Dear Archer,

A few days ago the Secretary of the IFAA was asked to distribute the final amendments of the legislative proposals.

Since the first proposals were made public there have been various reactions from our archers and some of our member associations.

This was to be expected as some of the proposals touched sensitive issues.

Although most reactions did not reach us directly (as was requested) we did follow the various forums, Face book and Twitter to gauge the reaction.

The strongest reactions came from the Longbow and the Bare Bow fraternity and the question was raised why members of the Executive get involved tournament rules and style rules.

Be assured that this  is not intended.

The IFAA is moving more into the open and people have become much more aware of the IFAA. That can clearly be seen in the large increase in number of visitors on the IFAA website.

This  has resulted in a Memorandum of understanding with World Archery and membership with TAFISA among others.

With the IFAA being more on the foreground our strategy is to move away from ”exclusiveness”, meaning that our events are known by an “exclusive”  few to a “mutual inclusiveness”, meaning that our events become more open to other archers and more known.

To become more open to those archers we need to consider making changes to styles that make us “Exclusive”, in other words look at the possibility of coming up with  rules for styles to be more global so allowing access to archers from other international archery associations.

Two styles have been considered: The longbow and the Barebow.

The proposals were simply made to get some sort of general set of rules that do not change the “Character” of the IFAA, but do allow archers from other associations to compete with us and we with them without having to make major changes to their equipment.

With the popularity of the IFAA and that of our tournaments increasing we also need to safeguard the IFAA against issues of membership and of  hosting events that were until recent unheard of and various proposals have been made to that affect.

They are necessary to assure that we get new members for the right reasons and develop a fair procedure for bidding and hosting of events when more than one bid is submitted.

Some of the proposals are as a result of discussions with individuals and observations at tournaments:

These for instance include proposals such as the arrow length and bow shape in the Longbow and the double standing position in the animal round.

Professionalism also remains a problem and the extended definition that was included in the Policy section four years ago did little do alleviate the situation.

I strongly believe that we must step away from dogmatic rules on professionalism. With an active Pro Series in Europe and the North Americas we simply should accept those who attend (or are invited or allowed to attend) these series as Pros.

By registering as a Pro with the IFAA they will be accepted as pros without having to depend on extensive rules that are difficult to implement.

Like so often, I also believe this time many proposal will either not be seconded and voted on while others will simply fail on the 2/3 majority rule.

Nevertheless such proposals are useful and an indication how people and member associations think of the way ahead.

Happy reading.

Loet Smit