IWRA President to resign April 30, 2010

2010 IWRA president Gene F. has announced his intentions to resign his position as 2010 President of the International Water Rocket Association by April 30th.

The April 30th withdrawal date is intended to give time for another interested member to take over as president for the remainder of the year. If not, it gives the association time to dissolve in an orderly manner.

The president cited personal work, family obligations and the perceived lack of interest by the general membership for his decision to resign his position within the association. Gene personally thanked the members of the President’s Council for their willingness to serve and being apart of the IWRA efforts. He also said that it has been a real pleasure for him to serve as president of the IWRA since 2008 but that he feels the need to make this change as it relates to the association.

“Many friendships have been made thou the association and I still plan to continue with my water rocketry activities and plan to continue as a semi-active general member of the IWRA if the association continues but just not in a leadership role at this point” he said.

“My hope is that even if the association is dissolved, the association will continue its present website at less to provide a place for the public to view the IWRA Safety Code, Water Rocket Achievement Recognition Guidelines and Peer-Review Process that the association has worked so hard to develop. Gene also hopes that some other rocketry group would adopt and incorporate the code, guidelines and peer-review process into their group.”

Gene believes the work done on the Water Rocket Achievement Recognition Guidelines and Peer-Review Process was a great milestone for the water rocket community and it would be a shame to not have it be adopted and expanded on for those rocketeers that wish to have their achievement recognized by the water rocket community even if it was not achieved at a formal water rocket competition.

The whole process was intended to level the playing field for all rocketeers so that no one person or team could write competition flight rules after claiming to set a record with limited documentation or peer review. Then the same group draft flight rules that are unachievable by other rocketeers.

To view the Water Rocket Achievement Recognition Guidelines and Peer-Review process, readers can follow the following web-address: http://www.orgsites.com/tx/icwra/index.html

2009 IWRA Officer Elections Scheduled

The 2009 election cycle for the 2010 IWRA officers has been scheduled for December 18 – 30, 2009. Nominations for officers will be taken between December 18 – 24, 2009, 00.00 GMT with elected officers officially taking office on January 01, 2010.

The actual voting will take place using the polling feature of the official IWRA/Yahoo Forum and is scheduled between December 25 – 30, 2009, 00.00 GMT. Once voting is completed and all members are notified of the election results, a period of certification of the election results is performed by the IWRA election committee to make sure that no voting irregularities has accrued. If irregularities are uncovered a miss-polling would be called and a new polling cycle would be scheduled as prescribed in the election rules of the association constitution.

When nominating someone for one of the elected positions, current members are requested to send an e-mail to waterrocket06@yahoo.com with the name and office the person is being nominated for. The membership is asked to make contact with their nominee to ensure that they will agree to hold the position if elected. Duties of each position can be found within the association’s constitution at http://www.orgsites.com/tx/icwra/_pgg7.php3.

This election marks the fourth time officer elections have been held since the formation of the association in 2007. The first election of officers was held during December of 2006 using email ballots that were sent to 13 original members at that time. Uses of the polling feature of the IWRA/Yahoo forum was adopted in 2008. The forum polling feature simplifies the election process, speeds up the notification of voting results to the membership and reduces the chances of irregularities in voting. Once polling results are known the results will be posted on the association’s official website for public view. http://www.orgsites.com/tx/icwra/

IWRA 2nd Annual Membership Drive

The 2nd annual membership drive for the International Water Rocket Association (IWRA) is being conducted during the month of October 2009. Individuals and groups that are interested in the sport of water rocketry in all its forms are invited to consider joining the IWRA.

Presently, members come from all over the world and all ages. Regardless of where you come from, what your level of enthusiasm is, we encourage you to contact us about becoming a member. The IWRA is a non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the safe sport of water rocketry. Our organization is an internet based association to allow for the widest global input into policies that affects the water rocket community. The association also provides an educational resource for the general public in understanding the sport.

In the next year the IWRA will start to provide oversight for competitive water rocketry achievements worldwide. This past year, the association passed an comprehensive Water Rocket Achievement Recognition Guidelines and Peer-Review Process which will provide a level playing field for all water rocket enthusiasts by specifying competitive guidelines and having a peer-review process that has been developed and agreed on by the membership to provide fairness in the establishment of water rocket achievement records.

Please follow the address provided below to learn more about what the IWRA and what the association is doing to advance the sport of water rocketry. http://www.orgsites.com/tx/icwra/index.html

New Blog of the IWRA:

Hi, I am Gene F. from Texas, USA., the current '09 president of the International Water Rocket Association (IWRA). In an effort to provide information to the general public about the sport of water rocketry and to promote collaboration opportunities between all rocketeers engaged in making the sport of water rocketry safer, this blog was started.

About the IWRA: the IWRA is a non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the safe sport of water rocketry in all forms. Our organization is an internet based association to allow the widest possible global membership.

The IWRA was formed on January 01, 2007 with the installation of the association’s first elected officers and the ratification of the association constitution. Also during 2007 the membership ratified an comprehensive water rocket safety code and developed the voting by internet process. Later that same year, discussions were started on procedures for the Competition Guidelines and the Peer-Review process that will provide for a level playing field for competing for records worldwide.

Ratification of both the Competition Guidelines and Peer-Review process was completed during the 2008 election cycle.

I hope you will find this blog informative and interesting. For more information you are invited to view the associations website at: http://www.orgsites.com/tx/icwra/index.html