All jumpers, male and female, are invited to SKYSISTERS UNITED Female Skydiving Convention. WHEN: Saturday the 16th of April through to Sunday Night the 24th of April, 2005 WHERE: Ramblers Drop Zone, Toogoolawah, Queensland, Australia Check it out at www.ramblers.com.au Following is the latest info update FYI. Merry Xmas & Happy New Year Ladies & Gents, This update has been a little later coming than I would have liked, there has been a lot of EXCITING things to confirm. Where to start? Firstly, I apologise for the length of this update! An INFO POSTER will be uploaded on the Ramblers web site on Friday, which will have all the main points noted. It is a hard job to describe what the SkySisters event will entail on just an A4 sheet of paper, so please read between the lines as there will be so much more than just what is listed! Plus new things are being confirmed each week and I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag about a few things that are on the drawing board in case they don’t happen. There’s already a newsflash that is not on the info poster. JC Conclasure of the Icarus factory team TEAM EXTREME will be attending Sky Sisters on the last weekend. He will be offering coached canopy jumps, not sure of those costs just yet, perhaps some load organising with canopy gaggles and he will host a seminar on Saturday night the 23rd on, quote . . . general flight including aerodynamics, design, weather and it’s effects to canopy flight & last but definitely not least, the psychological approach to downsizing and flying in general. Ramblers is now open for Skysisters registrations. Please REGISTER for the event as early as you can, by the 31st of March at the latest. It will be really helpful in a lot of ways to have an idea of the number of you attending. I’m hoping on 150, but I could be dreaming! I’d also really like to know your experience level, what sort of jumps you want to make during the week and any aims you have. There is no section for that info on the Rego form attached, so please mark it on the bottom of the rego form or by separate page or email. The Rego price of $30 a day (Aussie Dollars) or $250 for the 9 day week is terrific value considering SkySisters is a unique event, on a grand scale with high quality everything. There are a few out of the ordinary costs associated, three Judges for the records is an example, convention book another. The cheapest option for those attending the whole event is the package deal, especially as it gives a few extras. I have indulged on international load organisers and coaches. I invited my dream team, and they all said yes! I simply couldn’t turn down the enormous opportunities of having the likes of KATE COOPER, AMY CHMELECKI, MISSY NELSON, STEFANIA MARTINEGO AND GIGLIOLA BORGNIS coming to play with us for no pay. Only the best for us! Your rego $ go towards their international airfares, food & accomm, slots and pack jobs. Plus DJ RICHIE & HERMAN DA GERMAN are being flown over for our musical indulgence. GUYS have been asking if they can come to the boogie, participate, and if so, do they have to pay registration. YES, guys are more than welcome to come play and enjoy everything the event has to offer, except the womens records of course, and probably the free 1on1 coaching from the freeflying gals. Certainly the guys will have as much to learn from the female oriented seminars as the girls, if not more. And a lot of what the seminars are about is awareness, education and communication, and the more of each the better. Sorry guys, no rego discounts, same price as the girls, couldn’t be seen to be discriminating now could we? Talking of male skydiving support, freefly coaches ADAM LONG of EARTH LEAKAGE and CRIKEY of TEAM OFF TRACK, plus RW coach MOSSY will be attending and offering free 1on1 coaching of the freefall kind. Ladies just have to pay for their slots. They want to be taken advantage of, so do it! There’s bound to be more than just three male coaches, so watch this space. Further to registration and a way of raising sponsorship $ for those ladies wanting to be on the records, a letter is attached to take to your employer. It is asking for their support of you participating in the record attempts by way of time off work and also financial support to benefit you personally and also for all of the ladies to benefit ie. $500 in total, which if donated will be $250 to cover your rego and $250 to go towards the international airfares. This letter has been adapted from the Brit Chicks letter, thanks to Lesley Gale, organiser of the 60way women’s record. RECORDS. The two official Australian womens records that we are going for is a 10way freefly headdown formation and a 50way RW formation. There is no official headdown record, I’m tipping the biggest female headown jump would be a 3way. So this record will be a huge achievement, especially as it is quite difficult in the first place and the number of Aussie female freeflyers with the ability to be on this record is around half a dozen. This is where it is opportune to take those guys up on that free coaching offer. Also, Missy and Amy will be tag teaming the days with free 1on1 coaching to help the girls looking to be on that record. The current Aussie womens RW record is a 38way formation, set over a decade ago, organised by Fiona McEachern. JULIE NICHOL & FIONA will be coorganising our upcoming 50way record attempts. This is no easy task! They ask for your support by informing them via email or phone of your attendance, previous experience and preferred slot. A form is attached, please forward it to them at your earliest convenience. If there is a lot more than 50 capable ladies, we might try for a 61way. Why 61? Apparently to beat the Brit Chicks! Now there are logistics involved here, namely to do with lift capacity. If we go for a 61way we need another aircraft to add to the three Caravans, which hopefully would be the Sydney Skydivers Skyvan or Beaver. The ferry from Sydney to Toogoolawah is quite a large expense, which would have to be covered by the rego $ of only 150 people. So, if there are 60 or more capable girls AND if there are 150 or more people registered early, then an extra plane for the event is highly probable. Don’t know about you but I am super keen for the Skyvan, so please register early! Also, the 50way or 61way formation will be put on the Ramblers website in about a month, hopefully with names put on the slots. If you are not an Australian national and want to be on the record, don’t worry, apparently we can have up to 25% foreigners on the record. The headdown and RW record attempts are scheduled for Thursday the 23rd and Friday the 24th, and Saturday if we need it. Ideally, we would get the records completed by Friday arvo so that we can party or rest on Friday night and the weekend can be spent on all the good fun jumping stuff including big way hybrids, big way tracks and atmonauti jumps, international friendship dives, more big ways, and with the boys and weekend warriors included. If you are planning on just coming for the record attempts please be certain to come at least one jumping day prior to get acclimatised. Please note that the record attempts and the event in general is not invite only. ALL female skydivers from Australia and around the globe are invited, welcome and will be catered for. The 30way wing suit flock doesn’t rate as an official record as it doesn’t yet have an IPC category. A 30way sounds like a big ask, especially as there are many ladies who haven’t yet made a wing suit jump. Nothing like a good challenge right? It is supported by the owner of Birdman International, Mr JARI KUOSMA. He has taken onboard the advice to make girly suits with strategically placed curves. He has spent the last couple of months developing the Lady Bird suit and will be bringing enough with him to make the 30way a reality, a 30th birthday present to himself! He will be offering coaching and load organising during Skysisters and is talking about running Instructor courses while in Australia. More about the JUMPING. The plan is for a load organiser and video and stills cameraflyer to be on every load, this comes as part of your rego cost. Load organisers and cameraflyers will be catering to ladies of all experience levels, so don’t be shy, get into it. I say all experience levels, but, running AFF courses during this event is not ideal, so if there are girls out there who want to do their AFF and be part of Skysisters they are encouraged to do their course in the weeks leading up to Sky Sisters. WARM UP CAMPS are happening. Cheryl Robertson from WA has two planned for the new year. Also, Ramblers March Learning Curve Camp is a month before Skysisters and will be geared towards Skysisters preparation. Also, the week prior to Skysisters at Ramblers will be treated like a warmup camp with organised dives, coaching and daily landings debriefs. The VIDEO production team includes the freefall camerapool, who will all be wearing digital stills cameras as well as digital video cameras, plus a team on the ground. Their footage combined with your footage will be edited each day, put to music and be aired on the huge screen each night. A stills slide show will also compliment that. The same team will be producing the event video available for you to purchase on DVD. There will be two choices, the DVD with the event video only or with the stills slide show as well. The SEMINARS are scheduled for 2 nights of the event, most probably the Monday and Tuesday. Note that topics could change. At this stage, the confirmed speakers are Leanne Critchley for Pregnancy & Skydiving, Lou King for PMT & effects, Deborah Sanderson for Brain Locking, Annica Cronnert for Forming Successful Female Teams, Donna Turner & Angela Hiesler for Female Tandem Mastering and of course JC for Canopy Flight on the last Saturday night. The plan is for these seminars to be about 20 to 30 minutes in length, short and to the point, after which the floor will open up for questions and be a platform for all to contribute. All registered jumpers will receive a convention pack including a bound information book containing a summary sheet from each seminar plus the speakers research articles, survey results etc. PARTY NIGHTS are planned for the first and second Saturday nights. The Wednesday night before the record attempts is probably a good night to have off, ie. no seminars or late entertainment. The last Sunday night, the 24th, is the SkySisters Ball and quite a Gala bash is organised. It is formal dress, with a 3 course dinner, presentations, records and highlights on the huge screen, a Jazz band and a few surprises. DJ Richie will run an after party for the stayers. Everyone is invited. Note that Monday the 25th is Anzac Day, a well timed public holiday, and will be a day of no jumping. Financial support, raffle prizes and donations of goodies for rego bags. Apart from the Employer Support letter, I have been working on a few big and small non skydiving sponsors and a couple of government grants. At this stage, Flight Centre is helping, see below, Al’s Caravans is sponsoring a slot per load for the organisers and the APF have confirmed $1000 to help with travel. Nothing major is confirmed, but things are looking fairly promising. I am yet to work hard on skydiving sponsors, so guys, you know who you are, I’d love for you to come forward!! Airtec, the makers of Cypres, have given a few tshirts and towels plus Richie from Total Control has vowed to donate a bunch of cool stuff. Seeking big and small sponsorships is a pretty hard task and I ask for your help, especially as time seems to be flying by and it is all a little overwhelming! Feel free to help out in any way you can by giving that letter to your employer, organising raffles at your local dz or town and asking your local parachute council for $ towards the coaches travel expenses. If you have contacts please give them a call. With your help perhaps our rego bags can be filled like Santa’s Xmas stockings with little things like ear plugs, beroccas, panadol, tampons, tshirts, drinks etc. all the things female skydivers need! If you haven’t yet organised flight arrangements, I have been told by Cheryl to mention that frequent flyer slots are getting harder to secure and to get onto booking flights asap. Amy Busteed, a jumper from Toogoolawah is a champion travel agent with Flight Centre. Her company is sponsoring Skysisters by donating two percent of SS flight bookings towards the international flights of the coaches. So, please book through Amy! Phone her on 07 5420 6211 or Email
[email protected]. Also, please note that airport transfers are available through Ramblers, daily at 8am and 7pm only. Any questions, ideas, contacts, whatever, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Susie McEvoy Event Organiser Editor / Publisher ASM - Australian SKYDIVER Magazine PO Box 178, Moffat Beach QLD 4551 Ph/Fax: +61 7 5492 8202
