President’s Report
In the past year we have seen some highs and lows for CAFA.
Performance wise we have continued to see Canadian athletes excel in their Freediving performances in competitions abroad. Will Winram set National records in Constant Ballast (84m), Constant No-Fins (76m), Dynamic (203m) and Dynamic No-fins (150m). Jill Yoneda set the Women’s Dynamic with fins National record of 133m and Mandy-Rae Cruickshank set a new Women’s World Record in Constant Ballast with a dive to 88m.
In December 2007 CAFA had a team of men and women that competed at the AIDA World Championship in Hurghada Egypt. Our Canadian men made an 8th place finish in stiff competition while our women’s team once again made the podium with a 3rd place finish. We also had three people attend the AIDA Indoor World Championships July 4-7.
Within Canada, CAFA sanctioned a total of four Regional competitions and one National competition. Turn out for them continued to be low with a total of only 25 competitors in these last 5 competitions. Thank fully we did end on a high note with this last competition having a total of 9 competitors. One trend we continue to see is that of freedivers from the USA attending our competitions.
In 2007 CAFA membership voted to accept the AIDA surfacing protocols 100%.
While CAFA did not attend any trade shows this past year, CAFA was promoted at the Vancouver Aquarium event as well as at the Sidney Dive Show and DEMA by CAFA members attending for their own company. Hopefully this next year we will see CAFA attend more public shows to help introduce more people to the recreation and sport of Freediving.
The CAFA board had a total of only three meetings this past year. This contributed to a lack of progress on any goals the CAFA board had. Our board consisted of two people from Eastern Canada and three (plus the past president) from Western Canada. Meetings were hard due to busy personal schedules and time differences.
We had one big project which was translation of the website to French. We did not get enough done to be able to add the French site to the web. We also failed, for the 3rd year in a row, to get a donations button added to the buttons on the left hand side of the website pages.
CAFA has a current membership of 58. Next year’s board should make it a priority to increase membership.
Into the future I hope to see CAFA get back on track with some enthusiastic board members that have the time, energy and most of all the enthusiasm to help promote CAFA and the sport of Freediving like past boards have done. We see awareness of Freediving growing throughout the world and there is no reason why CAFA can’t find this growth as well.
Mandy-Rae Cruickshank
President
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