When Frouwke Kuijper , the Dutch delegate asked me a few months ago , if I wanted to take care of the ladies program during the meetings, I said of course YES. A good way to meet some of the ladies accompanying the delegates who work hard from 9 till 5 over 2 days, but also to see a glimp of how a plenary works and last but not least to catch up with a lot of friends in my home country. I loved it.
I am proud on what Frouwke did, proud on the service from Papendal , proud on the NIJAC for taking care of the last evening and on the way our Dutch people are interested in people from abroad .I guess you have read most of it in my blog www.soaring.eu
I promised to come back on a few things, so here we go.
With Brian Spreckley as first vice president and 5 other vice presidents 3 from Europe and 1 from Chile and from Australia , Eric Mozer has surrounded himself with a new strong board for the next 2 years.
One of them a lady; Marina Galetto from Italy. For a moment we thought that Marina was the first ever female vice president in history in IGC , but checking with,… who else than Tor {Johannessen”} we found out, she is the 2d one . But as Marina said , she finds it an honnor to step in the footsteps from former female UK vice president Ann Welch. She even learned from her and saw her as an example!
Ann died in 2002 age 85 , but was an icon not only in the soaring-world, but also in hanggliding and microlight-world. From both she was the president of the Association.
She was also vice president of the BGA.
So what better example can you have.
For Marina it really starts now as she said. I wish her good luck and know she will do well.
The last evening was special. The 6-drums-winch in the NIJAC hangar got a lot of attention and it was excellent that the builder/founder of this winch was there to answer questions.[pictures on soaring.eu]
Lots of his winches are in use on airfields all over Europe.
The 2- storey hangar was another eyecatcher for the delegates. The dinner in the club house a real “feast” and the “lifting” from Jiri [Cihlar] in the up side down glider on the ceiling unique/playful.
This glider is SOAHAJ 4 , type VT-425, as Jiri was so kind to write down for me!
The wing and cockpit hanging up side down
Jiri trying to get in and with the help of a lot of young NIJAC members, amongst them Tim Kuijpers, the Junior World Champion from Musbach and number 4 in Chaves, he was lifted up and in.
Here he is hanging on the ceiling in the SOHAJ 4;
Jiri told some people he flew in the past in such a glider , so “doing it again was peanuts”. I got a video from Swedish delegate Reno Filla and here is the link it just arrived to “inverted flying”!!!THANKS Reno.
Before leaving Malden at 10.30PM, Eric said thank you to the NIJAC for their hospitality and off we drove by bus ,back to the hotel.
A great couple of days and though I missed the last hour of the meeting, cause they had finished earlier than planned, I got a good idea about such a meeting. It is great to see how the “grey a bit older, but very fit ” delegates, share their RICH knowledge with the new young generation. Soaring is very much alive!
For the decisions from the meeting by Rick Sheppe the USA delegate, [THANKS AGAIN RICK!]you can read www.soaring.eu and they will follow soon at the FAI site. http://www.fai.org/gliding/
Cheers Ritz
