Ready for Aida president?

It seems that situation changes has been changed so I will publish this information again (it seems not to be even outdated :). I´m still not capable to see any Assembly emails as I do not belong in the Aida Finland board anymore (since 2007). My goals was fulfilled when I had a honor to see that our freediving organization runs smoothly along with Finnish Diver´s Federation and when I found excellent replacements for me 2006: Simo Kurra (current president of Aida Finland) and Kalle Rajala (Chairman of the Freediving Team of Finland). Since then I have been focusing more on freediving training and finalizing our Finnish freediving book. I have also had an opportunity to visit as a judge in some Aida competitions where I have spent my free time for taking some freediving pictures.

At the beginning I add here my tiny application what I sent for Aida Assembly some time ago:

“Hello Assembly members,

As some freedivers has been requested this from me for a while. I´m also available for the president of Aida task now.

Name: Kimmo Lahtinen
Nationality: Finnish
Born: 030866

Profession:
- Physioterapist 1989-1998
- At IT sector since 1998
- Now Application Service Manager in Tieto Corporation (www.tieto.com)

Diving background:
- CMAS * diver 1987
- Finnish navy diver 1990 (clearance and combat diver)
- CMAS M2 scuba instructor 1992 -
- Finnish Diver´s Federation (http://www.sukeltaja.fi/content.php?t1=eng&t2=eng_index) Freediving Committee Chairman 2003-2006 (Finnish Diver´s Federation has 12 000 members and about 250 clubs and it is the biggest of the Nordic diving federations)
- Finnish Diver´s Federation Freediving Committee member 2007
- Finnish Diver´s Federation Technical Committee member 2008-
- President of Aida Finland 2002-2006
- Aida International, freediving judge (level BC) 2004-
- Aida International, master instructor 2004-
- Aida International, Education Commission 2005-2009
- Aida International, Disciplinary Commission secretary 2005-2006, member 2009-

Other experience:
- As an AIDA judge, in several world championships, WR-attempts and national level events, and has a good reputation as a judge
- In the AIDA EC has been ramping up and developing the whole education system as it is today and has had a big role in it
- I was an integral part of bringing freediving to Finland in the first place, worked as president of AIDA Finland for several years. I also originally created and executed the idea to unify Finnish Aida to the Finnish Diver’s federation - a unique model in the world which also other Nordic countries are starting to adopt.

Goals for Aida:

General:
- Aida makes it´s visibility thru the competitions and record attempts and creates freedivers thru the Aida freediving education. So these are the basic pillars of the Aida
- Aida is lacking now on efficiency and transparency and these areas needs to be fixed together. Efficiency needs some new ways to work (make a documented plan - execute it - and make a follow up). This work should be possible to share with the people together with the responsibility. And execution part needs a good plan which is based on some agreed budget. All these vital parts are missing at the moment.

1st priority tasks:
- Solve the current problems inside Aida by creating proper communications at every levels from a freediver to the board (needs a tiny skilled volunteer technical team to execute this plan in co-operation with media officer)
- Create transparency for Aida thru the communications 
- Help to ramp up the new Technical committee. Their 1st priority it is to fix the current rules
- Help to create open, honest and fair atmosphere inside the committees
- Help to build up new working models inside the committees

My personal goal is try to help Aida back on its feet again and help to find good persons and co-operation for Aida international to run it for the future. I do not need this responsibility but I can promise to do my best to work for this challenging goal.

Best regards,

Kimmo Lahtinen, Aida Finland”



So pls feel free to ask me anything you want: about me, about freediving, about almost anything. I will try to do my best to answer your questions. I do not care who will be selected for Aida president as I believe that Bill and Panos are excellent and experienced qqchoices. Only thing I hope is that we will have a better and more effective Aida in the future, with more transparency. Least me I´m missing these important things.
So the chat has been opened. ☺

- kimmo