Kiteboarding Australia Membership Update
Dear Members
We hope you are enjoying some of the strong winter winds, and if you are not, you are prepping your gear for the summer ahead.
We wanted to take some time to give you a comprehensive update on what Kiteboarding Australia achieved last year and some plans for the upcoming season.
Covid 19 impacted all of us in different ways, but we are pleased that many kiters found our sport a great way to practice their social distancing and get out on the water.
We are grateful for the continued support of our members, partners, and school network, throughout this challenging time. While uncertainty remains across Australia, we continue to actively plan for a full and exciting 2021/22 season.
Despite covid, the 2020/21 season saw us deliver a busy and exciting event calendar – including Season Launch Kite Expos, National Freestyle & Wave Series’ and we launched the inaugural National Kite Foil Series. We successfully trained more instructors than any previous year, and we saw our school network grow to new heights.
We would like to thank all our volunteers at local, state, and national levels who have contributed to the organisation’s success through this period.
The Kiteboarding Australia board has spent considerable time over the past four months planning for this season and beyond. We aim to expand our membership by delivering more value to members. This will include a broader range of competitive and social events and creating more opportunities for kiters to progress their riding across all kiting disciplines. We are working on expanding our instructor offering and accredited schools’ programs. We recognise that kiting is an extreme sport, so we continue to provide our members with the best available public and personal insurance cover and will continue to work with local councils and communities to keep our beaches open and safe for us all to enjoy.
This season KA are also looking to embrace emerging forms of wind sports under the KA umbrella – this directly relates to the work we have been doing to include Wind Winging under the KA offering. KA see Wing Winging as a quickly evolving sport and are looking to foster this growth, provide structure, create a series of state and national events, and deliver an insurance offering to align with the needs of the Wind Wing community.
KA is moving forward rapidly in this space. We have formed a national Wind Wing committee that is developing a national framework for the sport’s growth. We are planning wing-specific events throughout Australia and will be rolling out a teaching curriculum to schools this summer. We are providing insurance to Wind Wing schools and KA Wind Wing members through our insurance offering
If you are an existing Kiteboarding Australia member and take up Wind Winging, as well as kiting, then your current membership already has you covered, but for Wingers who aren’t kiters, we are introducing a new tier of membership, with an introductory year 1 membership fee, while KA develops the service offering and gets a better understanding of the insurance risks.
Kiteboarding Australia has reviewed membership fees for the coming year. Our approach remains the same – we try to keep membership fees as low as possible and we are pleased that we have managed to keep them at the same level for the last five years. However, Kiteboarding Australia’s insurance premium has risen by 100% this renewal period (this includes public liability and personal accident insurance) and that insurance cost makes up a substantial proportion of the KA membership cost.
This insurance cost increase is a trend we see across many extreme sports and is also a direct result of an upswing in claims made over the past year by our members. From a public liability perspective, KA’s insurance broker approached 31 insurers with only 1 organisation offering terms. Feedback has been that insurance is a key member benefit, so we’ve retained the current level of cover, most notably our public liability cover, at AUD $20m.
Because of the rise in premiums, KA needs to increase our membership fees to $165 per year. In order to limit the impact on our members, the KA board has agreed to delay the cost increase until 1st November 2021 allowing members to renew their membership at the existing $137.50 rate before the end of October. Memberships will be extended by 12 months, even if your membership expires after November 1st.
We would prefer not to increase fees, but we have no choice. Kiteboarding Australia is not in the business of making a profit. KA is led and run by volunteers who are passionate about making sure the sport is safe, inclusive, and enjoyable.
We thank you for your understanding and continued support in keeping our sport growing, fun, and safe.
Kiteboarding Australia
We Take Safety to The Extreme