Hi Sara-Lise,

Thank you for your excellent feedback. I have been suffering pretty much similar situation during the years I have been with Aida. This time I thought to do something for that problem myself.

I will ask Stavros Kastrinakis to check closer your Aida education realted questions as soon as possible. I can also tell you that we started already in the beginning of the year to publish Aida Board meeting minutes for the Assembly members to share our information for their national members. As I´m also little sceptic that it will happen, the best parts of those news will be also here in Deeperblue, in new Aida site and by Aida newsletter (new subscription functionality in new Aida site: www.aidainternational.org).

The change normally takes some time to happen and I just hope that we have been capable to take a right direction in our new Board with these new enhancements.

Last but not least: there will be soon a suggestion for new Aida Statutes which may add some pressures for our organization to solve most of the topics you were willing to suggest us to handle. Pls be active and patient. And communiate also with your national Aida when this document will go out (we will inform about this in our monthly news).

br,

- kimmo

Quote: What kind of AIDA you would be willing to see in the future and what kind of topics you would like to see that AIDA would work on in a short and in a long term?

Hi Kimmo

It would be great to see a formalized organization which is more transparent and which can provide an improved service to the instructors. Much credibility is lost with customers with the delay of certification card processing (as an example). One understands that a lot of the work (if not all) is voluntary and unpaid. Perhaps that has to change that to provide motivation for "volunteers" (who really are regular and dedicated unpaid employees) to provide faster service.

I also think that AIDA could find an improved means of communication to the instructors as right now the google groups method is not very secure (some servers will not accept googlegroups) and also it would be great to find out early what the materials are for this year, are there any changes, etc. It would be nice to get regular industry updates and also information on training trends, how many certs every month, which countries are certifying the most divers and what those countries are doing right, to be able to do that. (Except from the Blue Hole as they have all the "natural" reasons to do well :) ) To do all this you will need to have dedicated and paid staff, which will of course require a formal commercial operation. What are the plans for AIDA and is there a solid future in terms of training?

I have a couple of questions... who owns AIDA, what happens to all the certification money and proceeds and is there an annual report?

You have a huge job to tackle on your hands and I wish you luck and success.

Kind regards,

S-L

Dear President,
thanks for your words.
(I'm responsable for education inside Aida Brasil at this moment)
Working also close to the schools and universities, we could have more chance to make Aida stronger.
Here I worked with 2 universities and also work in public schools (in Portugal! too) showing the sport to young people.

Thank you sooooo much, sure I always have fun in freediving.

regards
Karol Meyer

Hi again, and thank you for your valuable feedback Karol and Alexandru.

I´m afraid that Olympic games may not be a realistic option yet but we will be open for all the discussions of course if these kind of options would be available.

For Karol I try to be short as she had so many valuable points in her comment (that I will cover least most of them) :)

At the education we have now Stavros Kastrinakis who is running our EC (education committee) and who is an excellent freediver and a very good Aida freediving instructor making some things happen. And there is certainly a lot of work to be done. There will be some news every month from Aida Board for Aida Assembly as well as here in Deeperblue. Mostly what is happening and where.

Next bigger rule update may mention something about conflict of interest as well as there may be something about the number of athletes when the competitions will be accepted to be in Aida competition calendar. And a new Board may also remember, as well as learn something, from the past competitions. And these all will be covered in our becoming press releases as well as in our news. While writing this answer a new Blog story may almost be out (written by Sebastian Näslund, Aida PR/Madia officer).

I also really do hope that we in Aida Board are capable make good thing to be happen for freedivers. At the same time I´m aware that it may not be an easy task as we are dealing with many different kind of cultures, personalities, nations, languages and different kind of diving federations willing to enter in our speciality area, freediving.

Last but not least: I wish you a good luck for your becoming NoLimit project Karol! Hopefully it will be a Great success for You, Patrick, your team and for freediving! And remember to have some fun too!! :)

So all the best guys,

- kimmo

Congratulations Kimmo!

Well the most important is divulgue the practice a lot.
How? I think the best is have a huge job in Education System, working with all others entities like Padi Naui SSI suggesting Aida Freedive courses advanced (because they have a kind of first level of "snorkel" that now they try to call FREEDIVING ;-)

Some importants corrections on the Statue, and on the rules is an emergency.

Another think that is sad to watch is small competitions only organised b 1 or 2 athletes! called AIDA ranking list level? Its really unfair and prejudicial to the image of the sport. Did you see a runner event with 1 or 2 only athletes?

So the level of Aida Competitions should be estimulate to have more competitors or at least 3 per each category.

If not , the athletes should do record attempts, and they can do it together to share the expenses but not call it an "official competition". Just to be on ranking list results ...

Only competitions is not the only way to divulgue the sport. I suggest Meetings with medical, athletes, Aida Instructors together (like Umberto does at Italy).

Try to be close to CMAS or do something together?

The instructor course are running very fast in some places and the instructors are not respecting the national law to practice the job, doing ilegal exercise of the job in some countries.

Recently we had a problem like this... In Brazil if you're are not a Ed Physical graduate, or have your certification and documents to prove that you teach before the law (1998) you cant teach any sport, even for competition or only for plaisure.

So Aida International and each Aida National should pay extremely attention on it.

I hope you all the success.

Sincerelly,
Karol Meyer
Athlete
Instructor AIDA, NAUI,
PADI DM
Aida Instructor Judge

I was just reading an article mentioning Freediving as candidate for Olympic sports list.
That's probably a challenging target but working in this direction could very well shape the future of AIDA.

Assuming this is not new, it would be good if AIDA can give an updated status on the eventual efforts made in this direction as an entry point for future individual contributions.

The organisation recognized by the International Olympic Committee for administering competition in the aquatic sports (FINA) is just next door to AIDA: Lausanne, Switzerland - it may worth having a meeting

Hi Karl,

Thank you for your nice feedback. As my current job is now make some things happen in Aida I can say that the education is one of our main strategy areas. I also hope that my role will be on the minor in the future and on the background while our specialists in many areas works really hard and gets the real things done.

- kimmo

Happy New Year Kimmo

I would be looking for AIDA to continue to push for education to be the foundation of freedivers and to ensure that all the different creditation organisations deliver a consistent and accountable standard of diver education enabling freedivers to get the very best from their sport.

Cheers

Karl