August 23rd, 2006
What have we been doing for the last five months? Good question!
I am concious that I have not been in touch with you for some time.
During the past months we have seen the completion of very successful World Gliding Championships in Eskilstuna, Sweden, and Vinon, France. My congratulations go to the new World Champions and all the competitors. My sincere thanks go to the Organisers for all their hard work and dedication to the task of creating and running these events.
We continue to be reminded that we are almost totally reliant on volunteers to manage and support our Championships. This creates some challenges for us, as the Bureau, because of the pressure to have all the "bells and whistles" at the events - and especially the drive to lift our image and create a better awareness of our sport with the media and the public.
We have also seen the completion of the Qualifying Grand Prix events in Nitra, Slovakia, and Drakino, Russia. The Qualifying Grand Prix at Hahnweide, Germany, is happening right now, and we then have the UK, France, South African and Australian Grand Prix events to look forward to.
Unfortunately, the QGP in Ely, USA, did not go ahead because of lack of entries. Also, the weather was not kind to the organisers and competitors at Drakino.
We continue to learn about how to make a Grand Prix event effective and some of the challenges of marketing the event. Our experiences of this first year of running QGP events will enable us to be much smarter and more efficient for the future.
In the meantime planning progresses in New Zealand for the 2nd World Sailplane Grand Prix in December 2007. At this time, we expect hang gliding, paragliding, aeromodels, rotorcraft, general aviation and aerobatics events being run in parallel with the Sailplane Grand Prix. This will provide a vital trial of the 2009 FAI World Air Games concept.
I have been planning to send out a PowerPoint briefing file on the Sailplane Grand Prix for you to use, however, we are still in negotiations with the FAI as to the most appropriate name for the event, and so I will not send this briefing out until we confirm the name.
Finally, in two weeks time your Bureau is meeting at Cambridge at the end of the UK QGP. We have a very full agenda covering various proposals from the 2006 Plenary meeting, competition reports, a review of the QGP, matters from OSTIV and EGU and preparations for the FAI General Conference and the Plenary meeting in 2007.
Bob Henderson
President, FAI Gliding
August 23, 2006.