A Productive 2024 Summer Board of Directors Meeting

The final meeting of the 2022-24 term of the USPA Board of Directors is a wrap! Your board members spent the past several days working diligently to discuss policies that would best serve USPA members. Here are some highlights from this weekend, broken down by committee:

Safety and Training

• Reviewed and approved a reworked Skydiver’s Information Manual to be available in 2025, with focus on changing certain sections of SIM into a more readable, consolidated and educational format. 
• Added language to the SIM to clarify that no more than four jumpers should participate in a student skydiver’s jump, with students not forming the majority of the group.
• Moved currency standards for tandem instructors to the Basic Safety Requirements.
• Changed language of tandem video flyer qualifications in the SIM to state “300 belly formation skydivers or 300 jumps and a coach rating.”

Membership Services

• Awarded the USPA Lifetime Achievement Award to Arizona Airspeed and the USPA Gold Medal for Meritorious Service to Thomas Falzone, D-11477, Joe Jennings, D-13033 and Craig O’Brien, D-19294.
• Awarded the USPA Regional Achievement Award to Christopher Rea, D-16187 (Central), Matthew Yount, D-27920 (Central), Danny Smith, D-3506 (Mid-Atlantic) and Edward Ganley, D-9205 (Mideastern).
• Worked with USPA’s Information & Technology department on the process for members to auto-renew annual memberships, instructional and PRO ratings and donations, to be available by 2025.

Competition

• Added “Second Category” events to National Judge renewal options to aid judges in keeping their ratings active.
• Amended the Skydiver’s Competition Manual to require regular (non-temporary) USPA membership in order to set individual state and national records, or to establish the majority requirement for team records.
• Approved changes to the mixed formation skydiving dive pool to reflect requests from the competition community, as well as adding language to competition documents to support the MFS intermediate-class test event.
• Discussed a discipline-specific performance award for Speed Skydiving as well as similar awards for other disciplines. This topic was tabled for a future board meeting.

Governance

• Discussed a proposal to introduce a USPA Regional Director equivalent for international members, and planned to form a working group to explore this possibility.
• Revamped the 1-6 Compliance Action Section of the USPA Governance Manual to simplify and provide greater clarity.

Full details of the Summer 2024 board meeting will be made available at uspa.org/bod in the coming month.