|
Table of Contents
|
MINUTES OF THE HANG GLIDING COMPETITIONS PANEL
MEETING HELD AT TIDESWELL ON 12th NOVEMBER 2005
627. PRESENT & APOLOGIES
The meeting opened at 10:30 with the following present: Trevor Birkbeck (Chair), John Aldridge (Sec), Mike Armstrong, Dave Bluett, Nigel Bray, Graham Phipps, Gordon Rigg, Kathleen Rigg, Mike Stephens. Apologies: Johnny Carr & Will Greenwood.
628. MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING & MATTERS ARISING
The minutes of the last meeting were approved and there were no matters arising that were not agenda items.
629. CHAIRMAN’S REPORT
The chairman commented on the unfortunate flying conditions we had suffered at the UK comps but also on the good flying at Lumbier.
630. TREASURER’S REPORT & FINANCES
a. Current Position.
Finances remain healthy but in 2005 we had finally managed to return some funds to participating pilots by making an operating loss on the year of around £7K. The panel agreed that there are still sufficient reserves and there would be no need to increase costs to pilots significantly despite the prospect of a drop in grant money for 2007 combined with another expensive Worlds meet in that year.
b. Future Funding
JA indicated that BHPA funding by UK Sport would cease in 2007 and is likely to result in a re-examination of competition funding levels eventually. However the competitions grant for 2006 (and the allocation to hang gliding) will remain at 2005 levels.
631. BRITISH OPEN SERIES
a Costs and income
Due to a missing expenditure sheet Hillary had been unable to produce an accurate analysis but indications are that entry fees covered expenditure. An updated financial report will be produced to the Competitions Panel when all figures are available.
Action: HSS
b Scoring.
We will continue to use the GAP 2002 formula with Race and six tasks will count toward series positions again. The “fudging” of minimum distance flight data has been fairly successful but Kathleen will extend the Best 6 macro to include a scaling up function for tasks valued at less than 200 points as well as the current manual scaling down of tasks where the winner scores over 500 points.
Action: JA & KR
c. 2006 Dates & Venues.
The first Open Series meet (28 Apr – 2 May) will be based at Crickhowell with Graham Phipps as local organiser, although John will book the Market Hall for comp HQ. The second meet will be the 3-day British Open (27 – 29 May) and be based in the Yorkshire Dales. Trevor will be the local organiser and investigate an alternative comp HQ; Kathleen will be meet director. The third series meet will not be over a bank holiday period and will therefore run from 22 – 26 Jul to keep it all in the same week. It will be flown in the Long Mynd/Mid Wales area with a base to be decided upon; Miles will be asked to be local coordinator.
Action: TB, GP, KR, MS, MD and JA
d. Additional meet.
A reserve comp will be run in SE Wales over the weekend 5/6 Aug if the forecast is good, with an alternative of 12/13 Aug. This additional meet will only be run if the total of task winners scores in the first two meets is less than 1500 points. Graham will again act as local coordinator. February 1st will be the cut off date for finalizing all venues.
e.Entry Fees
These will remain as £40 for the 3 day British Open and be £50 each for the 5 day meets. Pilots who pay up for all 3 meets by 1 Mar 06 will get a discount of £45, paying just £95 for the full series; after that date and up to end of the Open the full Series entry will cost £115. If an additional meet is run pilots who have already paid for the full series will pay no more but any others will pay £15 for the additional weekend comp.
f. Classes.
There will be Class 1, Class 5, and Women if entry levels justify it, i.e. if there are 5 or more entries.
632. UK NATIONALS
a. Class 1 venue & dates
St Andre les Alpes will be the venue with preferred dates of 27 August to 2 September. It will again run in tandem with an Open FAI Category 2 meet i.e. all pilots will require FAI licences. Mark Taggart has offered to assist in the organisation and John will ask him to clear the preferred dates for us.
Action: JA
b. Entry Fees.
These will be £90 (€125) but a subsidy of £10 will be given to UK pilots with entry paid by 2nd May 2006. Qualified pilots (i.e. those with AP) entering the nationals for the first time will again be subsidised to the full amount. UK pilots with a rating of Pilot will be accepted in the Cat 2 Open comp. Guest pilots from the host nation will be offered a 50% discount on entry fees but this will not include a T-shirt.
c. Rules.
Normal Nationals rules will be used but permitting re-lights will be decided separately for each task.
Action: JA
d . Scoring Formula.
GAP 2002 will be used with data transfer from CompeGPS.
633. INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONS
a, European Championships
Croatia. The team was selected as: Richard Lovelace, Justin Needham, Graham Phipps, Gordon Rigg, Carl Wallbank and Gary Wirdnam with Grant Crossingham as first reserve and Craig Dolwin second. Team manager will be Kathleen Rigg and Petra Slangen will be approached as one driver. A budget of £5K is allocated but may be reviewed when detailed costs are known. Kathleen will liase with Richard Lovelace about finding team accommodation.
Action: KR
b. Bleriot Cup.
This will be held in UK in 2006 and David Shields as volunteered to be our organiser. It is too early to identify suitable dates and a venue but our preference is for the Long Mynd commencing 28/29 July. A team budget of £2K was allocated. JA pointed out that our 2005 were still out of pocket as the FFVL had failed to pay the full cost of accommodation for the team though he has recently taken this up with the FFVL. It was agreed that our team should not be out of pocket and Steve Penfold would be paid from competition funds pending resolution of this matter.
Action: DS, JA & HSS
c. Florida Worlds 2006.
There are no entries for the Women’s Worlds and only Robin Hamilton for Class 2; in Class 5 Neville Almond, Jason Prior and Julian Harman will be entered. Finance is limited to the cost of entry fees which will be paid direct by the treasurer.
d Pre-Worlds 2006.
John had established that there is unlikely to be a limit on entries and that no team size has been decided at this stage, it is therefore not necessary to make a selection from the available pilots but this will be done later if necessary. Funding is to be double the individual pilot subsidy i.e. £400 per pilot and all pilots will receive this under normal eligibility rules whether a team is selected or not.
e. Texas Worlds 2007.
Team selection will be carried out at the first Open Series meet of 2007.
f. Individual pilot subsidies.
These will continue to be £200 for foreign Cat 2 meets. Eligibility unchanged i.e. must fly UK nationals and enter 2 x BOS meets. If a pilot wishes to obtain a subsidy for a comp that has not obtained FAI Category 2 sanctioning he must obtain Comps Panel approval in advance.
634. CLASS 5 MATTERS
Johnny had to pull out of the meeting unexpectedly but sent a report stating that competition interest in this class had still not been determined but he was investigating the possibility of running a separate Class 5 meet in August if John or Dave were available for scoring – but they are not.
Action: JC
635. CIVL MATTERS
John stated that the recent CIVL Bureau minutes would be available soon and these will give an idea of current CIVL activity. Gordon raised the DHV proposal to restrict Cat 1 comps to gliders which had been pitch and load tested on recognised test rig i.e. BHPA, USHGMA or DHV. John stated that the proposal would go in front of the HG Comps Subcommittee and the full Plenary next February but that he would vote as directed by the Comps Panel providing BHPA Exec were happy with that. It was decided that John should use his discretion if this proposal came to a vote.
Action: JA
636. BHPA MATTERS
John reminded the panel that pilots in competitions should file incident reports when involved in an incident and that FSC were not satisfied this was the case at the moment. A panel member also asked if the BHPA knew of any schemes which provided support or incentive for youngsters in out sport. JA said he knew of no such BHPA schemes but the RAeC may administer something.
637. NXCL
John presented a request from Malcolm Brown for funding of £225 toward the cost of hosting the website for this valuable facility. It was pointed out that in addition to individual entry fees and occasional sponsorship for Skywings publication there was also some sponsorship for links from the NXCL website – however it was agree to provide the level of support requested providing the league rules are compatible with BHPA rules and guidelines. It was also agree that a UK orientated XCL site such as the current one was preferable to using the DHV run international HOLC.
638. RULE BOOK
Gordon proposed changes to rules for re-lights and will review the rules books and make any recommendations for changes by Christmas. John asked the panel to consider what would happen if we had a Nationals with only one or two tasks. He suggested we might like to identify a level below which each pilots highest scoring task in the Open Series would count as a task in the Nationals; this would not affect the results of the parallel UK Open meet that is run alongside the Nationals with foreign guest pilots.
Action: GR
639. PILOT DEVELOPMENT
a Pilot briefing pack
No work had yet been done on the various elements of the new pilot briefing pack (Minute 622, 28th Aug) and it was agreed the deadline for these would be set as Christmas.
Action: All
b. Mentoring
It was agreed that mentoring would be left for individuals to carry out as they saw fit.
c. Induction
It was Felt that the most difficult part for new pilots was getting to know the “old hands” and Graham agreed to get new pilots introduced at the first briefing using a few notes from their entry forms. It was then up to panel members (and others) to make them feel welcome throughout the comp.
Action: GP
640. T-SHIRTS
The 2005 T-shirts were very popular and it was agreed that the team of Gordon designing and Hillary organising production worked well. Gordon suggested trawling the mailing list for design ideas and agreed to do this and offer a free comp entry for the winning design. Again the deadline was set as Christmas. If possible the t-shirt logo design should replicate the trophy design with the addition of appropriate wording and the BOS and Nationals T-shirts should differ in either colour and/or style. The budget remained £11 per T-shirt.
Action: GR & HSS
641. TROPHIES & PRIZES
a. Trophies.
These will reflect the T-shirt design if possible and Gordon will produce the spec to Trevor.
Action: GR, TB
b. President’s Trophy.
As the trophy was awarded for services to hang gliding last year it will go to the longest flight on a flexwing this year. JA to check with Chris or Malcolm.
Action: JA
642. PR & SPONSORSHIP
a. Richard Lovelace
is to be congratulated on his publicity efforts and success with personal publicity which has a positive spin-off for the sport.
b. Sponsors
Graham and Trevor are both dealing with potential sponsors for next season and will liaise to secure the best outcome for both comps and any sponsors. They will aim for a decision by Christmas.
Action: GP & TB
c. Out side Sponsorship
Trevor has arranged a meeting with Petra to discuss obtaining sponsorship from outside the sport. He will also speak to Will Greenwood.
Action: TB
643. RESPONSIBILITIES
No changes were made from those agreed at the 28th August meeting.
Action: All
644. AWARDS PRESENTATION - TELFORD
Trevor is handing this over to Mike S who will contact heads of PG and Accuracy panels to liase on this. MA will chase up trophies. Gordon suggested we should have decent pictures of the existing trophies …………………… who was to action this?
Action: MS & MA
645. EQUIPMENT
a. Laptop
It was agreed that John purchase another laptop and pass the older Toshiba on to Hillary to replace the incredibly ancient AST machine she is still using.
Action: JA
b. Marker Panels
It was agreed the old marker panels are too heavy to carry out to sites and Trevor will obtain replacements in bright, lightweight ripstop nylon.
Action: TB
c. Binoculars
It was suggested the meet head carry a small pair of binoculars and Dave agree to provide these.
Action: DB & JA
646. AOB
a. Retrieve Van.
It was agreed the vehicle was a useful service and should be continued with Trevor coordinating.
Action: TB
b.Website.
John felt that the website might be a better showcase for our competitions if it was run by a keen and knowledgeable volunteer and this was agreed. He would still need access to update some elements, particularly during competitions. It was decided to advertise among competition pilots for such a volunteer.
Action: JA
b. Non-flying activities.
The question of how best to use non-flying days to give pilots information and theoretical coaching was discussed again and it was decided that panel members should use their new member briefing sheet as the basis for short seminars to be run on these days.
Action: All
c, Chairman.
After more than 10 years in post Trevor stepped down as panel chairman and Mike Stephens agreed to take over. It was further agreed that in future tenure should be for a maximum of 3 years.
Action: MS
The meeting closed at 18:00 with thanks to Kathleen and Gordon for hosting us yet again.