AIDA NEWSLETTER AIDA Secretary Office opening less than one week left to apply! The Aida International Board is seeking candidates to complete the 2016 term for the Secretary Office. All interested persons should send a short statement and CV by 20/02/2016 to: president@aidainternational.org ________________________________ AIDA International and AIDA France booth in Cagnes sur Mer

AIDA will be present from the 22nd to the 24th of April at the Watersports Fair in Cagnes sur Mer (France). With a large booth and swimming pool workshops, AIDA France team is preparing to receive a considerable number of visitors and is excited to share its passion for freediving with new people. ________________________________ London International Dive Show AIDA representative for UK, the British Freediving Association (BFA) runs every year a stand at the London International Dive Show. This year the dive show takes place from Thursday 11 to Sunday 14 February and is a part of a huge festival of outdoor activity expected to attract more than 60,000 visitors. BFA supports a growing network of affiliate clubs from all over the UK and the clubs are invited to attend, put up club banners and share flyers. The stand always attracts a lot of attention and it's a fantastic way for telling people about freediving.

_______________________ New CNF and FIM World Records Attempts announced for spring [

Miguel Losano will dive in Tulamben, Indonesia during 21st-27th of March in an attempt to beat the 121m free immersion world record established 5 years ago by William Trubridge. Almost simultaneously (19th23rd of March), on the other side of the world in the Bahamas, William Trubridge will also try to improve his own world records in both FIM and in CNF (101m achieved in 2010) ________________________________ Electronic certification cards The electronic certification cards (E-cards) are now available for all you students and instructors out-there! You can access them on your EOS account under the My certificates section as shown on the picture above Now you can get your certificate instantly and store it on your smartphone to have it always at hand. AIDAs intention is to go totally green with the certificates. Dropping the plastic cards is a statement about AIDA commitment to the environment and it also permits a better use of our Education Budget (all the education materials for the first levels have been completely renewed and we expect to have the last ones ready this year). As a consideration of places and cultures where the transition is more difficult ; we will continue to offer plastic cards as an option for a short time . We would like to count on your support to completely abandon the plastic as soon as possible.

________________________________ CNF incident investigation [

Organizing competitions was the reason AIDA was created in 1992. A few generations have already contributed to improving the competitions and developing our sport. To continue getting better, the first step is to analyze what goes wrong and share the info with all of you. From this perspective, we are informing you today that an underwater black-out is currently investigated by a work group lead by the AIDA Vice President Mario Zuzic and AIDA Medical Officer Kerry Hollowell. The incident happened during a CNF dive at a competition in the Philippines on the 31st of January. The preliminary information indicates a BO at 23m depth, the activation of the counter ballast system, and the intervention of the medical team to revive the athlete. We are now in the process of gathering all information applicable to improve the existing safety protocols and we will share the conclusions with you as soon as we finalise the investigation. ________________________________ February Board Meeting The Aida International Board met via Skype call on February 6, 2016. The first topic was presented by Petar Bojovic (judge responsible). Petar reported on the status of the judge points calculations and the reconfiguring, as dictated by the implementation of the new IOP. Milorad Vlajic ( admin. and IT specialist) is currently re-doing the points for all active Aida judges. It is a time consuming task and Petar estimates that the list of the points and the promotions of judge statuses will be ready in March. Due to the time requirements and effort for this work ; the Board voted to provide Milo a stipend to compensate him for his time and expertise in this project. Milo is also helping provide assistance to Jakob Galbavy ( website project director) . Vedran Milat ( treasurer) reported that the financial statements are being finalized by the auditors and will be presented to the Assembly for review in March. Vedran does not anticipate any issues with the statements. The next topic was presented by Jean-Pol Francois (Aida education officer) in regards to an incident which occurred at a competition in the Philippines. Jean-Pol explained that an athlete blacked- out underwater and was lifted to the surface via the counter-balance. The athlete was revived by the medics and taken to the shore, transferred to the hospital, and later released. Due to some questions regarding the safety procedure and the subsequent medical statement provided by the medic; it was determined that an investigation was

necessary. The investigation is being led by Mario Zuzic (vice-president) and Dr, Kerry Hollowell ( medical officer). Mario and Kerry have made preliminary evaluations and a report will be drafted with recommendations to improve safety procedures in an effort to avoid a recurrence of this type of accident. Safety is always the priority in all freediving activities and we must use these events as a way to learn and improve our procedures. Mario then updated the Board on the progress of the website and systems reconstruction. He is acting as the Board IT liason and is working with Jakob and Simo Kurra to resolve all the issues and return the site to full functionality. Jakob is working diligently to get everything working again as soon as possible and asks for patience, as we make these important improvements to our systems. Antero Joki ( technical officer) stated that the rules update is almost complete and will be presented to the Assembly for review later this year. Antero also said that due to the lengthy process of updating the rules; we will plan to have rules updates every other year. Antero also offered information on an insurance plan available for freedivers. Queries will be made to determine if the plan is desirable to our members. Ute Gessman ( sports officer) explained that she will be sending out the call for judges with Petar and announcing the wild card athletes for the World Championships. CarlaSue Hanson (president) commented on the two upcoming world record attempts in March. Carla expressed the need for Aida International to be more visible and promote the Aida brand and name. Carla and Alex Russu ( promo and marketing officer) will be working on a strategy to promote Aida and initiate a better communications and marketing plan. Alex is publishing newsletters and posting on social media as a first step in this plan. He is also working with the organizers of the 2016 World Championships . We will be posting the date of the next meeting on the Aida Facebook Page. Anyone who would like us to address a topic , answer a question, or help with a Aida related problem , please contact us . Cordially, CarlaSue Hanson On behalf of the Aida Board