The Bureau

CIVL is run on a daily basis by the Bureau, which consists of the President, four Vice Presidents, the Treasurer and the Secretary. The secretary and the treasurer don’t have to be delegates to be elected.

It can be said that the Bureau is the CIVL elected Government.

The Plenary Meeting may delegate to the Bureau certain responsibilities. These shall be precisely defined by the Plenary Meeting and the decisions will be taken by majority agreement of Bureau members, except that, where the vote is equally divided, the President shall cast the deciding vote. Matters with a perspective beyond the next Plenary meeting shall be subject to subsequent ratification by the Plenary Meeting and may be modified or repealed by CIVL.

The Bureau is helped by various Subcommittees and Working Groups, covering all aspects of our sport.

The Bureau meets twice a year: once just before the Plenary, once at mid-term, in October or November. It doesn't mean that Bureau members meet only twice a year. In fact, they are in constant email and telephone contact throughout the year.

John Aldridge (UK), President
Contact John Aldridge
John has been flying hang gliders since 1984 and also took up paragliding at the start of the new millennium. He has flown in many countries and competed for some years but his flying is now strictly recreational. He organised and ran British national hang gliding competitions from 1995 until 2008 and has served on the BHPA's executive board as Competitions Director since 1996. He was the UK delegate to CIVL for 12 years, head of the Sporting Code Subcommittee for the past 8 years and has been the CIVL representative on CASI for the past 3 years. He was elected Vice President of CIVL at the 2002 Plenary meeting, and then CIVL President at the 2010 Plenary meeting. He has been appointed as steward or to the jury at many FAI World or Continental Championships in both hang and paragliding since 2000. John is also a council member of the UK’s NAC, the Royal Aero Club.

Fernando Amaral (Portugal), Vice-president
Contact Fernando Amaral
Fernando was elected to the CIVL Bureau in February 2009. He started paragliding in 1995. He attended his first instructor course in 1998. Others followed, and he now holds the highest instructor qualification in Portugal. He is the technical director at one school and collaborates at a national level in FPVL instructor courses.
While still in his first paragliding year he participated in his first competition (fun) and since then has been a regular competitor in Portuguese National competitions. He currently coaches one of the Portuguese club competition teams and was the team leader for the Portuguese Paragliding Team in the 2008 European Championships. In 1996 he started helping out at competitions as scoring officer. Since then, he has taken on a number of different roles, including Meet Director in Cat.2 competitions, "weather-man", and Deputy Meet Director in the 2003 World Paragliding Championships. He was FAI Steward in the 2005 World Paragliding Championships in Governador Valadares and in the 1st Pan-American Paragliding Championships in 2008.
Since 2005 he has held the roles of President of the FPVL Competitions and Juries Board and the Portuguese CIVL Delegate.

Igor Erzen (Slovenia), Vice-president
Contact Igor Erzen

Agust Gudmundsson (Iceland), Vice-president
Contact Agust Gudmundsson
Agúst has been flying hang gliders since 1986. In 2001 he started paragliding and has been flying both hang and paragliders in recent years. He also has a PPL licence since 1995. In 2003 he built a Skyranger ultralight and has been flying ultralights since then together with all other flying. For the last 15 years he has been organizing and running HG and PG competitions most of which have been FAI Cat2 competitions and also acting as an instructor. Agúst has 4 children, and most of the family are also flying paragliders (wife, two sons and his son's girlfriend). He has been working as a manager of a software house since 1981. Since 1997 Agúst has attended CIVL plenary meetings and in Guatemala 2005 he was elected as a Vice President. Agúst is also acting as a vice president of the Icelandic NAC.

Scott Torkelsen (Denmark), Vice-president
Contact Scott Torkelsen
Scott has been flying paragliders since 1987 including World, European and World Cup as well as National championships. He is still a very active pilot, however he only competes in National championships now. Has been a board member of the Danish NAC since 1995 as well as previous President of the Danish hang gliding and paragliding association (DHPU). He is still a delegate for CIVL and EHPU. He has maintained a full time chiropractic practice since 1987 and is an active lecturer throughout Europe on skeletal injury, biomechanics and rehabilitation to both humans and animals. He was first elected as a CIVL Vice President in 2004.

Louise Joselyn (France), Secretary.
Contact Louise Joselyn
Louise learned to paraglide in 1995 in the UK, and since moving to France (near Laragne) in 2000, has vastly increased her airtime, predominantly flying cross-country. However, in the UK she flew Paragliding Accuracy competitions for several years, was Team Manager for the UK at the first World Championships in 2000, and flew for the UK team in the 2003 and 2005 World Championships. She was Chairman of the CIVL Paragliding Accuracy Subcommittee from 2003 to 2008, helping organise Cat 2 competitions, and establishing a Judging training programme. In Laragne, she is a founder member of Chabre Vol Libre which runs the annual 'Ozone Chabre Open' friendly paragliding cross-country competition, and wass involved in the organisation of the 2009 World Hang Gliding Championships (Class 1).

Koos de Keijzer (Netherlands), Finance Secretary.
Contact Koos de Keijzer
Koos started hang gliding in 1993 in France and immediately knew this was going to be his sport. He picked up XC flying first in the Alps, later in Holland. In 1998 he started entering competitions and soon ended up organising the Dutch nationals and XC courses alongside. With some friends he learned tandem flying and tried to set records. After nearly making a 120km triangle in Australia on a tandem he reset his goals and made a tandem world record in France of 25km which still holds. During the Pre-Worlds in Hay in 2004 he learned that even with low cloud base you can get far in flat lands. In 2005 he set a new Dutch record of 218km starting from the Belgian border, crossing the whole country and landing near the North Sea. Since 2004 he is Dutch Champion. He has a strong interest in the psychological aspects of flying and is involved in safety. As a Forensic doctor he joined the medical advisory commission in Holland and explored human factors and altitude physiology. In 2009 he became active member of the HG subcommittee of CIVL.

(photos: Malbos/Harris/Pagram)