British Collegiate Parachute Association (BCPA)

BCPA stands for "British Collegiate Parachute Association" and is a volunteer-run, non-profit organisation, set up for the purpose of promoting skydiving at a collegiate level. Our aim is to provide a community where several hundred university skydivers (from over 30 affiliated university clubs) can find like-minded people - with whom they can jump, compete and most importantly socialise! One of the difficulties facing university skydiving clubs, is retaining new members during the inevitable bad weather months at the start of the academic year. One way to combat this is to build a strong social side to the sport - so during the year, the BCPA runs half a dozen boogie-style events at drop-zones around the UK, in addition to tunnel meets and a highly acclaimed Easter foreign trip. The BCPA co-ordinates annual inter-university leagues to allow clubs to compete against each other both in competition (3-way, freefly and accuracy) as well as club achievements (such as obtaining Cat-8 or FS1). This culminates in an awards ceremony at the BCPA Nationals in the summer. Many clubs find that success here can help to convince their university to allocate them more funding for the subsequent year!