posted Jan 9th, 2007 - The NSL News reported on January 2 that the 4-way world champion in the female category, Airkix from Great Britain, changes the line-up for the 2007 season. The news story on January 4 followed up on the previous article and explained the new plans of the former Airkix member, Claire "Sparky" Scott.

The Airkix news story was based on an article in The Times, a British newspaper, and it was brought to the attention of the NSL News by readers in the United Kingdom. The Airkix members had launched a successful PR campaign after winning the female title at the World Meet 2006 in Germany.

Airkix member Emma Beyer provided more background information of this campaign: "The team made a huge effort after the World Meet and Nationals to exploit the double win and get positive coverage for skydiving. Not only do we want to counteract sensationalist negative press skydiving often sees, we hope to position skydiving as a sport, involving some measure of athletic endeavour."

The campaign was quite successful, as the team members received a lot of coverage in the British media. However, the original efforts needed an adjustment when the first reponses were not very promising, as Emma Beyer remembers:

"In August we contacted every sports editor of the major UK press and were told at every turn they had no interest. One told me bluntly, 'skydiving is not a sport'. So we had to take the back door, hence the references to the stunt work and all the supposedly 'glamorous' stuff!"

The Airkix members had a lot to offer in the "glamourous area". A quick look at the according page on the team's website presents Emma Beyer, Julia Foxwell and Amanda Kemp in very different ways. However, the new approach was more successful:

"Obviously it's not how we would have preferred to do it, but it's a start, and we are really grateful to forward-thinking journalists like Sarah Potter who've given skydiving such good press. So far we've made 4 National and 27 regional papers, plus several TV slots, magazines and even a book. We hope good media coverage for skydiving might attract corporate sponsors and help all teams who give up so much themselves to compete. We think it's wrong that world class skydivers on many national teams (even those with skydiving companies sponsoring them) still find it such a struggle to fund what they love."

The article by Sarah Potter, which was featured within the NSL News story on January 2, was a recent success of the team's campaign and included the fact that the line-up had changed. The NSL News promised to follow up with an introduction of the new team member, and Emma Beyer provided some profile information. First of all, she also explained that the former Airkix members were sad to see Claire "Sparky" Scott leave:

"We are all sorry to see Sparky leave, she is a great skydiver and we will miss her. The two years on Airkix were a lot of fun and we became, and remain, very good friends. However, following from last year, we had some big decisions to make about how and why we each wanted to move forward. There is nothing behind the switch other than changing training objectives for individual team members."

The new team member in the Point position, Tarnya Hollis, comes along with a new team name and a new sponsor. "Team Elan" will be supported by the Bodyflight wind tunnel in Bedford this year. Tarnya Hollis (38) has a total of 1,200 skydives and competed with Bodyflight Rage in the AAA Class competition last year. The team page introduces the new Point as a professional wind tunnel flyer and instructor.

Emma Beyer and her other teammates think that the new Point is one of the best skydivers in the United Kingdom: "Tarn's skills as a skydiver were evident from seeing her performance on Bodyflight Rage and training alongside them last season. Tarn is a strong flyer and the obvious choice; we are all really looking forward to flying with her and seeing what we can produce."

Bodyflight Rage could not produce the team's best results at the UK Nationals 2006. An injured team member, former XL member Steve Hamilton, had to be replaced by an alternate. However, Rage's original line-up, with Tarnya Hollis and Steve Hamilton, posted a 16.7 average at UK's Grand Prix meet on July 22, 2006.

Tarnya Hollis also comes highly recommended by her former coach of team South Parc, Gary Beyer, who was Airkix's back-up and tunnel coach in 2005/2006, as Emma Beyer explained the coaching situation: "We did hours of 2-on-2 tunnel training with him and Mark Kirkby. Dan BC was our main coach and was absolutely fantastic."

Team Elite will not continue to work with Dan BC who was already booked up when the new line-up was complete and ready to make plans. The NSL News story on January 4 included the fact that Claire Scott's new team, Bodyflight Storm, had already made arrangements with Dan BC early enough.

Emma Beyer explained that Team Elan had to make alternate coacing plans: "We managed to finalise our schedule too late, so the new line-up will be coached mainly by Gary Beyer, again with support from Mark Kirkby. We expect this will help with continuity and is easier than getting a totally new coach."

Team Elan's slots are not set in stone yet. Emma Beyer said that Tarnya Hollis will most likely fill the Point slot: "I will probably switch to Outside Center, although we will make the final decision on this after jumping together."

Team Elan's/Airkix's PR campaign has created a foundation for soliciting sponsorships, and the team members are now looking for financial support from skydiving and non-skydiving organisations. Emma Beyer explains that the training efforts will depend on the success of the fund-raising efforts:

"How much we can train and achieve is directly linked to this, especially if we hope to take the team into Open. Obviously many top Open teams already have major sponsorship from DZs and other skydiving companies, which is not so common for female teams. We were very fortunate that the BPA, with UK Sport, made a tremendous difference to what we could manage last year, but skydiving is still seen as a 'minority sport' so the pot is not limitless. It would be great to see what could happen this season with proper financial backing."