Miscellaneous

1. Letter and Certificate of Appreciation for services rendered – to be discussed on forum

2. Translations – Dom to look for government, $1000 approved for translations in budget

3. Enroute Article – Michael and Sam to continue to pursue as well as contacting Westjet

4. Café Press – Sam to repatriate all of Café Press info from Gerry and give summary

2. AIR Report

   1. Old Air Mags – to end up in BM’s possession

   2. Corporate Advertising – BM responsible, to be discussed by BOD.

   3. Colour Content – President to look at and get best pricing

   4. AIR on line - .pdf version free on website, optional hard copy for $40/yr AQVL members

3. SurVol Report - Discuss exchange of articles between Survol and AIR – BM responsible

4. Safety Report – Article submitted by Safety Officer, Quinn

5. Badges and Records – nothing to add

6. Competition Report – to be discussed

7. Insurance Report – Report submitted by Gregg Humphreys

   1. Directors outside of policy – need to discuss

   2. Gregg’s replacement – not followed up on by Gregg

8. Transport Canada

9. Validity of Waivers

10. IAC – nothing to add

11. WEB – PRDs need updating. Webmaster to complete.

12. Awards

    1. Archives of past recipients need updating by webmaster

    2. Responsibility of regional director - $150 for award, article in AIR, letter of recognition on letterhead

13. Radio Frequency – discussion of various ham bands vs. air band vs. FRS. Add to agenda for further discussion.

14. First Aid – discussion regarding various levels of first AID and which are most useful. CPR, basic 1^st aid, advanced, Wilderness. Agree to exempt trauma personnel and ER docs. Add to agenda for further discussion.

15. Charitable Status - update in Troy’s report

16. Volunteer Compensation Program – Add to agenda for discussion

17. Minutes – no errors or omissions

Motion: to accept 2007 minutes. Passed Unanimously

Presidents Report

1. Website failure – needs vital attendance

2. AGM sometime in June

3. Review of financial statements – must be ready in June 2008

4. Role of president and directors – to set policy not micro-manage.

5. Objectives for 2008

   1. Administrators (AIR editor, Webmaster, BM) need to be more independent

   2. Redefine Role of directors – to be bridge between provincial associations

   3. Directors need discipline and code of conduct

   4. Board to discuss vision

   5. New website – create virtual community, marketing tool, membership services

   6. Marketing – new logo for HPAC

   7. Environmental Impact Assessment – to be widened to have national relevance and presented by new national site preservation committee

   8. Translations – to be done

   9. Welcome to new board members.

Vice-Presidents Report – covered under president’s report

Business Managers’ Report – Sam Jeyes read former BM’s report, Troy Whitmore

a. Recommend web team and air team – added to agenda

b. Contact info and schedule presented

c. Laptop and external HD recommended

d. Email correspondence – need for junk mail filter

Strategic Planning and 5 year Vision – presented by Michael Fuller

1. HPAC Goal: to promote the sport of hang gliding and paragliding in Canada on a nationwide basis

2. Basic Foundations: instruction; information on hang gliding and paragliding; legal entity; standardization (not policing); policy setting; uniformity; regional diversification; sustainability; insurance; direction; safety; volunteerism.

3. Board Members Ideas:

   1. Communication: every member should know their rep is and what HPAC does

   2. Standardizing instruction nationwide

   3. Simplicity and efficiency

   4. Recognizing regional variances

   5. Volunteer Friendly – succession planning. Place on website to check if you want to volunteer

   6. Increase membership – bringing back old members and limiting attrition

   7. Safety

   8. Information

   9. Sites

   10. Sustainability

   11. Legal entity – but unanswered questions remain

4. Reports

   1. AIR – no report. Discussed items.

      1. Pursue colour for future issues

      2. “Eagle of the month” article

      3. Profiles of new pilots article

      4. “There I was…” article

      5. Default to be online vs. hard-copy

      6. Best article award

      7. Translation and cross-reference with Survol

      8. Advertising revenues

2. Safety committee - Quinn

   1. 15 reports came in – should be 3x that

   2. On-line reports require too much info – needs to be condensed to serious vs. minor

   3. Safety officer needs to be removed from Officers of HPAC

Motion: Removal of Safety Officer from “Officers of HPAC” Amendment to PRD 240-1 Passed Unanimously

4. Need for anonymity in reporting incidents and accidents on website

3. CIVL Report – none

   1. Decide to add $500/year, compoundable, for CIVL delegate to attend meetings

4. Badges

   1. Account closed. All badge related stuff to go to CIVL delegate, Stewart Midwinter

   2. Stewart to write report in AIR about badges and purpose they serve. Who has what, what they mean, how to get them.

5. Competition

   1. Committee needs to come up with recommendations on how to make competitions work within Canada

   2. Promote competitions with $1000/year budget and $250/comp to be used for infrastructure, not prizes etc.

   3. Discuss comp organizers use of goflyxc.com, Mark Dowsett’s website for scoring and registration.

   4. Approved for the first time PG Nats to be held abroad in Chelan, WA. But not to become a regular occurrence.

   5. Doug Keller retires, Mark Dowsett in his place

6. Insurance – see Greg’s Humphrey’s report

   1. New insurer

   2. World wide coverage

   3. Land owners now protected against participant actions as well as 3^rd party actions

   4. Discussion about compensating insurance liaison.

   5. Need info about directors’ liability and Investigate Dishonesty bond to protect assets of HPAC from fraud, embezzlement, failure to pay invoices, etc. – website information available at www.volunteeralberta.ab.ca/insurance/general_info/types_of_insurance.html

7. Transport Canada liaison report

   1. Airspace issues

   2. TC and NavCanada hold meetings all over country – info on website. Push for all pilots to be aware and attend these meetings

   3. Push for non-mode C transponders only to be turned on above 5000ft

   4. Andre Nadeau to find problem areas. Steve and Margit to work with Andre.

8. Disciplinary – no issues at this time

9. AeroClub Liaison

   1. Steve attended meeting in Brampton, Ontario.

   2. ~$150k available to “promote aviation” in Canada – Steve to investigate

   3. HPAC’s yearly dues = $4495/year

   4. 35 licenses granted to PG and HG last year

10. Legal report (Mark Kowalsky)

    1. No formal report submitted

    2. Board reviewed email exchange

    3. Membership Criteria – big loophole exists as anyone can become a member without a rating

       1. Mark Kowalsky’s recommendation – to change “certification” in favour of “rating” and no change to status quo as regulation implies liability

       2. Disclaimer needed – that insurance not tied to rating

11. IAC Report

    1. HAGAR recommended to be removed from intermediate rating for reasons relating to:

       1. Cost and accessibility differences between different regions of the country

       2. Lack of need, as many pilots in different regions don’t ever fly in controlled airspace eg. Nova scotia

       3. HAGAR preventing people from progressing past novice rating.

2. Recommendation to incorporate HAGAR like questions into all levels of the exams for the ratings

Motion: To reinstate HAGAR into the intermediate rating – defeated

3. Instructor Re-certification – recommendations of IAC

   1. Keep re-certification at 3 years – no grace period

   2. Instructors are automatically notified in the spring of the year in which their certification runs out that a re-certification is in order within the next 12 months

   3. An instructor doing a re-certification within the four-month period before expiry to complete an out-of-region re-certification clinic gets to re-qualify as if the re-certification had been done on the last day of the initial validity period

   4. A grace period or extension may be granted by the IAC upon application by an instructor when that instructor has been forced to wait beyond the normal re-certification period due to circumstances beyond his/her control.

   5. That the hpac/acvl policy of assisting long distance instructors to attend re-certification courses be honoured and made more publicly known

Motion: To accept IAC recommendation on instructor re-certification – passed.

4. Annual Reports – Currently not submitted regularly

Motion: For every instructor, either individually or from a school, submission of an annual report is voluntary. Remove mandatory requirement from PRD. Passed unanimously.

12. Miscellaneous instructor issues:

    1. Need to differentiate between T1 and a regular Instructor – need for different level of instructors

    2. Identifying instructor-student relationship. Ie. Who signed who off

    3. Put info on website about which instructors have submitted annual reports

    4. Need for student feedback on instructors

13. Web Team Report – Quinn

    1. Brief History provided of history of web site and its development.

    2. Current state: 250 English pages and matching French pages – could have over 400 pages. Pages are dynamic pages – e.g. renewing online, adding events, updating your info, adding a club/association. Lots of outdated stuff needs to be updated.

    3. Functionality: Languages – PHP, ASP, Javascript – used to create pages. Site layout using – CSS, HTML incorporated. Database – how it works? Why is it so important? Why can’t the site be changed easily? Database logs info.

    4. Member vs. Public access – should we have this? Should this site be aesthetically different than the main site? Advantages – public access to the website will be clean; easy to locate information for prospective pilots; eye catching; no information overload. Disadvantages – some planning and development to create this; slow transition to get to this.

    5. Content – currently have information overload. Need to streamline info. Add vision ideas to the website. Anonymous online polls. Regional forum links. Interactive – let users post – pictures, videos, stories, notices. Maintain contact with members through renewal forms, logging in, etc. Provide accurate, up to date information. Use of Google earth for flying sites. OLC link. XC contest links.

    6. Dynamic pages. Allows us to get information from our users easily e.g. safety incident/accident reporting.

    7. Restructuring the menu – rename menu items; make it easier to find info on the site. Revamp look. Brand new design layout or try to improve on the old one?

Regional Directors Reports

1. Maritimes – Michael Fuller

   1. Generally no major issues except

   2. Part time HG school needed

   3. AIR recommended to be kept

   4. Stable membership, though turnout a problem

2. BC – Amir Izadi

   1. 3 registered local clubs (WCSC, Island Soaring, OSA) and one provincial BCHPA all active and healthy

   2. Tenures on crown land – mckenzie in pemberton, bridal falls, woodside, cawston, Timber West issue on Vancouver Island

   3. HPAC concerns – relevancy, efficiency, expenses, voting structure, website, AIR, site preservation, succession planning

3. Quebec – Dom

   1. Stable membership but issue of ghetto-ization – mostly around Montreal

   2. 3 year round schools with commercial presence, 2 HG (one fully, one does both PG and HG), one PG only.

   3. Relationship between pilots and HPAC is good

   4. Survol – new editor, enthusiastic and energetic

   5. Trade show in Montreal well attended

4. Ontario – Steve

   1. Communication issues between HPAC and members many of who feel HPAC’s only function is to provide insurance.

   2. Recommend link on our website to regional sites and a web forum for communication of regional issues.

   3. CDN Airspace changes – meetings need to be attended by regional rep

   4. Propose HPAC accept equal or greater TC instructor ratings for Tugs as equivalent to of a re-certification when accompanied by proof of currency in a specific discipline.

New Business

1. Awards

   1. Lifetime Jamie Christensen Award – Gregg Humphreys

   2. Annual outstanding contribution – Clff Kakish Award – Rob Samplonius

   3. Solid Ground – non-pilot – To do list on the Forum

   4. Performance Awards – none

2. National Site Preservation and Committee – Margit Nance

   1. Terms of reference

   2. Expansion of EIA to make it national

   3. Translation to French

   4. Landowner Package

3. T2 and Senior – started discussion on forum and should continue there

   1. Needs to be community driven, not self-driven. Similar to Master’s Ratings.

   2. Review actual relevance and necessity.

   3. Currently Seniors/T2 are not subject to reviews or oversight.

   4. Recommend feedback from instructors during re-certification course

   5. Should be a BOD mandate, not an IAC mandate

   6. No limit to number of Seniors in any PRD.

   7. Need to be good instructors and representatives of the sport

   8. Conflict of interest and political and economic rivalries need to be addressed.

4. Radio Frequencies – deferred until later

5. Volunteer Compensation Program – idea of free membership, Sam to look into other non-profit and see what they do and recommend

6. Senior Ratings – Jayson Biggins (PG) and Steven Milchak (HG). Approved unanimously

7. Appointment of auditors – Same auditor. Coordinate business and treasurer to get information in timely manner for AGM. Financials to auditor May 1^st

Board Confidentiality and Solidarity

1. Role duties of directors : vision, communication, promotion of HPAC and speaking as unified voice

2. Conflict between bylaws and prd – 200-1.9 Bylaw states that only membership can remove a director with 75% of quorum

Motion: Should a Director fail to participate in the on-going deliberations of the BOD for a period of three months he/she may be asked to resign. BOD can ask the general membership to remove a director – passed unanimously

Motion: To publish an Executive Summary of the ADM on the website. Quinn seconded. Passed unanimously. Add to PRD 210-1

Regional Representation

1. Discussion on need to balance regional vs. membership representation – to be taken up on directors forum

Election of BOD – unchanged

Motion: HPAC to support removal of PST in BC – passed unanimously

Motion: To accept budget – passed unanimously

New Timelines for next year

1. AGM has to be within 90 days of the ADM

2. Any special motion for membership vote have to go out with a notification of the AGM. AIR deadline is 15^th May 2008.