07 Feb 2018

Plenary 2018. What's up at CIVL?

Thirty-two nations were present or represented at Sao Joao de Madeira, Portugal, for the 44th CIVL Plenary.

We were happy to see new faces, as the representants from Brazil (Thomas Milko), Iran (Mohammad Razeghi) or Croatia (Jerko Odzak), and older ones, like the Japanese Yoshiki Oka whose first plenary was in 1976! We were honoured to welcome the very top FAI representatives: President (Frits Brink), Secretary-General (Susanne Schödel) and Sports and Events Director (Markus Haggeney).

The pre-plenary ‘open meetings’ and the plenary itself went smoothly, with large consensus obtained in all issues raised (only 2 ‘against’ in the 30+ votes processed!). This is not a miracle, but the results of Committees and Bureau raising issues, discussing them and coming up with proposals. The pre-plenary ‘open meetings’ then allow more people to discuss and amend.

My general feeling as CIVL President is that green lights are ‘on’ and that we don’t make too many mistakes because we work hard throughout the year and get involved at all level of FAI.

Along with the usual adjusting of rules to make our competitions better (they will be reported here in specific ‘News’), CIVL has taken larger projects successfully. It is an ongoing never-ending job. In 2018:

  • The 3rd version of the CIVL Competition Class paragliders (CCC) will be implemented.
  • We will run our own fleet of XC live-trackers.
  • We will run our own top-notch Accuracy targets and Aerobatics rafts.
  • We will work with FAI on a global project that will allow online sanctioning of Cat 2 competitions, automatic update of FAI timeline calendar, inclusion in the FAI calendar of not yet sanctioned events, automatic inclusion of all events in the WPRS, easy checking of FAI Sporting Licenses by batches iso one by one.

 

Bids were also discussed and voted. The winners are:

  • Pantelej-Nis, Serbia, for the 16th FAI European Paragliding XC.
  • Bright, Australia, for the 1st FAI Asian-Oceanic Paragliding XC.
  • Sibiu, Romania, for the 7th FAI European Paragliding Accuracy.

 

Awards were given:

The Hang Gliding and Paragliding Diploma went to Pat Crowe (Australia).

The FAI Air Sports Medal went to:

  • AeCI Feltre and Para&Delta Feltre ASD (Italy).
  • Association pour le Développement du Planeur Ultra-Léger (France). 
  • Francisco Magalhães dos Santos
  • and Betinho Schmitz (Brazil).

 

Let the good times roll!

Stephane Malbos

CIVL President