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My gut feeling tells me that with kiting featured in the Olympics and a steady race scene IKO's role will be replaced by national associations. So I would not bet my farm on it or any other outfit that wants to take over it's place.

How are these issued handled in the windsurfing community? It's been around for a lot longer and they probably ran into some of the same problems.

And KiwiMike....I understand what you're trying to do, but regardless of what you think of IKO as an organization can we all have at least some respect for a person's privacy. Having said that I do hope you get compensated in some shape or form by IKO.

you can go through all the schools on the iko website. there are 71 listed however many are just pretend schools with fake email addresses and some are just emails with no schools. iko can correct me if i am wrong but i am sure there are around 40. hope i get my money back before they go out of business.

Toby wrote:Only 40 left, really?

National associations are a good idea, since they can also adjusted to te national laws, like in France. Which I think has the best system.

But woud be great to have an institution above it, like IKA, which can work with the associations to improve instruction guidelines etc.
IKO could have a list of countries which licenses are international standard.
Plus IKA could offer insurances for schools and instructors worldwide for a reasonable price. I know the schools in Asia are struggling to get insurances.

can anyone tell me where and when the annual europe IKO examiners meeting is? i am going to be in europe this summer and want to go meet with fred and ask for my money back inperson as he does not return my phone calls or emails.

nherbold wrote:How are these issued handled in the windsurfing community? It's been around for a lot longer and they probably ran into some of the same problems...

iko is money making machine, a parasite.
just giving iko functions over to the national associations is dangerous way. since they are usually in constant need of money and they don't own kite clubs or schools it would be very tempting for them to start collect yearly fee from trainers for themselves.

local clubs can do all the job for themselves, individually or united regionally. local clubs have the best local conditions knowledge and can deal with insurance issues as well. besides, they trained windsurfers without "international" body and without national level bodies quite successfully for years.

still no word from iko about refunding my fees. surely this bad publicity is costing them money. why not just give me a refund and everyone is happy. I am now left wondering how to spend the money I would have otherwise have wasted this years IKO fees.

So Mike how many $ are you talking about?

deanrobi wrote:So Mike how many $ are you talking about?

I paid IKO a couple thousand dollars (USD) in fees and another couple thousand in insurance which apparently did not cover me for anything. this may not sound like a lot but it is a lot for me here in Thailand. on top of this I have spent a lot of time emailing and phoning IKO without ever getting a response. even when the truth came out about the IKO examiner who came to try to get me kicked out from IKO they did not contact me. actually I am not angry at him as now I can see what IKO really is all about.

I'm not surprised in the least. The IKO was a great idea back in the days but even in 2006 when I did my ITC it was clearly focused on money making that effectively resulted to not much more than selling a good instructors manual (in my case poorly photocopied sheets of unbound paper) with a bullshit exam for around 600 Euros! What the f*** do they base that amount on?

Once they came up with their ridiculous online points system and exams, they fully went to shit. I mean would you have a driving instructor teach you to drive cars if he did his exams online?

Them threatening with lawyers is truly the icing on the cake - bring it on. I regret every cent I spent on those bastards.

I hope the IKO disappears from the kitesurfing scene ASAP!