By Roger Soulsby, 30th September 2025
Welcome everyone to our 4th IISA Aotearoa NZ Annual General Meeting and thanks for your attendance here on Zoom. The Agenda has been emailed out to everyone to keep us on track.
This report is broken into various sections for ease of reference and highlighting key areas of interest.
IISA World Championships
The 6th International Ice Swimming Association (IISA) World Championships were held from 13th–19th January 2025 in Molveno in the Italian Dolomites.
Our New Zealand Frozen Ferns (Team Captain – Laetitia Berten) were one of the smallest teams to compete – 15 Swimmers, facing former Olympic heavyweights and top ice swimmers alike. Nevertheless, the Team finished the five-day event with enough medals to place fourth in the medal tally by country (out of 48 Countries), behind giants France, USA and Germany.
The team made its presence known from day one with an indomitable team spirit, cheering on teammates and fellow competitors. NZ’s medical team also sprang into action to help the Event Organisers as colder-than-expected water temperatures of 1°C – 2°C led to some swimmers struggling.
Heidi Winter (16yrs) of Alexandra became New Zealand’s first ever Open (overall) category winner, bringing home Gold in the 100m Freestyle event and a world record in her age category. Her elder sister, Sophie Winter (20yrs), won gold in the 100m Breaststroke.
Emilia Finer (20yrs), of Dunedin, took second overall in the 250m Freestyle event in an intense competition between some of the world’s best ice swimmers. She then went on to win gold and break the world record for the women’s 200m Individual Medley with 2:38.55, beating her previous world record time by two seconds.
In the men’s events, Cameron Stanley won Bronze in the 100m Backstroke. Para swimmers Meg Agnew and Francois Lambrechts also made the team proud, scooping up two medals and four medals, respectively.
The diverse team, consisting of people aged between 16 and 70, also did well in the age group results, with 35 medals and five age group world records. See detailed appendix for individual results.
Financial
We are grateful for Laetitia accepting the position of Treasurer following Jim West’s inaugural stint managing this key role. Please note our Financial Statement records transactions annually, year ending 31st March thus spanning income / expenditure from both our Alexandra & St Bathan’s winter events. Laetitia will discuss further with her report.
Events
Susan will present a report on our St Bathan’s National Ice Swimming Open Water Championships. It takes enormous effort beginning months ahead to organise this. Not only that, Susan & Husband Leigh also host a couple of acclimatisation Swim Camps at Lake Taupo in the weeks before the Champs to give aspiring swimmers a chance to experience sub 7/8C water in the feeder lake streams. We are indebted to Susan’s experience & enthusiasm allowing our Events to run under IISA rules each year with all the data recording and safety measures required.
We also specially acknowledge Susan’s recent appointment to the Board of IISA International. She joins the six Member Board that Founder / President, Ram Barkai, Chairs.
IISA International
A reminder about the Observer L1 & Event Director L2 accreditations. IISA now require these to be regularly ‘refreshed’ in common with other similar sports accreditations ie Surf Clubs – Duty Lifeguard Members. However for existing holders they can be refreshed at no cost, on line prior to 31st December 2025. Look up Membership on the IISA Website.
IISA NZ Website
Thanks to those who’ve facilitated the upgrading of our NZ Website. This is under professional management now & will be less likely to attract glitches as well as being much easier to remain current at https://iceswimming.co.nz/
Regulatory requirements
We were incorporated as the IISA Aotearoa New Zealand Incorporated Society on the 11th July 2022 prior to the new updated Incorporated Societies Act 2022 that came into force on 5 October 2023. This introduced a range of new requirements for incorporated societies. We were fortunate to adopt most of these using the NZ Companies Office Constitution Builder when putting our Society Rules (Constitution) together. However we are still required to re-register our organisation prior to 5th April 2026.
Some editing of our Constitution will be necessary to clarify Board / Committee responsibilities as well as changes in affiliation with IISA International before re-registering. This can be done by way of a Special General Meeting before April 2026.
It also should be noted that all our existing Board Members have agreed to be re-elected for a further three year term as per our Constitution. They are;
Roger Soulsby, Susan Sherwen, Jim West, Karen Bisley, Lisa Stewart, Laetitia Berten (Treasurer), Fi Fairbairn (Secretary). Along with a nomination and acceptance by Duncan Kukard to join the Board, this brings the Board back to eight Members as per our Constitution. Thank you all for your service.
Further Appreciation
We’re all very fortunate to have a group of Volunteers who season after season, turn up at our Annual Winter Events, sacrificing time and/or leave to ensure our Swimmers can achieve their Ice Swim Goals. Our IRB Crews, Safety / Medical Team, Video / Phone pic Operators, Cook(s), Hot Water Attendants, Marshalls & Transport Providers all provide selfless attention. A grateful thanks to all of you.
Roger Soulsby
Chairman