1. What can be done to bring more countries to the World Championship?

The main comments of the Assembly have been the following:

- Make an Assembly meeting to discuss the WCh before the start of the preparations

- Continue with the subventions introduced this year with the strategy plan

- Communicate more clearly on the cost of the event for the athletes

- Include money prizes

- Change the period of the event to allow athletes more rest between the big international competitions. Valery from AIDA Russia took ownership to investigate the options and report to the Assembly during the next meeting

- Russia also suggested including a dedicated “Senior championship” in the event and Israel agreed to take ownership of the project and brief the Assembly on its feasibility at the next meeting

Alex Russu pointed out the money prizes and Senior WCh suggestions involve increasing the budget and to be sustainable, this type of suggestions can only be discussed in conjunction with a project from the Nationals to increase the AIDA Education revenues or bring-in other sources of revenue.

 

2. AIDA freediving centers

The subject was proposed by AIDA France who had more insights about the matter, but did not attend the meeting, so it is postponed for the next meeting

 

3. WCh

Despite the actual difficulties, AIDA is determined to run the event as per the Assembly decision. We have today 35 nations and 123 athletes registered.

 

4. Facilitation of IT expenses

Due to the prior knowledge of the AIDA system/database required for the IT developments, we practically have only one supplier in this moment that is capable to respond to our needs as the requests are most of the time urgent and any new supplier will need time (and money) to learn the system first. For this reason we would like to submit to your vote ASAP a monthly support contract together with a series of urgent IT projects

 

5. Items demanding Assembly votes

This is a reiteration of the Assembly discussion from the 10^th of June 2021

Our statutes require an Assembly vote for all ``major changes to rules or fees``, so we`ll need to agree on what exactly to understand by ``major changes to rules or fees”. 

1) On one hand, we can easily agree on the meaning of the word ``rule`` as a ``mandatory`` requirement (as opposed to ``optional`` - like the case of recommendations)

2) On the other hand, a ``major change`` leaves more options for interpretations, so we`ll need to choose between the strict interpretation and the broad interpretation: 

2.a) in a strict interpretation, a ``major change`` is any change that affects the meaning of the rule. This means we`ll not send to vote grammar or syntax changes that do not affect the meaning of the rule (like deleting repetitive messages or adding explanations), but we will send to vote modifications like the depth requirement for AIDA2 or the number of certifications needed for judge or instructor promotion as 20 (certifications) has a different meaning compared to 10 (certifications).

2.b) in a broad interpretation, a ``major change`` is a change with a strong impact on AIDA.  This means that changing the format of the World Championship, the strategic choices for the education and all other strategic changes will be sent to the Assembly vote, but the implementation of the strategic choices (the technical changes) like the number of seconds for the surface protocol or the number of certifications for promotion to Master Instructor will not be sent for the Assembly vote. 

Practically, the choice of the strict interpretation (2.a) implies a high level of involvement of all our members with frequent Assembly votes and the choice for (2.b) is the choice of letting the Board do most of this work.

Based on the 10^th of June Assembly feedback, the Board is currently operating on the option 2.b, but due to the importance of the matter, the subject was raised in the Assembly meeting as well.

 

6. Recognition of AIDA certifications:

AIDA Bulgaria raised the issue of countries where the authorities do not recognize the AIDA Certifications (e.g. Greece). It seems that established businesses like SSI, PADI, etc. are well recognized by the authorities, but not AIDA. As the AIDA certifications are essential for the existence of the organization, a priority was put on the Nationals investigating what is needed in each country for the recognition of the certifications and of the AIDA instructors.

 

7. AIDA Peru

AIDA Germany questioned the procedure of National reactivation in the case of AIDA Peru and the AIDA Secretary, Philippe Pean explained that traditionally AIDA considers a national that didn’t pay it’s annual fees by the 1^st of April as “inactive” – not as “revoked”. In case of late payment (after 1^st of April without any expiration limit) the National is automatically “reactivated” without the Assembly vote (that is used only for “new members”). In the case of AIDA Peru, that National paid 3 years of overdue fees and has been reinstated.

 

8. Next Assembly meeting: 30 October at the usual time - 1pm UTC

The theme of the meeting is the involvement of the Nationals in promoting the AIDA Education to finance the Competition and ensure a sustainable system.