Erick Angles <<atout.vents>>
writes:

It is now a bit less than four weeks away form the fourth edition
of the Saint Andre Open (May 25th to 28th). The 2016th edition was cancelled
twice due to an extremely bad weather last spring in France. Atout Vents lost
quite a bit of money since most expenses were already engaged.

During the last meeting of the competition commission in January 2017 it was
decided that criteria such as the late registration fee amount as well as the
deadline would now be left to the organizer. It was also decided than an
organizer could cancel a comp based on criteria other than bad weather such as
pilots pre registration at a point of time before the event.

These decisions were taken after long talks and some lobbying for a couple years
among the competition commission in part to try and secure pilots participation
by the early bird registration fee and also to prevent organizers from engaging
too many expenses in the case of low pilots registration.

For the Saint Andre Open, as stated on the website (https://delta.ffvl.fr/open_comps_registration_form/52/list),
it was decided that the registration fee would be bumped up from 80 euros to 120
euros if pilots paid fewer than fifteen days before the comp and that based on
our forecast budget the comp was not viable at less than twenty five prepaid
pilots.

As of now, there are only fifteen pre registered pilots and no pre payments.
Please help us organize you the best FAI comp possible by preregistering and
prepaying like it's done in many other countries all over the world.

The Facebook event page:
https://www.facebook.com/events/678992472309035.

This year, Atout Vents will organize the French Open (FAI Cat. 2) from August
26th to September 1st at Mont Lachens, mythic and historic site of the south
east, home turf of local legend Mike De Glanville, were many cross country
competitions have been held in the past and only 45 minutes south of St Andre
les Alpes:

https://delta.ffvl.fr/open_comps_registration_form/53

It's a time of the year when major paragliding comps (PWC, Euros etc.) are
usually held in St Andre because it guaranties for more homogeneous and less
stormy flying conditions than the rest of the summer in the Southern Alpes and
these dates have the advantage of allowing the national team members selected
for the World Championship to come back from Brazil and have enough time to make
the journey down for the French Open. It's the last comp of the season in Europe
and should attract quite a few pilots, so remember to pre register as spots are
limited.

We'll communicate in details on that event after the Saint Andre Open, sometime
in June.