Focus on... IKA committees

A lot of guessing is around about the IKA structure and its sub-committees. This article gives you a brief overview about who is who and who is doing what. However, the final nominations for the sub-committees are up to the IKA conference end of January.

The IKA has started back in 2006 as an initiative of riders and organizers involved in the kitespeed-worldcup, but not limited to them. This is still the core part of todays IKA, the part that worked with ISAF since a long time and that achieved official recognition in November 2008.

The main committee thus consists of two race officers, Christian Conrad and Markus Schwendtner, and three riders that are involved in one or more disciplines: Sjoukje Bredenkamp, Katja Roose and Dave Williams. You might ask, where is Aaron, and Kevin, and Jesse, and Gisela, and... but we can tell you from years of experience, that the "normal" rider has a much more unbiased view on topics than a top rider with an own agenda. The main IKA committee is elected by its members, which are the riders due to ISAF constitution. Details about that will be covered in one of the next "Focus on...".

Of course these five people can not decide about where our sport shall go. That is why the IKA is just in the progress of implementing working parties, called sub-committees, for each specific topic, which are:

Audit Sub-Committee: A group of experienced and well known personalities connected to kiteboarding, to adjust the direction of development and to benefit from their experience. The chairman of the Audit Sub-Committee has a seat on the main committee.

Associated Members Sub-Committee: Contains all associated national kite associations. Main objective is to get the input and knowledge as well as the requirements of the development of the sport on national level. The scope of work also includes training, certification and beach access, only to name a few. The chairman of the national kite associations has a seat on the main committee.

Manufacturers Sub-Committee: This committee consist of all corporate members, to get direct contact to the top riders through their main sponsors as well as the industries ideas of where the sport should head to. Matters of equipment development, safety issues and olympics are discussed here as well.

Rules Sub-Committee: This committee includes experienced race officers from all around the world to develop the Racing Rules of Sailing and to adopt them to kiteboarding needs.

Judging Sub-Committee: Ideally consisting of the head judges from the tour operators and national head judges, to develop a guideline for judging to make expression competitons under comparable conditions possible.

Other sub-committees may be set up, if required.

We are happy to receive nominations for the "open" sub-committes (audit, rules and judging) to discuss them on the upcoming IKA conference in end of January.