Updates and Additions

We have over 130 users now with growing support. College Skydiving is continuing to catch attention wherever it goes and is quickly becoming a mainstay in the skydiver's vocabulary…maybe more so in the younger crowd than the “back in my day we didn’t have parachutes to skydive with” crowd, but nonetheless, we are becoming known. We are also catching the attention of more top skydiving athletes, thanks to help from Performance Designs, ChutingStar, and Scott Miller’s Freedom of Flight.

Now there is another major sponsor to be added: SkyFest. Early this year, College Skydiving and SkyFest decided to join forces on mutual projects that can benefit both organizations. We are very happy to have SkyFest on board with us and look forward to years of great events and continued support.

In return for SkyFest’s sponsorship of our organization, we have offered a sponsorship to them! That might not make any sense when you first read it, but each organization has a very similar goal of educating skydivers so they can succeed at reaching any goal they set, and each organization is now working, trading services, for the other in order to assist and continue to push the great cause that we are both out to support. Check out http://www.skyfestboogie.com/!

Other updates include functionality on the website and opening avenues for everyone out there to be an author. One of the biggest goals of the site is to give college clubs a place to post their achievements, happenings, and just general news because we’re all interested in what you are up to. If you don’t mind typing up an article once in a while and you would like to let everyone know who’s graduated AFF, how many Tandems came down the past weekend, or that you’re just getting going and looking for some help, then email me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and let me know…because I have a solution.

You can now submit articles directly to the College Skydiving database to be posted on the main site. This does require that I upgrade your user level, but that takes no time at all, I just need to know you’re interested in keeping us up-to-date. Start looking for more frequently updated news in the College Club News section over the coming months!

Believe it or not, there is actually an Event List on the site that is open to every user to post their upcoming events and info to help us get there to join in on the fun. After you login, check out the user menu and click on “Event List”. You can add events and locations as you wish, no event is too small. Adding events may seem slightly tedious, but it is because this program generates Google Map links to the location and posts the “Upcoming Events” to other modules on the site. This is a growing feature that we tested for a few months and has just been upgraded to one of the many generally used features on the site.

Another feature that has been in use for a little while now but has a lot more potential is Groups. Here you can host groups (invite only, open to everyone, or closed) and you can post bulletins, schedule events, and private message your group members with updates and happenings. Anyone can create a group and everyone can stay updated by using them. Check’em out and give’em a try.

Now you have Author capabilities, Groups like other community sites, and an Events List, so what else could be added. Well, if you haven’t checked your user profile lately on the main site, you can have your Facebook pictures automatically uploaded, view every forum post you’ve ever made, and see what threads you’re subscribed to. You can even unsubscribe from them right from your profile page. In addition to that, you can also add Friends, write on a friend’s Graffiti wall, and host your own Mini Gallery.

There is also a Blog component added to your user profile. If you would like to keep us updated on your own happenings and give us some insight into what makes your world turn, this is the place. Again, just login and check the My Blog Dashboard to add a new entry. You can upload pictures here, add video, and write about whatever you want. This is your area to post what you want other college skydivers to know about you.

You might have also noticed that several of the college clubs host their sites with College Skydiving. This is a service open to all college clubs and it is highly recommended to take advantage of it. This all started with the remaking of the Georgia Tech club site and has expanded to include many other schools. If you are interested, please contact us and we will get your club set up with a custom website and easy to update content management capabilities. This is a tried and true system that not only get's a great custom website up and running for your club quickly, but it is also easy to pass on to future officers while keeping all information intact and usable. Nothing is lost.

The drive behind College Skydiving is to culminate the best educational information in the sport, to provide an easy to use community portal, and to bring together college clubs in an effort to work together to achieve greater coaching opportunities, and last but definitely not least…funding.

I thank all of you for checking in, participating, and coming back for more, and I encourage you to bug me to my wits end with ideas for the future and functions to add to help all of us get to know each other that much better.

Thank you for all the support over the last 1 year and 5 months. You guys are great!

Ben Lee