Dear Frozen ones,

As the Northern Hemisphere Ice season is ending and we here in Cape Town are approaching our winter, I would like to say few words about last season and future seasons to come.

First of all, well done to all Ice, Nice and Icy swims and swimmers. We learnt a lot and we expanded our frozen horizons in term of safety, what is possible and how to do it safer, better and with quicker recovery.

We now have Ice swimmers in 16 countries around the world, with South Africa still leading the board with regard to the number of official Ice Swims (they get around).

However, England is now on par with SA with regard to the number of registered Ice swimmers. Ireland is only a few swimmers behind and the USA is catching up... Despite the relatively warm winter in Europe and with the Americans doing some other crazy swims, we are still growing nicely.

We will soon be publishing some exciting decisions about IISA events around the world. In the meantime, we have decided to expand the Icy circle! To do this we have asked for nominations from around the world to potentially join IISA board. We had several nominations and requests. We have considered all very carefully and eventually decided to invite two well-suited applicants to the IISA board. Andrew Chin and Toks Viviers, veteran Ice and extreme adventure swimmers have decided to step back from the board and make space for others. Thanks Andrew and Toks, my swimming mates and founding members of IISA. We continue to train, swim and drink together so all is much the same. However, following the growth of swims in the UK and Ireland we are delighted to invite Ned Denison from Ireland and Jonty Warneken from the UK. They are both Ice Swimmers and they both bring new ides, experience and wisdom to IISA as we grow IISA all over the frozen world.

At the same time, we would like to expand the number of ambassadors around the world in an effort to help promote the sport locally and to assist in the growth of the ice swims in their respective regions. Therefore, we are delighted to announce four new country ambassadors:

• Melissa O’Reilly (USA)
• Jiri Kurina (Prague, Czech Republic)
• Fergal Somerville (Ireland)
• Pauline Barker (UK)

They have all done tremendous work in promoting IISA and support other Ice swimmers and new comers. Good luck.