Notes from the 2019 IAC Fall Board Meeting

The IAC Board of Directors met in Oshkosh, Wisconsin on November 6th and 7th for the annual Fall Board Meeting. The board had 55 agenda items to review, discuss, and make some decisions on. All documents are on the IAC website here for our members: https://www.iac.org/meeting-docs (member log in required)

Because of the hefty agenda to get through in two days, the Board met again by teleconference a week later and wrapped up the remaining agenda items. These are the bullet points of the meeting and we can expect the Draft Minutes of Meeting to be published after the first of the year on our IAC website.

IAC is in good shape with a lot accomplished in 2019. Our U.S. National Aerobatic Championships moved to Salina, Kansas, our IAC Rule Book has been refactored in draft form by Jim Bourke, we have a new Executive Director, Steve Kurtzahn, Lorrie Penner has moved into the Editor’s position of Sport Aerobatics, and there are several areas of focus that will keep program and committee people busy over the winter months.

The Contest Director for the U.S. Nationals 2019 was IAC Southeast Regional Director, Ron Schreck. Ron’s report on Nationals indicates that for our first year in Salina, Kansas, the groundwork has been laid for future Nationals to be at least as successful at this one. He had only had seven months to pull it together so Ron relied on past organizers to help with guidance. He spoke of his appreciation for the support he received from his staff, the City of Salina, the Salina Airport Authority, and everyone he asked to pitch in.

Part of Ron’s planning for 2019 involved thinking ahead to 2020 and what the next CD’s needs might be. Donations and sponsorships were his biggest hurdle and he advocates that the next CD be proactive in seeking out sponsors and donors early in the planning. He and his volunteers established relationships throughout the city of Salina and it is encouraging to know that much of the future planning will be handled with simple phone calls and a checklist. He believes that with a little tweaking and adjustment here and there, Salina can become our permanent location for our premier event, the U.S. Nationals.

In closing his report, Ron suggested that his Assistant Contest Director be named the Contest Director for 2020 and the Board approved the appointment of Duncan Koerbel to be the CD in 2020.

In her final report as Executive Director, Lorrie Penner outlined the success of AirVenture citing attendance-overflowing forums with topics ranging from buying your first aerobatic airplane to successful aerobatics, competition, and airshow. The Giles exhibition was well-received and parking around the Pavilion was as desirable as ever. She said that merchandise sales were good and thanked volunteers for work before and after AirVenture.

In 2020, Lorrie is focusing on the 50th Anniversary of the IAC with special merchandise, an anniversary special issue of Sport Aerobatics. Sport Aerobatics will expand one issue to nearly double the size and feature stories of original members, the organization’s beginnings, pilots, teams, events, aircraft competing in 1970, and more. The newly created 50th Anniversary logo will become more prominent in the magazine and online publications in the coming months.

Lorrie also touched on a number of topics including scholarship opportunities (https://www.iac.org/scholarships), new chapters (IAC 134 Marquette, Michigan), chapters forming in Park City, Utah, Bentonville, Arkansas, Jacksonville, Florida, as well as the reactivation of IAC 22 in Sweden.

Contests in 2019 numbered 38 with weather cooperating better this year than in 2018.

At the 2019 Spring Board Meeting, Jim Bourke was assigned the task of updating our IAC Official Rule Book which had become unwieldy over the years with additions, changes, tables, and confusing language. It was Jim’s job to separate topics that concerned rules from topics that were more organizational in nature, such as contest operations. Anything that took up space was omitted from the refactored rule book such as contest forms and sequences. In addition, the allowable figures were blended in order to cut down on pages and a new notation will be made on figures that cross categories to indicate which can be used for figures from Intermediate through Unlimited.

Material unrelated to judging but still relevant will be added to the Policies & Procedures Manual so the material still will be part of our contest operations but the information will not be weighing down the rule book. Jim has created a draft Refactored Rule Book that took the publication from 260+ pages to approximately 100 pages - a monumental feat!

The refactored rule book in draft form can be found on our IAC website. Any errors or ‘fixes’ will be updated as soon as possible before the 2020 contest season begins.

Sequence Committee Chair Mike Lents submitted the sequences for 2020 contest year which were deemed by his committee to be suitable. Those are published on our IAC website.https://www.iac.org/sequences

The accepted 2020 Rule Change proposals are attached at the bottom of this page.

With the changes to the refactored rule book and the removal of operational information from it, it will be imperative in the coming months to reorganize sections of the Policies & Procedures Manual (P&P) so that information can be transferred to it and made easily accessible by the membership. Peggy Riedinger was assigned the job of updating the P&P and researching to see what other sections need updating.

The schedule for accepting petitions, nominations, and balloting all relies on the date of the IAC Annual Meeting. The Board of Directors set the dates for the Annual Meeting to be Friday, 24 July 2020, and you can expect to see notices posted on our IAC website as well as in upcoming issues of Sport Aerobatics. If you are interested in serving on the Board of Directors, please contact the Nominations Chair, Doug Sowder.

The Team Council has been inactive since its inception in 2015. Originally established to make team management the job of the Team Council and not the Board of Directors, it was necessary for the teams to establish their own fundraising and budgeting while reporting to the Finance Committee. Over the past five years, inactivity of the Team Council indicated that it had not served any purpose and it was time to deactivate it.

Discussion determined that in place of a formal Team Council, a Team Liaison be named and, by agreement of all, Bob Freeman will be the Team Liaison to report between the teams and the Board of Directors.

The Legacy category, which had been provisional, established at the 2019 Spring Board Meeting has concluded its first contest season and, while it was not widely utilized, it was decided that it should continue into the 2020 contest season with an eye toward including it in our U.S. Nationals. Everyone likes the idea of the former competitors returning to both regional contests and Nationals and competing among themselves. However, if this category is scheduled and weather or time available become an issue, it will be the first category and flights eliminated from the published schedule.

IAC West Open Championships was awarded to IAC 77, Corvallis, Oregon.

IAC East Open Championships was awarded to IAC 89, Ocala, Florida.

Please watch the IAC website for information on the Draft Minutes of the 2019 Fall Meeting of the Board of Directors published in the Documents section of IAC.org.

Planning is underway for AirVenture 2020 since it will be the 50th Anniversary of the forming of the IAC. There is room on the planning committee and working group. If you have an interest to be part of it, contact Steve Kurtzahn, Executive Director. execdir[a]iac.org.

I would like to thank all of the board members and others in attendance for a very productive and congenial Fall Board Meeting.

Sincerely,

Robert Armstrong

IAC President