that all the members benefit from a good judging standard, judges and competitors - skydivers.  Karla Cole asked for her delegate's permission to speak as the IPC Judge Training Co-ordinator and made an impassioned speech for agreement to this expenditure.  She said how effective the previous year's course had been and by arranging a course at the end of the IPC Meeting, many attendees would be there at the expense of their NAC to attend the Bureau Meeting, this was a small payment to cover the additional days spent in the country.  These were people who already gave up a lot of their time, holidays etc. for parachuting.

Gernot Rittenschober asked for a 2/3rds majority vote to place this on the agenda and vote on it.  This was granted and the vote was successful.  The 5,000 Euros requested by the judges would be added to the budget.

As there were no other questions, Peter asked for the Profit and Loss and Budgets for 2017 and 2018 to be voted on.  They were, and accepted.  

Peter also explained that he had revised the Expenses Claim procedure slightly to avoid the problems that had occurred this year with mis-reading hand-written claims.  An editable PDF Expenses Claim form will be available on the IPC/FAI website - under Documents.  This must be used for all claims.

Item 7: ASIANIA The President of Asiania, Dr. Mubarak Al Swailim unfortunately was unable to attend the meeting. However he had forwarded his report to Exi who presented it to the Plenary, and the report was circulated to all Delegates via the "Cloud" set up by the Organiser. Exi started by praising the good work done over the years by Asiania in encouraging Asian countries into the FAI fold and the hard work done to promote and improve skydiving in their member countries. He wished them continued success in all their work. Chang Il "David" Choi, Delegate from Korea, as Vice-President of Asiania thanked IPC and Exi for their continued support. Ray Williams also asked the Plenary to thank Faye Cox who, despite her family problems, has continued to work unstintingly as the Secretary for Asiania. This received a warm round of applause.

Item 8: COLPAR Gustavo Eduardo Reyes, Delegate of Argentina, then presented the report for Colpar on behalf of the President, Mr. Héctor Ulloa, Chile, who was unable to attend the Plenary. 2016 had been a very important year for COLPAR with their important Championship in CP and several large competitions and Accuracy Landing Championships, with the introduction of Sport Accuracy which was a version of CP Accuracy and had been a very good competition. He wished to thank Karla Cole and IPC for helping them to organise a Judge's Course and to Gunter Berendt which resulted in 8 new National Judges for COLPAR. They were also pleased to say they had held their first Artistic Events event.

Exi thanked Gustavo and the COLPAR team for all the good work they were doing in South America for skydivers there.

Elisabet Mikaelsson

Next we moved on to the World Air Games and a presentation from Marcus Haggeney, FAI, and Elisabet Mikaelsson, IPC World Games Liaison Officer on the results of the Test Event held in 2016 and the final preparations in place for the actual WAG 2017. The importance of this event is of course, its exposure of Air Sports to the Olympic Committee. The selection of the athletes attending has been covered during the year by Elisabet and an article on the IPC pages of the FAI Website. The change to our normal CP competition is selected athletes, 3 rounds of each discipline including Freestyle, ie. 12 rounds in all and one overall medal. The rules have been changed slightly and these are published on the Website - but the main change is the results will not be shown as the currently used system of percentage but as a simple 1, 2, 3 ranking system. This makes a much easier to present product and creates good tension and excitement as the competition progresses. This will be matched by a new public display system giving the athlete's picture, position and score as soon as they go through the course.This fulfills two of the tenants of the Strategic Plan for IPC. This will be coupled with a presentation video of the athletes flight through the course.

We all look forward to a successful World Games in Wroclaw Poland 20 -30 July 2017.

Marcus Haggeney reported on the latest position with the World Air Games. Following the WAG in Dubai, the FAI and Sports Commission had looked very carefully at the format and what they are trying to achieve. They started a new Bid process in February and started with 5 potential bidders, but this is now down to 2, namely Albuquerque, USA and Malaysia. They are now working on the final structure of the event, fulfillment of formal requirements and a bid process; the concept is Work in Progress. The FAI will continue to work hard with Commissions and hope to have a finalised programme by the end of this year.

We then had a much needed break for lunch to return afterwards to the first of the Discipline Committee presentations.

 The afternoon kicked off with Para-Ski. During the Open meeting Michael Egger, the Committee Chair, commented on the presentation order that he was usually the first and now he was the last - so this was reversed for the actual Plenary. He explained he had no Presentation to make, as this was contained in the agenda documents which he hoped delegates had read before the meeting. He thanked his committee, which was small and effective, for their work during the year and was pleased to announce there were NO RULE CHANGES to put to the Plenary.

He then called for a vote to accept the bid from the Czech Republic for the 17th World Para Ski Championships. This was accepted unanimously.

The 17th FAI World Para-Ski Championships would be held in Vrchiabi, Czech Republic, 26 February - 3rd March, 2019.

Because the future Jury composition could be changed it was decided to bring Annex 57 forward for discussion and vote at this time.

Patrice Girardin

Patrice Girardin, 1st Vice President presented the proposal, which would reduce the cost of the having a Jury at a World Cup; things would stay as they are for a World Championships. The proposal was not as radical as that used by Para-Ski, as in Patrice's opinion it could lead to a conflict of interest between the role of the FAI Controller and the Jury President. The proposal of the Bureau was that a President of the Jury would be selected from the Nominated Juror List. This would be paid for as is now. However, when the Jury President arrives on site he would select 3 jurors from those present on site for the competition. Two to make up the balance of a 3 man jury and the 3rd as a reserve.

There was a lot of discussion from the floor with John Smyth, Jiri Blaska, Randy Connell, Liam McNulty and Sarka Blaska all speaking very passionately and with reasoned arguments against it. Exi spoke to defend the proposal. A secret vote was called for and the result was a defeat for the motion.

Yes - 11   No - 30

We then moved back to the Discipline Presentations, next with Freefall Style and Accuracy Landing presented by Gunter Berendt, Germany.

He thanked his committee for their work in 2016 and spoke about the Mondial in Chicago which had been the main competition of the year. He said the problems encountered had been outlined in his report and for him the main problem with the combined electronic scoring systems had led to his contention that in future no system should be accepted that had not previously been accepted for use in both disciplines. This was covered in the Judges proposal on the Acceptable Judging and Scoring System Document to be discussed later.

Freefall Style and Accuracy Landing Committee

He had compared the attendance at the two Mondials, one in 2012 and the latest in 2016 with the figures for 2012 almost double the 2016 participation. He then presented his rule changes for approval - unanimous. He then spoke of the forthcoming FCEs, for 2017 a European Championships, in 2018 a World Championships plus there was a bid on the table for consideration by the Plenary for 2019. There were no questions so the bid was put to the vote and accepted unanimously.

2019 14th FAI World Cup in Freefall Style and Accuracy Landing will be in Cordoba, Argentine 17-26 May 2019.

Next came the Disciplines involved in the Bids for the World Championships 2018 from both Australia and Russia

The first to make their presentation was Formation Skydiving, Mark Szulmayer, Australia said he did not propose to go through the stuff he had presented at the Open Meeting, it was contained in the reports circulated with the Agenda. He went quickly through the rule changes the committee proposed as there was nothing contentious - the Pool for VFS had been increased to enable a 10 round competition, bringing VFS in line with the other FS disciplines. They also propose to remove the reverse order of placing for the semi-final and final rounds as this slowed up the competition. The rounds would still be judged in reverse order which was of more interest to the competitors. There had been some discussion about the change to the Indoor rules to prevent standing on the net for the launch - this has been tidied up with a little common sense to say - the launch will be from the door, not from the net. Clarifying the word usage, the floor of the tunnel - if in the airflow is NET - if in the anti-chamber, floor.

Following the competitors meetings in 2016 there had been a lot of discussion and ideas on how to define Head Up and Head Down. The wording would be changed to say "approximately vertical" - in line with the definition of degrees of turn - The 50% reduction of the judges viewing speed would not also be allowed for the Outdoor event as well as the Indoor. A new record category would be established to create a record for the average score over 10 rounds. The committee had requested 1000 Euros for the re-drawing of the dive pools to make the grip definition clearer and also to update the VFS pool.

The committee had rejected the idea of the competitors having a right of re-evaluation. It was felt the Junior category in Indoor was not yet ready for 10 rounds. The request for multiple nation teams in VFS and Junior was rejected as being outside of the spirit of World Championships. They also rejected the idea of increasing the FS Tunnel events to include 8-way as this could limit the tunnels that could apply for a FCE.

There was a committee change due to Anne Mine Moller Petersen no longer acting as the Danish Delegate and would not be attending future Plenary meetings. She was replaced by Egor Gusev, Russia.

Mark then called for a vote to accept the rule changes proposed by the committee. Sarka Blaskova called for a separate vote for the decision on inclusion or not of 8-Way in the Indoor competitions. A vote was taken excluding the 8-Way proposal which was unanimous. A vote was then taken to include 8-Way as an Indoor event. This received 13 abstentions and 10 nos out of 42 possible votes so did not reach the simple majority and was therefore defeated.

The World Cup this year in Saarlouis is on track, they are currently finalising the work on Bulletin No. 1.  Of the bids on the table for 2018 the committee recommended Australia.

Ron Miasnikov: Chair AE	Artistic Events Committee

Now it was the turn of Artistic Events, Ron Miasnikov (Israel).  She started by reporting on 2016 and two large events with a growing participation from Artistic Events competitors.  As a result of good communication between competitors and judges, and a workshop at the end of the AE competition at the mondial there are some chages to the outdoor event.  Indoor Skydiving made no changes.  To shorten the time taken for judging it was decided that it would no longer be necessary for judges to view all jumps in round 1 before commencing to judge.  From now on all competitors would be required to submit a video of their free routine 24 hrs before the start of competition.  The judges will review each video, and if necessary, competitors can explain - this will be for the technical aspect of the routine.    The aim is to make judging less objective leading to encouraging new teams.  Compulsories would be split into different levels of difficulty and teams can choose which level they perform.   The committee is still working on the wording for the compulsories.

The intention is to adopt the same judging process for Indoor Skydiving.  Because the dynamic event is judged live the committee proposes each competitor has a single challenge they can use if they believe a mistake has been made in a judgement call giving a bust.  If the challenge is successful they retain the challenge and can use it again.  If not, they lose it.  Exi asked if there was a challenge and the video was viewed if the decision of the judges had to be unanimous or a majority.  Domitille Kiger (Dynamic judge) responded  - it would be black or white - unanimous.

Ron then moved onto future competitions, Saarlouis this year for the outdoor event.  A choice between Russia and Australia for next year and the committee would like to recommend Australia.  For the Indoor Skydiving bids for 2018 the committee was concerned that there were bids from tunnels that were not yet open for 2019 and also one in 2018.  They did not recommend acceptance of either of the 2019 bids and because of concerns expressed by competitors over the air quality of the Bahrain tunnel they recommended the delegates choose between Norway, Slovakia or Australia for 2018.  This caused a lot of discussion from the floor - with Exi commenting that it was necessary to be careful when stating "competitor opinion", unqualified,  as a reason .  The Delegate from Bahrain also objected, stating that the choice between the bids had to be based purely on facts.   It was also recommended by the committee that the IS FCEs in future be held in the spring at the end of the winter season (in the Northern Hamisphere) and not in the autumn at the start of the season.  There was also a change in the committee composition with Chris Dixon leaving and Sébastien Chambet back.

The proposed rule changes were voted on with unanimous acceptance.

Rina Gallo: Chair Canopy Formation	Canopy Formation Committee

Rina Gallo, (Canada) then presented her report for Canopy Formation. As a committee they had discussed at length the Foot Grip, but decided not to change the definition. They had also decided not to extend the build time, following a proposal from Canada, as it was felt this was going backwards in terms of the development of the sport. They had also decided to continue without the throw-away round. All the rule changes proposed were housekeeping, tidying up definitions, clarifying what had to be provided by an organiser as a slate in the aircraft, regarding a rejump for a malfunction, this would not be allowed if a complete formation is built. They also brought the wording of the penalties for an omission in line with that used by FS.  

The committee was really pleased that there was a CF World Cup in Saarlouis this year but called for future bids.

Changes to the committee, Pia Berggren (I apologise to Lindy Rochow-Williams for wrongly reporting it was her) was leaving, replaced by Julia Sotnikova. The proposed rule changes were accepted unanimously.

Finally Rina said that the Web Challenge would be launched again, this time it was hoped for a better take up.  One of the great things about this Web Challenge was it gave an opportunity to try out new rules or ideas.  For this reason the foot grip definition would be "contact" as asked for by some competitors.   She also announced that the Web Challenge would include 8-way - bringing a fist-punching shout from the 1st Vice President, Patrice Girardin!

Speed Skydiving Committee	Elisabet Mikaelsson: Chair of Speed Skydiving

Our fastest discipline next, presented by Elisabet Mikaelsson, Speed Skydiving.  They proposed very few rule changes, but due to the removal of the semi final and final round, making 8 rounds in total for the event there was tidying up to be done to accommodate this change in the rules.  Clarification of where to site the speed devices.  Change from 8 to 6 per pass, add a maximum exit altitude which had been missing before.  The point calculation would be changed to keep the tension i.e. 4 runs count for 6 - 7 rounds and 5 with the 8th.  She thanked Saarlouis for arranging a Speed Judges Training course during the World Cup.  The committee remains the same.

The rule changes were accepted unanimously.

Exi then announced that before we moved to the vote on the bids from Russia and Australia Marcus Heggeney would explain the procedure to be used at this Plenary.

Marcus did explain, and there was a lot of discussion and comment from the floor, but because IPC's Internal Regulations call for a Majority Vote i.e. over 50% of the votes cast (an abstention does not count as a vote), only a Yes or No does, we would have to vote on each bid - yes or no - and see which bid reached the highest simple majority.  If there was a tie we would vote again.

Denmark asked if there would be a presentation, as he and other delegates had not been present during the Open Meetings.  Australia took the opportunity to make a short version of their bid and answered questions from the floor.

We then went to the vote - first for Russia, the papers were collected and held by Marcus whilst the vote was taken for Australia.  The result was a win for Australia.

Russia                     9 Yes  -  33 No

Australia                 38 Yes -  4 No

So the 23rd FAI World Formaiton Skydiving Championships: 18th FAI World Canopy Formation Championships : 12th FAI World Artistic Events Championships and 2nd FAI World Speed Skydiving Championships will take place on the Gold Coast, Australia 4 - 13 October 2018 

NOTE:  From me as the IPC Recording Secretary.  The bid document for Australia was put on the Agenda without noting the Date Change which had been notified in advance by Australia.  Due to another very large sporting event taking place on the Gold Coast, Australia had moved their dates back by a couple of weeks, so having won the vote - and informed the Plenary of this date changed during their presentation, I can confirm that the event in Australia will be held from the 1 - 13 October 2018, including arrival and departure dates with the acutal competition {Opening Ceremony - Closing Ceremony} 6 - 12 October 2018.

Although Indoor Skydiving was next on the agenda there was not sufficient time left that evening to hear Mohammed Al-Delayel's report and then conduct the vote - so Exi suggested that all 5 bidders for the 2018 Indoor Skydiving FCE gave shortened vesions of their bids presented at the Open Meeting. 

Australia spoke about the smooth link for competitiors and officials from the WPC (now granted) and their Bid - confirmed the tunnel dimensions and air flow speed.

Sarka Blaskova presented Bid from Slovakia	Norway's Bid made in traditional costume

Slovakia made a short verbal presentation, all in rhyme and very cleverly put together, highlighting their plus points.

Norway's bid was presented by the Norweigen delegates and a Junior competitor all in National Dress. They showed the video which now had the sound sorted which contained may recommendations from Competitors to vote for Voss, a tunnel with a great deal of competition experience in an area which is also experienced in hosting international events.

Indoor Skydiving Bid by Italy	Indoor Skydiving Bid by Bahrain

Italy answered some of the complaints that had been leveled at them during the Plenary and confirmed that the tunnel was actually operating currently with skydivers.  Their tunnel was the same technology as used in Slovakia, although a later generation and there are no problems with the air quality.

Bahrain reshowed their video and were open to questions.  Gernot (Austria) asked why they were offering prize money.  Exi explained there was nothing in our rules regarding this and it was up to the Organiser.  There had been a precedent set in Russia, Kolumna CP FCE. 

And that was the conculsion of the first official day of the Plenary.