SAFA Skysailor Magazine

2 SKY SAILOR March | April 2020 The New Safety and Training Committee Members will be aware that SAFA has been progressively increasing focus on safety in our sport and rightly so. Continuous safety enhancement occupies a prominent position in our strategic plan and we are further reviewing our planned initiatives to ensure they remain relevant and current. During the last couple of years, we have invest- ed in a Safety Management Officer (SMO) in Iain Clarke, implemented the AIRS Manager support process to assist Clubs, State Associations and SAFA to improve the management of accident/ incident reporting across the sport, developed a Safety Management System (SMS) which is currently being further refined with assistance from CASA, published a number of safety related SkySailor/Airwaves articles, negotiated a signifi- cant increase in CASA funding to support safety initiatives for our sport, and we have been active in preparing our organisation for the implementa- tion of CASR Part 149 which is a wide-ranging upgrade of regulatory requirements for aviation administration organisations involved in sport and recreational aviation activities. Part of this preparation for CASR Part 149 involved a review of our Safety and Operations Committee (SOC) and the Training Committee. The review established that whilst the instructor- resourced SOC had been operational, the former Training Committee had not been. The review was conducted by SAFA Ops staff, Iain Clarke and Peter Allen, and their recommendation, presented following the 2019 AGM, proposed dissolving both the SOC and the Training Committee and replacing them with a single new Safety and Training Committee (STC). They further recom- mended that rather than having the STC resourced only with instructors, we should seek to broaden its make-up with individuals sourced from a wider cross-section of appropriately qualified members and staff. The Board subsequently approved the new arrangements and implementa- tion commenced. The new STC is now operational and is composed of instructors, safety officers and SAFA staff (see below), representing each of our aviation disciplines. The STC is premised on being highly consultative in nature, as such matters brought before it would be communicated to the training and safety cohorts of the discipline involved for opinion and information, which would then be dis- cussed before presenting advice to the Operations Manager/COO. In this way, we hope to achieve a more diverse input into our organisational decision- making without compromising safety standards. The STC will also be charged with drafting the framework of training materials and specifying changes as needs dictate. This will begin with a complete review of all current SAFA training material. The STC met for the first time on 28 January 2020 and a subsequent meeting is scheduled for 25 February. The committee is composed of Iain Clarke and Peter Allen from the Operations Team, Rohan Holtkamp and Curt Warren from hang gliding; Greg Hurst and Gareth Carter from paragliding, Andrew Polidano and Sean Seery from powered paragliding and Peter McLean and Jack Cross from weightshift microlighting. On behalf of all members, I’d like to thank and congratulate each of these individuals for putting their hand up to participate in this very important function for our sport. Finally, on behalf of all members, I’d like to extend a huge ‘thank you’ to the members of the former SOC for their great contribution and sage advice over many years. by Paul Green President’s Update Microlight by Kev MacNally; Hang glider by John Harris; Paraglider by Jiri Hlavaty; Paramotor by Bila Bakonyi, Fine-Line Photography