2007-Nov 682-702

Minutes of a Hang Gliding Competitions Panel. Meeting held at Tideswell on 10th and 11th November 2007 682. PRESENT & APOLOGIES The meeting opened at 10:15 with the following present: Kathleen Rigg (Chair - KR), John Aldridge (Sec - JA), Mike Armstrong (MA), Dave Bluett (DB), Nigel Bray (NRB), Johnny Carr (JC), Graham Phipps (GP), Gordon Rigg (GR), Will Greenwood (WG), Trevor Birkbeck (TB) and Mike Stephens (MS). 683. MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING & MATTERS ARISING The minutes of the last meeting were approved and there were no matters arising that were not already listed as agenda items. 684. CHAIRMAN'S REPORT KR reported that hang gliding competitions had a successful season with team wins in both the Big Spring World Championship and the Bleriot Cup. She commented on the bad weather which had plagued our own comps and thanked all panel members for their work. 685. TREASURER’S REPORT & FINANCES a. Current Position. MS presented a draft set of year end figures prepared by Hillary. Finances remain healthy although we had a £10K excess of expenditure over income due to the popularity of foreign (particularly US) comps with our pilots. b. Financial Year. The adoption last year of a financial year starting 1st October, giving a deadline of 30th September for submitting individual claims should ensure that there is little carry forward of expense items into the next year. c. Future Funding. JA said that BHPA funding for 2008 by UK Sport was uncertain; unexpected funding for 2007 was welcome but did not necessarily mean this would continue. Without this BHPA finances remain dependent upon arresting the steady fall in membership. Budgets for 2008 had not yet been agreed but he is optimistic that our current level of funding would remain, at least for a further year. It was agreed that we would continue with current levels of expenditure for a further year as reserves are adequate. If or when competitions funding is actually reduced we will review the position. d. Mileage Rates. These were reviewed and the following rates approved: panel members 25p/mile and JA 40p/mile. DB announced that he would continue to claim just 15p/mile. Panel members will only claim mileage for panel meetings not held at BOS or Nationals meets. e. Presentation of Accounts. Hillary was congratulated on the standard of presentation and the amount of clear information in the statements presented; they were approved. 686. UK NATIONALS a. Class 1 venue & dates Laragne-Monteglin is the preferred venue with dates of 3-9 August - subject to local and FFVL approval. This would be back-to-back with the planned Dutch Nationals, an 8 day Cat 2 comp running from 26 Jul to 2nd August. We will again run our nationals in tandem with an Open FAI Category 2 meet i.e. all pilots will require FAI licences. WG has agreed to be the co-ordinator again. JA will check local club clearances and when that is received WG will approach the FFVL and deal with other local matters. Concern was expressed that we have better meteo information for this meet than we had in St Andre. Action: JA, WG & NRB b. Entry Fees. These will remain £90 (approx €130) but a subsidy of £10 will be given to UK pilots with entry paid by 6th May 2008. 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 receive a 50% discount on entry fees but this will not include a T-shirt. Action: JA c. Class 5. A Class 5 national championship will be programmed to run alongside the flex wing championship and this will also have FAI Cat 2 status if a minimum of 6 pilots (including any guests) compete. Entry fees as for Class 1. Action: JA & JC 687. BRITISH OPEN SERIES a. Format. This was considered at length in view of the discussion on the mailing list but it appears to be impossible to reconcile the preferences of all. Although initially the panel wished to stick with some variation of the 3/5/5 day format it was eventually decided that we did need to cater for those who preferred non-BH weekends. We will therefore have three 5 day competitions next season, two of which will be over bank holiday weekends. The suggestion of running our meets abroad did not gain any support and, with two extra flying days in the calendar, there will be no provision for a back-up comp. b. Costs and income. The series continues to be self-funding but entry fees and discounts will have to change a little to reflect the extra 2 days of competition. They will be £50 per meet with a discount of £45 for pilots who pay for the full season by 1 March 2008 i.e. those who pay by that date will get all 3 comps for £105. Action: JA c. BOS 2008 - 1st Meet. This will be the British Open and, subject to club agreement, will run 2 – 6 May and be based at the Long Mynd; KR will approach Mark Stewart to be the local organiser. JA is not available for this meet and KR intends to fly in is; MS has provisionally agreed to act as Meet Director and will confirm this before Christmas. JA will apply for FAI Category 2 sanctioning and it is hoped this will provide an opportunity for UK pilots (female and Class 5) who are not currently eligible to get qualified before the 2008 Cat 1 championships. MS will publicise this on the Class 5 forum. Action: MS, KR and JA d. BOS 2008 - 2nd Meet. Subject to negotiation with the local gliding club and site owners it is hoped to run this in the Derbyshire Dales, based at the club airfield. Dates are to be 9 - 13 July and KR will follow up on this. TB will arrange a fall-back position of going to the Yorkshire Dales for the same dates. Action: KR and TB e. BOS 2008 - final. This will be based at Crickhowell (subject to club agreement) from 22 to 26 Aug with Graham Phipps as local organiser, although DB will book the Market Hall for scoring and accommodation for JA and himself. Action: GP and DB d. Classes. These will be Class 1 and Class 5 at all meets. The scoring of a "Sports Class" (i.e. king-posted) was considered but there have been insufficient qualifying entries in recent years so this was not pursued. 688. INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONS a. Europeans, Greifenburg (7-21 June). The team (max 5+2) was selected as: Robin Hamilton, Bruce Kavanagh, Richard Lovelace, Graham Phipps Carl Wallbank with KR also selected if she is available and eligible. Reserves are, 1st Shaun Kimberley, 2nd Dave Shields 3rd Will Greenwood. Bruce will be asked to act as team manager initially although KR will take over if she is to compete - unless a separate suitable person can be found; Carl will be team captain. A budget of £1K per pilot is available but KR will only be eligible if she is also team manager. b. Pre-Worlds (24 Jun - 5 Jul). Entries available are for a team of 5 named pilots with guaranteed entry, replacements may be made but only from the waiting list. Other pilots may place their names on the waiting list wef 20 Dec and will get places based upon order of application (details on Pre-Worlds website). Individual funding will be the standard £200 for a European comp. Selection was: Malcolm Brown, Dave Matthews, Gordon Rigg, Carl Wallbank Gary Wirdnam. Reserves in order are: Shaun Kimberley Robin Hamilton, Grant Crossingham, Bruce Kavanagh Richard Lovelace. Others who may apply for individual places are Nigel Bray Jason Brown Johnny Carr Craig Dolwin Will Greenwood Ron Richardson Dave Shields. All five selected pilots must send a stake of £50 to Kathleen Rigg cheques payable to British Hang Gliding Competitions by 1 Dec 2007 to confirm their reserved places. If deposits not received by this date then KR will obtain deposits working down the list of reserves until the 5 positions are reserved. Payment will be made by the competitions panel for the five reserved places prior to 20 Dec 2007. Deposits will be used to pay for the entry fee which is £250 so these 5 pilots will not receive any additional funding. Pilots pulling out after the entries have been paid will only have their £50 refunded if the comps panel also have the money refunded. Action: KR c. Women's & Rigid Wing Worlds (21 Jul - 1 Aug). This meet at Monte Cucco has only just been approved so pilot intentions are not clear but MS intends to enter and will lobby other suitable Class 5 pilots. KR and JC may also enter. Funding will be £400 for eligible pilots (see 688d below) and entry fees only for others. Action: MS c. Bleriot Cup. This will be held in UK in 2008 and Dave Shields will be asked be our organiser again by KR. A budget of £2000 is allocated and team selection will be made at the first 2008 BOS meet. Action: KR d. Pilot funding for 2008 foreign competitions. Except where specified separately this will be £200 for European Cat 2 meets and £400 for Cat 2 meets on other continents. Eligibility for funding at all 2008 foreign meets is that pilots must have either paid and attended all 2007 Open Series meets or have flown the 2007 UK nationals. The Competitions Panel may vary these criteria in exceptional circumstances. 689. NXCL This still works well for the pilots and we will continue the £225 funding toward the cost of hosting the website for this facility. After the recent inconclusive discussion on the mailing list it was felt there was no need to recommend any rule changes to the organisers. Clive Belbin is still working on how we can provide BOS results in a suitable format for them to be entered directly in the NXCL; NRB is in contact with the organiser and is exercising oversight of this. MS/Hilary to send cheque for £225 to Phil Chettleburgh. Action: NRB, MS 690. CLASS 5 MATTERS There is still insufficient interest in separate meets for this class and it was decided that we will continue to piggyback Class 5 onto existing BOS and nationals meets. It was noted that the 2007 Nationals failed to qualify as a Cat 2 meet due to having only 5 pilots, one short of the minimum requirement. It was also not cost effective as we gave separate trophies for a small number of pilots. The current rules for the BOS stipulate a minimum of 5 pilots in a meet for separate trophies to be provided. It is hoped that FAI sanctioning of the first 2008 BOS meet will stimulate more entries. Action: JC & MS 691. CIVL MATTERS JA had circulated the minutes of the recent CIVL Bureau meeting and answered questions on progress with pitch stability monitoring gliders at Cat 1 meets, the proposed Sport Class and the requirements for pilots to have 3D GPS in some meets. 692. BHPA MATTERS JA reassured panel that even if BHPA finances got significantly worse there was no expectation that our comps grant would be removed - though in those circumstances a reduction was to be expected. It was agreed that if this happened we would cover from reserves for next season and seriously review the situation for 2009. The nominations for RAeC awards were agreed. 693. PILOT DEVELOPMENT Some work had been done on the various elements of the new pilot briefing pack and it was agreed that the website was the best place to provided this information. Using the Dutch Nationals as a training camp was suggested and it was agreed that this was a good warm-up for our nationals. If a suitable group leader could be found we would consider funding and agreed that any reduced personal performance in this comp by the group leader would not be considered when making future team selections. GR agreed to extend his Google Earth linked training presentation for St Andre to cover Laragne as well and make this available to our Pre-worlds squad. Action: NB, KR & GR 694. T-SHIRTS The good quality of recent t-shirts was remarked upon and a possible design for 2008 circulated. It was agreed that next year's BOS T-shirt should refer to team success along the lines of "British Open Series - training ground for World Champions". It was agreed that in other respects it would be good to maintain a link between t-shirt and trophy design. TB offered to approach Ben Ashman for ideas again. Budget remains £11 per shirt and numbers required for nationals should be reduced to 80. Action: TB & HSS 695. TROPHIES & PRIZES a. Trophies. An annual change of design was still desirable and the design should be tied in with t-shirts if possible. The budget was unchanged. Action: MA, GR & TB b. Day Prizes. WG offered to approach Caroline about shopping for these again. WG to remain the main co-ordinator on this. Action: WG 696. AWARDS PRESENTATION - NEC JC agreed to coordinate the hang gliding trophies. GR (winner Nationals, President's Trophy and NXCL) will not be available but the aim will be to re-present trophies to winners of the Open Series (Dave Matthews), British Open (GP), Club NXCL (Southern?), Winter XCL and Gold Medals to available nationals team members. Action: JC & JA 697. EQUIPMENT a. Outstanding from last year The old marker panels are too heavy to carry out to sites and TB had been unable to obtain replacements in bright, lightweight rip-stop nylon. WG will try to source through Mike Millwood. Action: WG b. The older laptop Will be replaced up to a maximum cost of £700. Windows XP rather than Vista should be the OS. It should be purchased through the BHPA again to save VAT. No other equipment will be replaced this year. Action: JA Phil Chettleburgh joined the meeting at this point. 698. SPONSORSHIP WG's work on this in 2007 was appreciated and he agreed to continue efforts to find sponsors for next season, including for a retrieve bus. He would also thank 2007 sponsors directly and in Hangpoints. Action: WG 699. COMPOSITION & ROTATION OF PANEL MEMBERS The panel felt that the current composition was about right in terms of numbers needed for the work and it was unnecessary to enlarge the panel. GP's repeated his suggestion from last year that the panel would benefit from a rotation of members for a number of reasons, it would bring in fresh ideas, would give other pilots a better feel for how the panel worked and avoid the impression of a "closed shop". The panel agreed and GP was asked to draft some rules for circulation and discussion. Any vacancies arising as a result of this could be filled by suitable volunteers at the first BOS meet next season. Action: GP 700. AOB a. PR. It was felt that Neville Almond's farewell Hangpoints article was inaccurate and damaging but that to send a rebuttal would not be particularly productive. Safety was among the matters to be reviewed in the rule change proposals discussion. Panel members are encouraged to support James Roy in his period of editorship of the Hangpoints series. Action: All b. Website. Phil Chettleburgh (PC) outlined ideas for his trial website and answered questions. He sought confirmation that we wished him to continue and this was given. KR said she felt the basic structure of the site should be secured and that certain areas should only be editable by panel members and Nigel was keen that the remainder should be allowed to develop and pilots be encouraged to contribute directly without restrictions. Others felt that there was not enough help available for them to edit pages themselves but NRB pointed out that help was in place and agreed that he and PC could add subjects to that help if necessary; he agreed to re-send the original website instructions to all panel members and they should ensure they try editing and contributing to the site before Christmas. They should also review content, particularly that in their own areas of responsibility and KR asked that everyone think about what the site can do for us and what could be usefully added to it. As the site would no doubt attract non-flying viewers who were just interested in hang gliding MA felt that it should have links to hang gliding schools - rather than a re-direct to the BHPA schools info page which has a preponderance of paragliding school links. It was also suggested that all competition track logs should be uploaded to the site and be available to all. It was agreed that the site would become our official website with effect 1 January 2008 and the old one would divert viewers to there. Action: All The meeting adjourned at 18:15 hours. 701. ATTENDANCE ON SUNDAY The meeting reconvened at 09:15 hours on Sunday 11th November with the following present: JA, MA, TB, NRB, GP, KR & GR. 702. RULE BOOK CHANGES Gary Wirdnam's proposed rule changes and accompanying notes had been forwarded to panel members in advance of this meeting and these were discussed line by line as the basis of the rules review. It was agreed that, although the rules would be broadly the same, it was necessary to keep separate rule books for the British Open Series and the Nationals as the latter needed to follow Section 7A of the FAI Sporting Code more closely while the former had to have more flexibility to avoid discouraging pilots new to competition who made basic errors in flight verification and similar technical comp areas. It was not felt appropriate to constrain our rules by following GW's proposal to stipulate a hierarchy of rules with the FAI General Section at the top, followed by Section 7A and with our own rules at the bottom - this would mean many other changes to our rules and even rule out some of GW's own proposals. The broad thrust of GW's proposals appeared to be to tighten up on task safety and the panel discussed practical ways to achieve this without making the process too cumbersome to operate or too onerous for Safety Committee (SC) members. The question of liability was also considered relevant and there was a strong view that trying to regulate too rigorously every aspect of tasking in a competition might send a message to some pilots that they could just get on with flying the task while the SC would look after safety matters entirely - and this would be neither practical nor desirable. Both the rule books and the competition entry form should stress that pilot safety is still a matter where the greatest responsibility lies with the individual. A lot of detail was covered and some additional safety principals established, such as the need for the SC to communicate on the same frequency on every task and for every task to be reviewed by the SC before being set. JA will circulate the revised rule book to the panel, GW and current SC members for further comment while MA will draft an additional sheet of guidelines for the SC. These new rules will obviously put more responsibility on SC members and the question was raised as to what would happen if sufficient volunteers were not available to carry out these duties. The panel decision was that, in that unlikely event, no task would be set. Action: JA & MA The meeting closed at 12:00 with thanks to Kathleen and Gordon for hosting us yet again.