Dear WCA Community,

Here at the end of 2021, we once again find ourselves reflecting on a challenging year for cubers everywhere. Despite the circumstances, there were many accomplishments within the WCA that are reason to celebrate and look forward to the year ahead.

Many more areas were able to begin holding competitions again using the Competition Announcement Rules at first and later meeting new safety measures outlined in the Competition Safety Policy. These competitions filled their registration limits in record time, the quickest one filling in just 44 seconds, so we can tell that the demand is high for competitions to return to many areas. Over the year, 242 competitions were held in 49 different countries, with the number of competitions held each month increasing significantly. With so much time to practice at home, we also saw many records broken again at all levels. Congratulations to the amazing cubers who were able to break 584 National Records, 69 Continental Records, and 21 World Records in 2021!

Although much of their work is behind the scenes, we cannot overlook the accomplishments of our Committees and Teams, who work hard to continually improve the WCA even if competitions are not as active. In our efforts to continually improve the competition experience, the Competition Requirements Policy, Scramble Accountability Policy, Regulations, and list of approved timers were introduced and modified by the Board, WCA Quality Assurance Committee, and WCA Regulations Committee. These policies help set important standards for our competitions and have already been applied to competitions without issue. The WCA Competition Announcement Team approved new competition announcements in an average of 63.9 hours which is a great accomplishment considering the new policies that required Senior Delegates to review and approve all competitions due to the Safety measures put in place. Once the competitions were complete, the WCA Results Team posted results in about 12.8 hours on average, which takes quite a bit of effort. We also want to acknowledge the great efforts of the WCA Disciplinary Committee, WCA Ethics Committee, and WCA Financial Committee that do much of their work without public appearance but are crucial to keep the WCA accountable and functional.

Hopefully you saw the efforts of the WCA Communication Team on social media where there were 70 posts, many of which were organizational announcements originally drafted by the WCA Executive Assistants Team, who also sent out monthly internal digests to keep WCA Staff informed of happenings around the organization. With four new Senior Delegates, five new Committee/Team Leaders, 25 new Trainee Delegates, six new Junior Delegates and 11 Delegate promotions, there was a lot to keep track of! On the Forum, the WCA Advisory Council oversaw over 2,700 posts (and over 300 new topics) and posted periodic digests of the most popular conversations. The WCA Software Team worked hard on a new release of TNoodle 1.1.0 (and further updates to the current version 1.1.2) which introduced many crucial fixes and functions to the scrambling program. One of the most exciting achievements of the year was the launch of expanded WCA Merchandise by the WCA Marketing Team that can be enjoyed by cubers around the world. Since launch, there have been over 240 items sold and over 4,000 website views!

As always, we are carefully preparing for the year ahead which will hold the 2022 Continental Championships, where it is safe to do so. We are hopeful that these competitions will be successful, especially with the sponsorship by Rubik’s for all of the events. Although we were saddened about the cancellation of the World Championship 2021, we look forward to the organization of the World Championship 2023 in Seoul, Republic of Korea throughout 2022. Rest assured, these events will be planned with the safety of our community in mind and know that bringing cubers together again will happen when the time is right for everyone.

As always, we would not have had a successful year without the efforts of our volunteers who dedicate their time and resources to the community everyday. We hope the new year brings moments of celebration to all and we look forward to meeting together again in 2022! Have a safe and happy New Year!