IJRU appoints board positions and committee members while reaffirming a commitment to our missions, visions and values at the October Board of Directors meeting held in Ottawa, Canada.

On October 25 and 26 the IJRU leadership gathered in Ottawa for their annual fall board meeting. It was a busy weekend filled with meetings, strategic planning sessions and a site visit to the 2020 World Championship venue.

Shaun Hamilton, IJRU President described the meeting as follows:

“The Board of Directors engaged in a great discussion about the current state of our sport and the evolution and changes we will need to undergo to move our sport forward. We made some decisions that we believe will assist in this evolution such as nationality assignment, gender policy clarifications, filling of vacant positions and other matters that bring greater clarity to our member countries and athletes. We also began developing our strategic plan, which will bring greater focus to our sport and board of directors. Overall the meetings were productive and positive as we continue to grow and develop our sport together.”

Site visit and 2020 tournament planning

The weekend began with a site visit to the venue for the 2020 World Championships, Junior World Champions and International Open Tournament. This site visit then informed a tournament planning meeting. We discussed tournament structure, marketing and communications and created a detailed itemized task list to begin delegating and documenting all aspects of running an IJRU tournament.  

Gender policy update

During the meeting, we approved a clarifying statement to accompany the Gender Policy. This statement takes into consideration changes to the official tournament names for the Junior World Championship and International Open Tournament. We also clarified information about gender eligibility at the International Open Tournament.

IJRU is growing

Join us in congratulating our new members. We are pleased to announce 3 new member countries:

• Argentina - Asociación Argentina de Salto con Soga

• Botswana - Botswana Rope Skipping Federation

• Chinese Taipei - Taiwan Kinetic Art

Board and committee appointments

The IJRU Board of Directors has a few continental vacancies. In order to ensure geographic representation around the globe, we are committed to filling these positions in the coming months. At the meeting, we reviewed applications and narrowed down the candidates based on the required skills and experience necessary for the position. We will announce the new appointees in the coming weeks once the roles have been accepted.

We also reviewed applications for the Ethics Panel and Technical Committee. Thank you to all those who applied for a position. We are still in the process of narrowing down the applicants and will communicate our selections in the coming weeks.

Technical Congress representatives

We received a list of Technical Congress representatives from a number of National Governing Bodies (NGB). Many countries have still not provided IJRU with the names of their 2 Technical Congress representatives. Each NGB can appoint 2 representatives to the Technical Congress. They will have an opportunity to review and vote on rules before they are presented to the full membership. This gives your country an opportunity to have a say in the direction of the rules in our sport. Please contact us at info@ijru.sport to send us a list of your representatives. 

Continental reports

The African Jump Rope Federation presented their constitution and through a unanimous vote, was recognized as the official IJRU continental organization in Africa. This is a huge step forward for Africa and we would like to congratulate them for their hard work in establishing an official continental organization.

Each of the IJRU Continental Vice Presidents provided a report that included membership numbers, a tournament planning update and organizational structure. 

Strategic planning 

IJRU is committed to setting goals and creating a long term vision for our athletes and sport. Luke Winstanley (IJRU Vice President - Oceana) led a series of strategic planning sessions that allowed participants to brainstorm ways to achieve our strategic goals. 

During the meeting, we identified the following goals and management objectives:

• Financial Management

• Good Governance

• Events and Sanctioned Competitions

• Communications and Engagement

• Recruitment of Skilled Individuals

• Marketing and Promotion

We then began to explore actionable ways to achieve each of these strategic objectives. IJRU’s strategic plan will continue to evolve over time and we are excited to put this important process into motion.