Hello everyone,

Our State Associations have done a power of work in settling budgets for the coming year, and further, negotiating with a myriad of stakeholders to do that. The State CEO’s have my sincere thanks for their wonderful efforts.

We acknowledge that during this difficult time, many of our members will be struggling financially, and as a result I am pleased to announce that across Australia, in every State, and in almost every membership category, fees will be significantly reduced for the 20/21 membership year.

As a collective group, we felt that a significant discount for the upcoming year was a better approach than looking at refunds for the last part of the year. We hope you will agree with that approach.

It is true to say that some membership categories in some States have not reduced, but in the main, for most of the larger membership categories and price points, there have been discounts of between 15% and 40% and in a couple of cases, well over 50%!

I am really grateful for the collaboration that the State Associations have brought to this project and am hopeful that we will see a lot of you back in the pool soon (if not already). The membership portal for the 20/21 year will open in late June and prior to then, you will be able to go through each State’s membership offerings as they are posted to the membership portal over the next week or so.

A couple of final things – DA wants to commemorate the challenges we have all faced and has arranged for a limited edition t-shirt to be posted out free of charge for the first 500 competitive diver and recreational diver members to sign up for the 20/21 year. More details on this t-shirt offer will be released ahead of the new membership year but we wanted to let you know we are finalising designs at the moment, and we think you will love them! (fingers crossed!) Also, there will be limited sizes which will be first in best dressed.

We have also put together an Activity Book (click here) for our younger members and we hope they will have some fun with completing the Book. In conjunction with our States, we have decided to run a competition with the Activity Book. This competition is open to:

• our younger competitive and recreational divers (only those turning 12 in 2020 and younger);
• that have rejoined or joined by 31 July 2020.

To enter, send your completed workbook to dive@diving.org.au by 31 July 2020. There will be one winner from each State (winners will be chosen by the relevant State Association and they are looking for the most creative and fun responses - oh and correct answers to the quizzes!) and winners will have theirs and their immediate families membership fees refunded, as well as a DA prize pack! So get going on the Activity Book and have fun!

Thank you all very much for your support of diving and we are all looking forward to hearing springboards bending and water being ripped.

As always, any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

David Bell

Chief Executive Officer

Diving Australia