Dear WCA Community,

With the close of 2020 drawing near, we would like to share the success of our organization and cubing over the past year, despite the obstacles of the year. The annual number of competitions reached its lowest since 2010 and although the WCAT announced over 480 competitions, over 240 competitions were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this, we would like to thank the cubing community for their support over the year, even without the presence of competitions in many parts of the world. There were still many organizational advances for us that would not have been accomplished without dedicated Staff and community members who dedicate their time to cubing beyond competitions.

This year, we were able to accomplish projects that helped us provide a better experience for cubers who interact with us online. The WCA Forum was launched in April by the WAC and has provided a place for community members to discuss topics ranging from Regulations, local communities, official announcements, and much more. There have been around 6,000 posts this year alone! In September, the WCA website homepage was redesigned, making the landing page more inviting and useful for all who use it.

Our Committees and Teams were also hard at work on other large projects over the year, many of which have taken a significant effort to complete. The Code of Conduct was made public, which was a collaborative effort from members of the WEC, WAC, WDC, and WRC. Although there were not as many results coming in from competitions, the WRT still worked hard to complete the project of establishing full consistency among the results data and the events/rounds data in our database. In addition to the many improvements to the website and other WCA software, the WST also released TNoodle 1.0.1. The WMT launched the first piece of WCA merchandise as a test of supply and demand for future launches. Finally, the WQAC created the Education resources page of the website, which they plan to add more to in the future.

As conditions improve over the next year, the WCA has proactively established Safety as a pillar of our Vision and Strategy so that we keep the health and safety of our competitors as a main priority. The Competition Safety Policy was used to hold 38 competitions in 2020 successfully, proving the effectiveness of the Policy and the August 2020 Regulation changes. We are hopeful that these changes will allow us to bring competitions back with careful planning once local government restrictions are lifted. We are also looking ahead to the World and Continental Championships that were announced for 2021 and 2022 to ensure that these events can be held with the prioritization of safety for all who are able to attend.

In the meantime, we have been happy to promote over 200 online competitions this year to allow competitors to keep their cubing skills fresh in an unofficial format. We were also excited to continue our partnership with Red Bull in their online World Cup competition series. We also grew our WCA Staff this year, electing two new Board members, selecting four new Committee/Team Leaders, welcoming 22 new Trainee Delegates and 15 new Junior Delegates, and promoting 15 Delegates to Full status.

Once again, we are thankful for those in our community who volunteer their time to improve cubing through the WCA and elsewhere. Hopefully, we will be able to celebrate the return of official competitions together at local events and World Championship 2021 in Almere, Netherlands. Until then, stay safe and have a happy New Year!