I have been in touch with Mr. Tinus Els (2001 founder of the South
Africa SBA). He has been out of touch with the international
community, but within SA, he and hos wife have been active. Their
organization is doing well. He and his wife hope to compete the 3rd
International Sport Blowgun Target Shooting compettion to be held in
June, 2006 at the Bear Swamp Archery Complex in Upper MT. Bethel, PA
(USA). Tinus uses a home-made .75 cal. barrel (picture on the IFA
website). He once was the holder of the Long Distance target
shooting, at 30 meters ... quite an accomplishment using that
caliber!!!

Tinus has agreed to become more active internationally, and will be
listed on the NSBA website (as soon as I find time to update it), on
the "Partners" page. This once again brings us to the minimum
International Olympic Committee's requirements of having the sport
played on four continents. We still need a minimum of 75 nations.

Can I please ask the representatives from Mexico, India, Isreal,
Namibia, and Turkey (Zihul, Raven-Crow, etc.), and the others, to
commit to starting a national organization in your home nations?
Let us know our intent here on this forum, or e-mail me direct.
craftsman@... I will get the necessary formalities with the
International Fukiyado Association expedited.

For those keeping count, as of this writing, we're officially up to
10 IFA affiliated nations - Japan, USA, Switzerland, Sweden,
Philippines, China, Germany, France, Malaysia, and South Africa.
The United Kingdom and Australia have banned blowguns, so their
affiliated organizations are defunct. Canada has also banned
blowguns, they never had a startup organization.

We need another 65 participating nations. If you have any friends of
relatives in other nations who are blowgunners and may be interested
in starting up an organization in their native country, have them
visit the NSBA website. If they don't read English, they can put
the URL in http://babelfish.altavista.com/ and select the Translate
option from English-to-Their native language. You folks are the only
ones that can make the dream of competition sport blowgun target
shooting become reality by working with your contacts.

May your darts always fly true!