Attendees
Kirk Krack, Mandy Cruickshank, Tom Lightfoot, Ken McCallum. Perry Gladstone joined the meeting via phone.
Call to Order
This meeting was held at the Rowand’s Reef dive store in Vancouver. The meeting was called to order at 7:20 pm.
Meeting Minutes
The minutes of the previous meeting were approved unanimously by the board.
Action Items
Kirk:
- Deeperblue links – Kirk sent an email to Stephan Whelan who is the Deeperblue website editor. Stephan indicated that the most cost effective means of generating awareness for CAFA was through sending press releases, rather than through paid advertising with banner ads.
- Competition software – Kirk has followed up with John Nunes about developing software that organizes competitions. It does not look like this will happen quickly, due to the large amount of work involved.
Tom:
- Tom to get in touch with Jane Mitchell about translating the web site into French.
- Tom has completed the development of the survey form and database. He will have a friend of his who has an MBA to look it over before sending it out.
Mandy:
- Mandy has emailed the latest course schedule for Tom to post on the website
- George has finally finished the 2001/2002 financials and sent them to Mandy. Mandy has emailed the info to the board for approval.
- Lung Association fundraiser – No progress has been made over the past month. Mandy will re-send the proposal to the board.
Perry:
- Perry and Jason have updated the sponsorship package and will send the latest version to the board.
- Perry has followed up with IMG Canada. They are too busy to deal with CAFA right now.
- Perry and his brother, Chris have been in contact with Global’s Extreme Sports Channel about doing a TV show on freediving. Perry and Chris would produce the show and Global would air it and provide some advertising spots to pay for the show.
Ken:
- Competition manual – Ken has spent some time working on the manual but has not completed it yet.
Nationals
Kirk has been in touch with early record diver Bob Croft about coming up to give a talk at Nationals. This would be a good opportunity to raise awareness for competitive freediving and possibly raise funds via ticket revenue.
Mandy has looked into the costs for bringing him up to Vancouver. For flights, hotel, meals an an honorarium it would cost around $1000. The event would need at least 32 people to break even.
Mandy and Kirk will continue to look at the cost and budget for the Bob Croft talk and nationals. A decision will have to be made on whether or not to bring Bob Croft in by early May.
CAFA in Quebec
The regulation in diving in Quebec is unique in Canada in that it is regulated by the government instead of by the industry. As a result, all diving organizations including CAFA are subject to regulation by the FQAS. Perry has been researching the background of the FQAS with the help of Jade Lutenegger who has been doing translation.
In addition, Mandy’s new position at PADI has given her access to people who may be able to provide a better understandin into the regulation situation in Quebec. Mandy will talk to Randy Giles, the National Director for PADI Canada. Mandy also said that CAFA should try to become recognized by the Recreational SCUBA Training Council (RSTC), which was part of the original talks in Quebec about government regulation.
Meeting Venue
With Mandy having just quit Rowand’s Reef and with Watersports Exchange having just shut down, a new meeting venue with a good speaker phone will have to be found. Mandy will look into conference calling options and pricing for quality speaker phones.
Regional Championships
The Western Regional Championships in Calgary were cancelled due to expensive pool time and low numbers of expected competitors.
There will be a problem with hosting the Western Regionals in Vancouver on the weekend of April 19-20 as most of the deep safety divers will be out of town. It will be necessary to reschedule to a different weekend.
The Toronto club will discuss hosting an Eastern Regional Championships.
World Competitions
Kirk has offered Vancouver to host the 2004 Indoor World Championships. A hosting plan will be required by August of 2003.
Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned at 8:30 pm.