VIC Mentor Update (Nagambie) December 2017

Aussie Bigways VIC update Nagambie-DZ, Spring 2017

by Christian Peric; with kind contributions from Tom Fletcher and Jan Nejedly:

 

Early October saw the ever popular 4way Scrambles Spring Edition on the Saturday, backed up by Star Crests on Sunday. The scrambles event followed the new Blast format, to encourage new players to 4way competition and to maybe think about entering a team for the Nationals. Drew managed to steer his team to victory and the prestigious (and totally not hand-made cardboard) gold medals. The next day saw Star Crest jumps lead by James Boyle, with Helena starting her Bigway journey. It was a great weekend for skills building that saw everyone come away with progression and smiles on their faces, novice and experienced jumpers alike!

In late October, Skydive Nagambie hosted the Aussie Bigways Advanced Oz skills development camp. Coached by Aussie Bigways’ own David Loncasty and Tracey Basman, two groups of 12 ways were cranking out some challenging and fun jumps over the weekend. The idea was to do bigways that are more demanding, with outfacing slots, spinning pieces, turning points, … basically to push people’s flying skills and have fun doing it. This camp was also for the Aussie Bigways organisation to get a read on possible ‘anchor’ people for the 150way record planned for 2019 in Perris/CA. It also proved perfect preparation for the Aussie Bigways Sequential record event at Moruya in November.

November Star Crest day saw Ash coming across from South Australia to take advantage of the larger aircraft and great weather. Ben Allen guided the group through the day, andthen Ash followed up on Sunday celebrating her 100th jump! The Star Crest program has its final event of the year on 16th December, load organizer is Sarah Brown, combined with the Skydive Nagambie Christmas Party.

Early December saw a 4W4E1 event run by Relworkers at Nagambie, following the Blast format. We had 6 teams running and with perfect weather and fast aircraft, the 3 rounds were finished by 3pm. Team 1 with Sam Massey, Nicole Kearns, Geoff Munday, Sas and Hicky on camera won with 18 points over 3 jumps, just because of lower total jump numbers against Team 6, with Michael Young, Andrew Jarvis, Adam Davis, Roi and Meirbhin on camera. Team 6 is a developing 4way team as you may know, so they rolled their training day into the event and got a player coach for the day. They are doing quite well for a young team with only 120 up to 480 jumps amongst them. Team 3 with Stuart Vowles, Mayday,Chris Betchley, Roi and Hicky on camera came 3rd with 12 points. Great to have some of the long-time jumpers on the event like Gavin del Oro, John Winkler, Chris Betchley, Greg Hill and all the coaches and camera flyers, spending a day passing on the knowledge and helping out. Look out for the next Relworkers 4W4E1 in late January 2018.

Phew…! Its sure has been a busy spring at Nagambie. And the new year will continue along the same strong lines, with Star Crest days in the 3rd week of January and February(to be confirmed), followed by the Nationals in March and POPS world meet in April. Belly flyers and bigways fans will sure get their fill of quality events over the coming months! Watch this space for further Star Crest dates next year as well as and other events on the horizon!
Blue Skies,
Christian