posted Apr 8th, 2006 - The NSL News story on January 19 announced plans of last year's USPA Advanced Class champion, Mass Defiance, to re-activate the New England Skydiving League. Mass Defiance and NESL Director Beth Murray followed up on these plans, and the schedule for the four meets of the regular season has been posted for a while.

Beth Murray and the Mass Defiance members recently provided the NESL 2006 hosts and their management with additional information of the league plans and encouraged the participating skydiving centers to spread the word locally and in the New England region:

"The info you can pass on to people now is that the league is definitely happening. You can let people know that Mass Defiance will be breaking up to jump with people that need teammates or fill in video slots as necessary and there will be prizes from Relative Workshop, Performance Designs, and other manufactures."

The New England Skydiving League prepares its own website, which will probably be launched this month. NESL updates will still be posted at the NSL website at the moment, and the NSL audience will be directed to the league's website as soon as it will be available.

Later on, the NESL will provide scores, league stories and information to be posted at the NSL website, while the NESL website will offer specific information for the NESL region and its participants. Beth Murray and Mass Defiance explained the reasons to check in at the NSL website:

"It's the best source for info about the different classes, dive pools, the handicap system that we'll use, and also has tons of great new stories, on-line videos, recent scores, and biographies on world class formation skydivers. Once we know of the active teams at each of our league's dropzones, we'll get their photos and names up there, too." The NSL webmaster can't wait to receive and post the first NESL stories. The first meet is scheduled for May 20 at Jumptown.

In the meantime, the NESL management will continue to prepare for the start of the league season in New England. Beth Murray and Mass Defiance plan to have an "approachable and motivated relative worker" at each NESL skydiving center, who would be a "good point person for the league". They ask interested people to get in touch with the NESL management.

The NESL wants to keep the end costs for the participants down to a minimum, which will not allow a stipend for these efforts. However, Beth Murray and Mass Defiance hope that there will be someone at each location "who would want to fill in this crucial role out of the goodness of his/her heart." The NESL cannot promise anything to the potential point person, but "there might be some material things for these people to thank them for their efforts as well..."

The experienced Mass Defiance members will be serving as judges as needed and USPA's Chair of the Competition Committee, Marylou Laughlin, will be involved as a judge as her schedule permits. The NESL management is still looking for additional people who might be interested in getting certified as a regional judge.

Marylou Laughlin promised the NESL management that "USPA is going to make the process of getting the rating fairly simple", and it might be good to have judges in the area for the NESL meets who can also certify record attempts at other local events.

The NSL supports any interest and efforts to become a regional and then national judge, as well. In fact, a meeting between NSL management and USPA Competition Committee members in February in Phoenix included the plan of encouraging new potential judges to learn and practice at the regional NSL events on a regular basis. Each regional NSL Director will be glad to support efforts of interested candidates.

Finally, Beth Murray and the Mass Defiance members invited all skydivers in the New England area to become actively involved in building the league: "We welcome any constructive criticism or ideas you might have for us as we learn how to make the league thrive, so please don't hesitate to contact us with your thoughts."