NZHGPA PG Open Round Two - Nelson 2016

A reminder that the Nelson competition early-bird discount runs out at the end of December (i.e. we have to have received payment by year's end).

Anyone wishing to sign up who hasn't done so already is invited to visit the PGOpen website:

http://www.pgopen.org.nz/home/nelson

Cheers,
Frog Twissell
Competition Director

Discretionary Projects Fund

The NZHGPA Discretionary Projects Funding Committee invites applications for funding of projects from clubs and NZHGPA committees.

The criteria and process for making applications can be found here:

http://tinyurl.com/DPFCapplication

2015 AGM Minutes

The Minutes of the 2015 Annual General Meeting are available.

http://www.nzhgpa.org.nz/members/meetings

2015 AGM Agenda

The Agenda for the 2015 Annual General Meeting is available.

http://www.nzhgpa.org.nz/members/meetings

National Paragliding Ladder Updated

The national paragliding ladder has been updated to include the results of the recent overseas league in Canungra.

All the pilots who visited have improved their ladder positions except for one idiot.

You can download the latest ladder here.

FAI/CIVL Safety Pages

The FAI/CIVL wishes to make you aware of the CIVL Safety Pages.

It is intended to keep this system alive, gathering and spreading any new critical safety issue worldwide as fast as possible.

In the HG and PG sections are the specific data. The incident types are information bases without any statistical aspect. The safety notices are gathered from several federation and manufacturer websites.

Main Safety Page
Hang Gliding Safety
Paragliding Safety

NZHGPA Membership Renewal

Its time to renew your NZHGPA membership.

If you renew a Full membership by 20th October you will receive a $20 early bird discount off the fee (but you must complete your payment by that date).

To renew or update your membership, log in to your profile at http://member.nzhgpa.org.nz/Sys/Profile with your email and password and follow suggested actions on your profile screen.

New Paragliding Competition Rules

The Paragliding Competition Rule book has been updated to version 17.
You can find this here

2015 Annual General Meeting

It is that time again where our 2015 AGM is being planned.

This year it will be held in Wellington 21/22 November at the Brentwood Hotel in Kilbirnie.

Unfortunately Elton John is playing in Wellington at the same time so please get your travel and accommodation bookings done ASAP for your delegate.

We will endeavour to get some Wellington Club members to billet delegates if necessary.

In the meantime it is time to get your thinking caps on and have a club meeting to determine if you have any remits to submit to this year's meeting.

The last day for remits for the 2015 AGM is Friday 9th October. Please have your club's remits to me by the end of that day. Late remits will not be accepted. Please also include any nominations for Executive Positions.

Kind regards

Nicky Hamill
Administrator
NZHGPA

PG Competition Rules released for review

The PCC has released version 17 of the Paragliding Competition Rules for review.

If there have been no significant objections then these will become the official rules on the 22nd of September 2015.

There are numerous changes. The changes are all clearly marked in red, and the significant ones have been numbered.

You can download the review version of this rule book from here:
http://www.nzhgpa.org.nz/competitions/pg-competitions/downloads

New Paragliding Competition Rules

The PCC has updated the official NZ Paragliding Competition rules to version 16.

This is now in review and feedback should be given before 19th August 2016.

The only change to the rules regards the fact that we will now allow CCC gliders in our competitions - but only those specifically listed by the FAI.

You can find a copy of the new proposed rules here, for download.

PG Competitions/downloads

Auckland Regional PG Competition Nov 2015

There will be an Auckland Regional Paragliding Competition during the last weekend of November 2015, with the following weekend as reserve dates.

This comp is FAI Cat-2 sanctioned.

Details of the competition will be maintained on the Auckland Google+ group event, here http://plus.google.com/events/cj41h3fraeldagrtoct2t768q30

Notice of Special General Meeting of the NZHGPA

Meeting purpose and agenda.

To vote on a temporary amendment to the constitution to allow the AGM to be held in November 2015.

Notice of Special General Meeting

Amendments to Notice, 15 June 2015:

• Page 2 Southland club has been changed to Southern.
• Derek Divers has been added as their delegate.

Deadline for PG Open bids brought forward

The Paragliding Competition Committee has brought forward the deadline for the submission of bids to hold a round of the PG Open in 2015/16 Season.

The deadline is now 31st May 2015 - so the end of this month.

This is to enable those who have already made bids to get earlier closure on the matter, and to be able to concentrate on organising fantastic PG Open rounds for all us paraglider pilots.

Anyone who wants to make a bid, or has questions/concerns should contact the PCC on nzhgpapcc@googlegroups.com

Canungra Cup to be NZHGPA overseas league

The PCC hereby announces that the 2015 Canungra Cup (held in Queensland, Australia) will serve as an overseas league event for New Zealand. 

This means, assuming that the minimum criteria of 6 NZ pilots is met, that flying in this competition will contribute towards your NZ ladder score. 

Mark Hardman from Paraventures has been kind enough to lead the Kiwi charge, and can be contacted on info@paraventures.co.nz 

Dates for the comp are not yet official but it is likely to be the last week of October 2015.

The competition website is here 
http://www.canungracup.org/HOME.html

PCC Request Bids for PG Open 2015/16

The NZHGPA Paragliding Competition Committee would like to receive bids to hold a round of the PG Open in the 2015/16 Season.

Please contact us on nzhgpapcc@googlegroups.com as soon as possible with details if you wish to host the premier national paragliding competition.

Thanks and kind regards,
Johnny Hopper and the NZHGPA PCC

CIVL Plenary Report

The NZHGPA thanks Hamish Barker for being our representative at the CIVL Plenary 2015. His report is as follows...


Report from the 2015 CIVL Plenary, Belgrade, Serbia 19-22 February 2015
by Hamish Barker (Australian CIVL Delegate, also assigned to use the
NZ proxy vote at this plenary).

The 2015 CIVL plenary took place in Belgrade, Serbia, from Thursday 19
Feb to Sunday 22 Feb 2015. Although by default the CIVL plenary is
held in Lausanne, Switzerland, for 2015 a bid was received and
successfully voted on at the 2014 Plenary for the 2015 plenary to be
held in Belgrade, Serbia. Notable among the bid's good points was that
the national aero club of Serbia had managed to get an EU grant, which
made it possible for them to cover the accommodation and food for
delegates and CIVL bureau members. This meant potential savings for
the federations of each attending delegate, so of course it was voted
in.

For this plenary, I arranged with the New Zealand Hang Gliding and
Paragliding Association to carry also the New Zealand proxy vote in
addition to the Australian vote (as Australian delegate), in exchange
for the NZHGPA paying a portion of the airfare to the plenary. Due to
work committments at a new job, I wasn't able to book the airfare
until fairly late, so although I didn't have (hardly) any hotel and
food expenses (which when the plenary is held in Switzerland are
usually about 180+ AUD /day, but can be reduced if one is willing to
walk further from the normal plenary venues), the airfare was
expensive, and the overall cost about the same as other years.

I have been Treasurer of the CIVL Bureau (the board, in French), for
the last three years (or is it four?), and so I had also prepared to
present the CIVL accounts at the plenary. CIVL's accounts are not as
complex as one might expect for an international sporting association.
Income is limited to just a few categories: sanction fees for
continental and world championships (category 1 events), sanction fees
for category 2 events (eg. national and other hang gliding and
paragliding competitions each pay a sanction fee of one entry fee to
CIVL in payment for the official CIVL sanction, giving a place on the
CIVL calendar, and (most importantly for competitors) WPRS (world
pilot ranking system) points for participating competitors. Additional
CIVL income comes from selling blank IPPI (International Pilot
Proficiency Information) cards to national federations. For further
details on IPPI cards, see the CIVL website.
There are a few hundred category 2 events held per year, spread over
the disciplines of paragliding (xc), hang gliding (xc, note there are
several HG subcategories), paragliding accuracy and paragliding
aerobatics. The majority comes from paragliding events.


The full agenda (and when they are compiled, the minutes of meeting)
for the plenary are available on the CIVL website. I will not
reproduce them here but rather concentrate on the items which are of
likely importance to australian and nz pilots (and that I can remember
without the minutes in front of me)

1. Altitude measurement.
The bureau made a decision during it's mid-term meeting that for
future category 1 events, altitude measurements recorded in tracklogs
must be based on barometric pressure, and not on GPS altitude as has
been common for a number of years. The main reasons for the change are
that airspace boundaries are defined in terms of barometric altitude,
not GPS altitude, and GPS altitude is not accurate enough, especially
when pilots are being penalised for being close to or over airspace
limits. Also, if there is ever to be a chance to re-implement
altitude-based bonuses in the scoring (to encourage less hazardous
final glides or other situations) as was abortively and unpopularly
trialled at the 2014 European championships, GPS altitude is not
accurate enough.  An important factor in the implementation by
instrument manufacturers must be that it must not be possible to
recalibrate the barometric altimeter during flight (or at least not
without clearly showing any such recalibration in the track log), so
that nobody cheats at airspace height limits by just readjusting their
instrument.

2. WPRS ranking equation changes.
Three proposals had been variously discussed in the paragliding
subcommittee, but unfortunately were not documented clearly enough nor
completely worked through, so they were withdrawn. The proposals were
to increase the amount of time until a pilot's earned WPRS points
start to degrade (good for Aus/NZ pilots who probably can't afford to
go to the big-WPRS-scoring euro comps every season, to decrease the
number of required pilots for a fully valid comp (also good for Aus/NZ
pilots whose comp fields are not as big as some european events, and
to change the pilot quality weighting factor on amount of points
available to a comp. Also would have been good for Aus/NZ pilots since
the high quality euro comp fields get more and more wprs points, while
our home comps don't get much, then the pilots are lower ranked, and
the wprs points available to be earned at home comps spirals down.  So
it was a big disappointment for me (and other non-european country
CIVL delegates) to not get these proposals through. But we simply have
to do the work to implement the changes in a test formula, run the
modified WPRS calculations and compare the resulting rankings with
actual competition results of later dates to PROVE that the changes
will provide a more accurate (and fairer for us non-euro nations) wprs
ranking system. I have a few people to work with on this from various
countries, so have good hopes for it to be achieved in time for the
next plenary with rock solid votable proposals.

2a. Changed WPRS ranking/points criteria (minimum) for world or
european championship entry, paragliding:
the plenary voted to reduce criteria for entry to Paragliding world
championships and european championships (which I'm pretty sure all
the relevant pilots have already heard about) to top 500 WPRS ranking
or earned 40 WPRS points in a single event, in the past 2 years. The
original proposal was to extend this to three years but that part did
not get enough votes. Three years would have been beneficial for
Australian and New Zealand comp pilots who might be able to make a big
effort to get a season-worth of qualifying events in europe every
second year or so. The proposal was strongly criticised by Switzerland
and Germany and UK delegates as a big watering down of safety. But
there were plenty of contesting arguments that there is not a great
deal of evidence that using WPRS ranking is a good measure of safety.
Rebuttal to this was that it's currently the only measure (arguable
either way). Anyway, reducing the threshold qualification criteria is
good for improving the possibility for Australia and New Zealand to
field a full team to future championships.


3. World Championship Bids.
There was an unprecedented number of bids for world championships. 1
for hang gliding worlds 2017, for Brazil, (with goals in Brasilia, in
the middle of the capital!), was successful since that was the only HG
worlds bid. 1 bid was for 2016 HG european champs to be held in
Kruschevo, Macedonia. By all accounts a stunning place to fly, a huge
open valley about 30km across, with mountain ranges each side and big
potential variety in task setting. 1 bid for paragliding aerobatics,
to be held in Annecy, France. Not sure if any Australian or NZ pilots
are potential entrants, but something to think about if anyone is.
3 bids for paragliding accuracy, from China, Germany and Albania. The
Albanian bid was successful. They were ecstatic. I don't know of any
Australians or New Zealanders doing paragliding accuracy, but the
winning bid is mostly free (i.e. entry fee, accommodation, probably
parties etc.), so if by any chance someone feels like going, it's
probably a good idea to organise a couple of home events first.
Seven (7!) bids for paragliding xc worlds 2017. Switzerland, Austria,
Portugal, Turkey, Italy, Brazil and Slovenia.  There were three rounds
of voting, and neither of the bids which the Australian comp committee
instructed me to vote for (Portugal, knocked out in the first round,
and Turkey, got through to the third round but was pipped by the
Italian Bid) was successful. The New Zealand competition pilots hadn't
given strong preferences except perhaps Slovenia, but it was knocked
out in the second voting round (which was between Italy, Turkey and
Slovenia).  The location for the 2017 paragliding world championships,
Feltre, Italy, is close to Bassano, and should still give an excellent
championship, although of course with more alpine conditions than our
Australian pilots are usually flying at home, it might be a good idea
for prospective 2017 team members to think about planning trips to the
region for training up in the two european seasons available before
the 2017 meet.

4. CIVL Competition Class Paraglider weight ranges
When the CIVL competition Class paraglider definition ruleset was
voted in by the 2014 plenary, the top weight of the smallest size was
set at 100kg, with a scheduled reduction down to 90kg for 2015. A
proposal from germany was put forward to extend the delay in bringing
down the 90kg limit for another year. On the plus side, this would
make CCC glider development and certification cheaper for
manufacturers. But a big downside would be that it would be throwing
away one of the key original goals of the CCC project, which was to
ensure that competitive gliders be available for the widest possible
weight range of pilots. Failing to provide the smallest sizes is
considered to be particularly bad for participation of women in top
level paragliding comps, since they either can't get a competitive
glider in their size, or have to fly with maximum ballast, risking
injury in any less-than-perfect landing situation with nearly half
their body weight in ballast.  Thankfully, the proposal was defeated
and new CCC gliders must provide a smallest size with a top weight no
more than 90kg. There is a risk that one or more of the current
manufacturers might decide that the cost of CCC certification is now
too high and drop out, reducing the range of manufacturers' gliders
for pilots to choose from. But personally, I think CIVL has to take
that risk in order to serve the sporting interest of having
competitive gliders available to a bigger range of pilot weights. If
we have a problem of manufacturer diversity in the future, maybe other
ways can be sought to fix that rather than just giving up on the light
(and heavy) weight pilots.

5. Task Setting Project
A meeting was held which attempted to draw together the experience of
a number of international meet organisers present at the plenary and
to begin to put together a set of guidelines for task setting to be
published by CIVL. The aim being to promote good task setting not only
for the sportive aspects, but also because it is recognized that task
setting including meteo, terrain, and pilot experience factors is of
no small importance to safety in top level competitions, where the
pilots will fly where (and when) they are sent. Copious notes were
made, a draft is being put together, and will be circulated (I will
personally make sure that it also gets to Australian task setters for
their input, since I have been appointed as chair of the working
group) for revision before hopefully becoming a useful resource for
future competitions.

6. New CIVL President and new CIVL Bureau members.
The CIVL Bureau is now elected on a two-year cycle. Outgoing CIVL
president Agust Gudmundsson was recently elected to the FAI Executive
Board, which is a great thing for our sports of hang gliding and
paragliding, to have a "friend in high places", but on the down side
he is not allowed to remain as an airsport commission president and
also sit on the FAI Exec. So Stephane Malbos, tireless CIVL Vice
President with a prodigious work output, was elected president. Vice
presidents Igor Erzen (Slovenia) and Goran Dimiskovski (Macedonia, and
also President of the paragliding world cup association) remained on
the bureau, as did Secretary Jamie Shelden (USA) and new treasurer
(formerly CIVL Vice president) Zeljko Ovuka (Serbia). New bureau
members were Adrian Thomas (UK) and Wahyu Yudha (Indonesia).

 I was treasurer in the previous term but did not stand for
re-election because it's a  lot of work and I have a new son, new job
and new career demanding a higher priority of my time and attention.
The new blood on the bureau is anyway a good thing, hopefully they
will bring good outcomes for our sports.


The above are the main issues which I can recall from the 2015 plenary
in Belgrade. It was a tough one for me as I had the 'flu from day one
right through to and during my return flight. Further details will be
available in the full minutes of meetings when they are finished and
published on the FAI/CIVL website.

My sincere thanks to the HGFA board and competitions committee, and to
the NZHGPA executive and paragliding competitions committee for the
continuing support and no small amount of our associations' precious
finances to ensure that Australia and New Zealand votes have continued
to play their part in CIVL's now 40 year history.

Hamish Barker
CIVL Delegate, Australia

National Paragliding Ladder Updated

Now includes results from Corryong and Auckland competitions.

You can find the new ladder here

Auckland Regional Comp - The Last Blast

There will be one more Auckland Regional Paragliding Competition before the end of the season - this is probably the last final competition of the NZ season.

For details contact organiser johnnyhopper@gmail.com or on 021 056 2275

Updates on the event will be maintained on the Auckland Google Plus Event

Support/Adventure Safety Systems Workshops

The Tourism Industry Association (TIA) is running fifteen Support/Adventure Safety Systems Workshops around the country over March & April this year.

The FREE three-hour workshops are aimed at ALL operators working in the adventure and outdoor sector, covering:

• new safety initiatives and sector developments
• effective review and continual improvement strategies for hazard management, incidents, staffing, emergencies and equipment
• how to make the most of Activity Safety Guidelines and other sources of good practice
• ideas to improve safety systems
• tips and lessons learnt from other operators experiences

CAA will be present at some presentations.

To register or for more information go to the Support Adventure website, or directly to safety-systems-workshop.

Auckland Regional Comp - Using reserve dates

Since the Auckland Regional Paragliding competition was declared with the coming weekend as reserve dates (28th Feb and 1st March 2015) then it could still be on this weekend. Please keep watch on the Google+ event for further details.

Administrator out of office

Just a reminder that I will be on holiday from 4 April until 20th April. 

Please make sure you have any urgent business to me in good time before 4th April. 

If you have any urgent issues during that time please contact Evan Lamberton or Derek Divers.

Many thanks and happy flying

Nicky Hamill
Administrator

New waypoints for Auckland PG comps

The waypoint files for Auckland paragliding competitions has been updated.

You can find the latest files (wpt or gpx format) in the download area:

Waypoint Downloads

National Paragliding Ladder updated

The National Paragliding Ladder has been updated to include the results of the PG Open that was held in Wanaka in February.

You can download the latest PDF from here:

The National Paragliding Ladder

Auckland Regional Paragliding Competition

Next weekend (21/22 February 2015) there will be an Auckland Regional Paragliding Competition.

Details are available HERE.

See you there.

Wanaka Events

Reminder of upcoming events in Wanaka this month and next

• National Hang Gliding Championships – Jan 24-30
• National Paragliding Championships- Jan 30 –Feb 7
• For those interested there is a First Aid course designed specifically for pilots being run during this time. See below.

The course will run on the evening of Thursday 29th January and during the day on 30th finishing early afternoon, so people will have plenty of time to get to the comp briefing.

It will be in a class room Thursday evening and if needed for weather reasons on Friday otherwise outside on Friday.

It will be for 6 people, a charge of $50 per person for this course as an "at cost course" as it is the first.

Participants will receive a certificate stating the course is certified for PG3 first aid requirements as per NZHGPA as long as they fulfill the requirements of the course during the day - ongoing assessment based on their attendance and competency during the day no final assessment.

For more information or to register your interest Email Derek Divers

Discretionary Projects Fund - Call For Bids

The NZHGPA Discretionary Projects Funding Committee is calling for bids for funding from the Discretionary Projects Fund. The terms of reference and criteria are listed below.

Terms of Reference for NZHGPA Discretionary Projects Fund

Members of the NZHGPA Discretionary Projects Funding Committee (DPFC) are to be appointed annually by the Executive.

There shall be a minimum of three committee members: one representative of hang gliding, one representative of paragliding, and one Executive member.

The amount of discretionary funds to be allocated will be set annually at the AGM. [For 2014/15 $3000 has been set aside for the fund.]

Applications must be submitted by a club, supported by a minuted motion proposed and seconded at a club meeting by current NZHGPA members. (PIN numbers to be supplied).

The DPFC will consider all applications for funds against the criteria (listed below).

The DPFC will assess applications as they are received during the course of the year.

The DPFC may request additional information from the requesting club.

Each funding application will be assessed on its own merits, with no expectation of ongoing funding based on past funding approvals, or commitments to fund aspects of a project into future years. That is: each application should be for a stand-alone project or event.

The DPFC will make a recommendation to the NZHGPA Executive as to how funds could be distributed.

Not all funds available have to be distributed annually.

It is a requirement that clubs receiving funds will report at appropriate intervals on the use of the funds. Reporting requirements will be advised by the DPFC at the time of the funding approval.


Criteria for the NZHGPA Discretionary Projects Fund

Financial assistance will be considered for club projects that meet some or all of the following criteria or considerations:

1. Helps to develop, protect and promote the sport of hang gliding and/or paragliding.


2. Facilitate the safety, development, long term or ongoing use of a launch site of national importance. (A site of "national importance" would generally be considered to be a site that has been used at least several times for national competitions, or which is used on an ongoing basis for training a significant number of students.)


3. Support gliding meetings, competitions, or technical seminars (where there is a demonstrated benefit to the wider membership).


4. Maximises the number of Association members that will benefit as a result of the project.


5. Otherwise supports or fulfills the objectives of the Association.


6. All things considered equal proposals that have a demonstrated contribution of resources (financial or in kind), by the club requesting funds and/or from other sources, will be given stronger weighting.


7. That the requesting club has adequately reported on the outcomes of any earlier grants received.

Relevant objectives from the Association's Constitution are:

(a) Develop, protect and promote the sport of hang gliding and paragliding.

(d) Foster harmony between Member Organisations, Pilot Members, Visitor Members, Student Members, Non Flying Members, Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand, public and local bodies, flying site owners and the general public.

(e) Encourage sharing of knowledge and provide for the benefit of all members and member organisations, advice, education and technical information to advance and promote safe hang gliding and paragliding.

(i) Promote gliding meetings, competitions, technical seminars, gliding schools, social events, Booksellers, publications and anything else which may assist these objectives.

(j) Foster the technical development of the sport in terms of hardware and flying techniques.

Applications must be submitted by a club, supported by a minuted motion proposed and seconded at a club meeting by current NZHGPA members. (PIN numbers to be supplied).

Applications should explain how the relevant criteria listed above are fulfilled by the proposal.

Applications are to be returned to the NZHGPA Administrator (Nicky Hamill admin@nzhgpa.org.nz).

Regards
Mark Alton markalton@yahoo.com
Derek Divers d.divers@xtra.co.nz
Kris Ericksen skf@paradise.net.nz

NZHGPA Discretionary Projects Funding Committee