posted Mar 6th, 2006 - The NSL News mentioned during the SSL Valentine's Meet 2006 coverage that USPA also held its annual winter meeting of the Board of Directors in Phoenix, Arizona, on the same weekend. Marylou Laughlin, Chair of the Competition Committee, had invited NSL President Kurt Gaebel to visit and discuss some of the topics with members of the committee.

Kurt Gaebel used this opportunity to combine the NSL News coverage of the Valentine's Meet with the USPA meeting in Phoenix. USPA and NSL had mainly two topics on the common 2006 agenda: judging and NSL News coverage of the USPA Nationals 2006 at Skydive Arizona.

The NSL News spent the whole Friday in Phoenix to follow the first day of the USPA winter meeting before finally moving on to Skydive Arizona in Eloy. Larry Hill, owner of Skydive Arizona, is one of USPA's National Directors and a member of the USPA Competition Committee at the same time, and he will be the host for this year's USPA Nationals.

NSL News, USPA and Skydive Arizona are committed to work together and provide the NSL News audience and the general public with great coverage of the USPA Nationals 2006. The coverage will be well prepared, and the three parties have already begun working on the agreement for the on-line presentation.

The second topic was the progression of 4-way event judging in the USA. USPA is motivated to offer the USPA judges better and more frequent meet practice. The NSL network offers 4-way competition on a regular basis at many different locations in the country, and Marylou Laughlin would like to see USPA judges more involved and included in these events.

Several NSL leagues already use USPA judges for the regional meets. However, NSL and USPA plan to use the already existing network more efficiently and more frequently. This cooperation would only be beneficial for everybody since the USPA judges need regular practice while the NSL events and the teams need well trained judges.

The first project is already in the works. The Florida Skydiving League management is still looking for event judges at the upcoming FSL Shamrock Showdown 2006, a high-profile 4-way competition at Skydive DeLand. The NSL has contacted several USPA judges and asked for their participation in this event. Additional efforts will be made to work closer together.

The USPA winter meeting in Phoenix was opened with the plenary session after the executive committee had prepared the meeting earlier in the morning. The decreasing number of USPA members was the most important topic during the plenary session. Executive Director Chris Needels made sure in his report that the membership concerns will be taken serious enough.

During his presentation of the membership progression he suggested a heavy campaign of "Sports Promotion" to reverse the tendency of decreasing USPA membership. The magic words of "Sports Promotion" and "Membership Recruiting" remained the main theme of the whole meeting.

The USPA Competition Committee went through the other topics on the agenda of the winter meeting without facing any major obstacles. The FAI/IPC rule for international eligibility was adopted, which confirmed Thomas Hughes as an eligible member of the US delegation for the World Meet 2006 in Germany.

USPA accepted the decision of Perris Synchronicity to step down as the national team in the 4-way Women's event, and team Select was officially approved as the substitute team for the World Meet 2006.

Eric Deren presented a complete set of rules for a new event to the USPA Competition Committee. Melissa Nelson of Skydive Chicago and Eric Deren have already been working on the introduction of 4-way VRW (Vertical Relative Work) for a while, and the NSL management has recently been considering to include this new event in the NSL network for the 2006 season. The NSL News will follow up very soon with a separate story and additional information.

The USPA meeting on Friday concluded with an open session for all USPA members, including the whole Board of Directors. The complete Airspeed line-up made the trip from Eloy to Phoenix on the night before the first day of the Valentine's Meet. The competition draw was already posted by then, and the Airspeed 4-way teams used any spare time for dirtdives.

NSL News and Airspeed members directed their full attention toward the competition next day, while USPA Director and Skydive Arizona owner Larry Hill continued with USPA work throughout the whole weekend.