Chris Broome - January 1st, 2009

The bottom line is that the ‘Association of Associations’ concept of the IHPVA re-organization of 1999 just didn’t work as planned and the human-powered community was losing focus, direction and sense of community.

The multiplicity of similar names was very confusing, even to those of us within the organizations and it was almost impossible to explain clearly to outsiders.

Following the 1999 reorganization, the IHPVA was not a legal entity. It was not incorporated or registered and accordingly has not had legal funding or even the legal foundation for its name.

As President of the HPVA at that time and an early Chairman of the IHPVA, I was deeply involved in the name changes and the reorganization. But it was extremely difficult to sustain sufficient enthusiasm to make even parts of the proposed IHPVA structure work. I was not successful in keeping the enthusiasm alive or in forming a legal entity and my successors have all suffered the same fate.

The anticipated benefits failed to materialize. The enthusiasm for the concept dropped very quickly, as did the number of volunteers willing to help bring about the proposed change. As the years passed, even the proponents of the 1999 reorganization realized that the change wasn’t working and that substantive action was needed.

As Alice Krause has written, HPVA board presented a proposal to re-establish the original name and change the bylaws to reflect the change at the annual HPVA membership meeting in 2006. The membership approval vote was unanimous.

The organization has gone back to its origins and reclaimed the name established by its founders. The organization is incorporated as the International Human Powered Vehicle Association in the USA and is registered in the U.K.

The plan to reaffirm our mission of promoting human powered vehicles and their technology by inviting the affiliation of the current national organizations into a larger unified community. We are improving our publication of information through a restructured ihpva.org website with an open archive of Human Power, the IHPVA technical journal.

The website will also publish course records and race and event records, where the event organizers submit the observation and timing information.

Online forums are now available to improve communications between individuals and organizations throughout the world.

We invite all members of national organizations to become IHPVA members, to volunteer for any of a multitude of tasks in running events and the organization, to run for office if they wish, or to just enjoy the satisfaction of being on the leading edge of human power and its supporting technologies.

Chris Broome
Board member, IHPVA
Former Chairman, IHPVA
Past President, HPVA