katseyes

Thank you everyone for your comments and PMs, I'm realizing that there are great people in skydiving beyond my home dz! Revillusion, you mentioned Debbie, I have been hearing a lot about her who is she? I know she isn't at LW any more but comments like, 'that would never have happened if Debbie was there', 'Debbie would have taken care of that in an instant', 'Debbie ran amazing events' and 'Debbie always made us feel at home' obviously show that she is missed and makes her sound like Wonderwoman! One of my team mates is going to visit LW in a few weeks and we will make a decision whether to compete there this year or wait until next years at Eloy.

Thanks so much for your help. I've heard Eloy is a great place, one of my team mates is going to visit Lake Wales in a few weeks, if he finds it the same as I did, we are going to skip this year and go to Eloy next year. Are there any of this years competitors out there? As I said I've only jumped at a small DZ and it would be great to 'know' other jumpers going before we get there.

Maybe I'm over reacting (and I'm sorry if I am) but a) I am desperate for information (we need funding) and b) If they don't care about the competition do we really want to give them our money (I've been warned that it's not cheap), I don't expect to be treated in a special way (I'm not special)but if they're not busy (and they weren't) is it too much trouble to give a DZ brief, give competition/local lodging information instead of being told that "we don't like the competition"?

Thank you for that, advice much appreciated and will be followed. Do you know where I can get information on the competition? No one at Lake Wales either knows or (seems) to care about it. (One staff member told me that he hates the competition because us ******* kids get in the way of usual operations). I really want to compete but another concern is that if the staff don't care now are they going to care in December and is it going to be safe if they don't? In the hope that someone can tell me it gets better as the competition gets closer where can I find out about registration dates and prices?

I had heard only good stuff about Lake Wales and the Collegiates but when I visited recently I found total chaos with a staff that think nothing of arguing loudly in public in front of student. Manifest doesn't seem to have a clue (25 on a King Air - please!) And more to the point no one seems to care. I come from a small DZ and was already concerned about jumping at a big DZ now I'm just plain terrified! Can anybody who has competed before let me know if this is the norm or does it get better during the competition? Is it safe? Any advice? Please I was so looking forward to my first Collegiates.

I visited to see what the location for this years Collegiates was like. Manifest wasn't open when it should have been, tandem students left without jumping. There was disorganization, staff arguing (loudly) amongst themselves, planes sitting on the ground with props spinning for 20 mins, manifest tried to overload the King Air and couldn't work out how to fix it. No one knows whats going on and they don't care about the Collegiates. It's a shame because I had heard good things about the Florida Skydiviing Center. My advice, stay away until it's rebuilt.