Attendance
Kirk Krack, Mandy Cruickshank, Tom Lightfoot
Call to Order
This meeting was held at Rowand’s Reef dive store in Vancouver. The meeting was called to order at 2:13 pm.
Meeting Minutes
Kirk reviewed the minutes from the September executive meeting.
Executive Positions
Eric Fattah’s resignation in September left CAFA without a Vice President. One other executive position remains vacant. A review of the bylaws revealed that it is posible for the remaining executive to appoint a replacement in the event of a resignation. (Bylaw 4.5)
Kirk will approach Ken McCallum, Peter Scott and Marie Girard to see if any of them are interested in serving on the executive. If there are still any vacancies left then an appeal will be made to the general membership via the freedivecanada email list.
Eric’s Jobs
Mandy will take over the translation of the AIDA competition rules to CAFA.
Bylaws/Insurance
In order to qualify for AllSport insurance, some changes need to be made to CAFA’s bylaws:
- The bylaws have to show who will be enroled in any insurance program.
- The bylaws have to show which procedures and safety protocols will be followed.
Kirk proposed a resolution that the bylaws be ammended to say that all members will be enroled in any insurance program that CAFA subscribes to. This was passed unanimously.
Kirk also proposed that the bylaws indicate that CAFA abides by the following documents:
- CAFA Rules and Regulations for Individual Competitions
- CAFA Rules and Regulations for Team Competitions
- CAFA Rules and Regulations for National Records
- CAFA Safety Protocols
So far only the safety protocols document is written. The other three will be translations of existing AIDA documents with any AIDA/World specific terminology translated into CAFA/National language.
Tom will be in charge of drafting the specific bylaw changes prior to the next executive meeting.
CAFA – Hosted World Cup
Since Hawaii is planning on hosting a World Cup event in 2002, the executive decided to postpone its plans for a Canadian World Cup event until a later year. CAFA will wait until it can find a good sponsor for the event before proposing a specific date.
Team Canada Composition
The executive discussed some changes to the team selection process. Given the need to keep both primary competitors and alternates motivated in the four months leading up to a world competition, the final three competitors will not be chosen until shortly before inscription time at the world event. At the National Championships four men and four women will be selected for Team Canada. After selection, it is up to the four team members to train hard in the upcoming months to ensure that they improve enough to be selected as one of the three competitors. It is up to the coach to select the final three, in consultation with the four team members.
It is up to the non-competing team member to act as an assistant or coach during the competition.
There was some discussion of team size. World events have historically only provided. accomodation for three competitors per gender and possibly one coach. In order to keep expenses down, two possible configurations were discussed.
Alternate is Coach This would make for a total team size of 8 members. The coach would be the one of the non-competing team members. While making for a small team contingent, it would be largely incompatible with the new competitor selection process. One Coach This would make for a team size of 9 members. The coach is not a candidate for being one of the competitors. This differs from the previous two teams in that there is no assistant coach. The non-competing team members will assist.
It was decided that the one-coach model would be more practical.
Education
Kirk presented an outline of an education plan that Dieter Bauman drew up for AIDA. The outline indicated courses for four levels plus specialties for competition, variable ballast, no-limits and rescue. Kirk’s initial concern that there were too many levels and that any CAFA education could probably start with basic, safety & rescue, and advanced.
Tom asked if CAFA whether CAFA should offer an education program or leave it up to commercial organizations such as PADI. Kirk argued that insurance was key. If CAFA could get an education program covered under its insurance policy then that would be a huge advantage that other freediving organizations do not have. On the other hand, large scuba teaching organizations such as PADI already have insurance programs and are familiar with liability issues in education. If they could offer a proper freediving education program then that would also be good.
Mandy suggested that as a PADI Course Director, she could create a fully PADI compatible freediving education program. Even if PADI didn’t adopt it, it would address many liability concerns.
Kirk suggested that the executive form an education committee and give some thought to the education issue in the next month.
Team Funds
Mandy said that there was some sponsorship money left over from the 2001 World Championships. It was decided that this money should go first towards film purchase and development, creation of photo CD’s and shipping of the CD’s to sponsors.