A New Years Message

Welcome to 2011!!! 

Here at Unified Team Diving’s headquarters we want to wish you all a Happy New Year and a very successful 2011. I personally want to thank all our instructors, students, divers and the diving community at large for their generous support in making 2010 one of the most successful years in terms of growth and exploration of various realms of Scuba Diving for UTD. With that said, in this 2011 New Years message, I wanted to give a broad global perspective of where UTD is headed in 2011 and what new and exciting things you can expect from us. We are growing in many ways - education, community, and equipment.

First and foremost, I wanted to mention our 2011 Membership Drive, as without your continued support for UTD, we would simply not exist. Over the next few weeks you will be receiving a letter from us about all of the benefits of belonging to UTD and about how to renew your membership. Keep in mind that this is the first year we are introducing auto renewing membership, which is a great way to ensure you stay a member and keep your benefits without having to remember to renew.  

In 2011 we will continue to have 3 levels of membership: Standard - $39.95, Premium - $69.95 and Platinum - $999.95 and below I have listed just some of the “new” features that we are introducing to the various levels of membership. To see all the benefits please visit our renewal page link I have provided. 

http://www.unifiedteamdiving.com/page/membership-and-renewals

New and Renewal Membership Benefits.

1. Receive a new 2011 key chain listing your highest UTD certification. These keychains cards are fantastic as they simply go with your car keys and are always handy when getting fills at your local dive shop.
2. FREE online video of your choice . We currently offer 6 to choose from - Essentials of recreational / technical / overhead/ rebreather or Technical Diver or Scooter Diver. 
3. Our NEW UTD Diver Certification and Registration Portal - Coming in the first quarter of 2011. Here you will be able to manage and update your personal training information - from your student registration information, to your medical history, to your wavier and releases. You can also manage your UTD certification levels, get information on certification dates, download temporary certification cards (in needed), review your evaluations from various classes as well as the instructors you have evaluated, see and maintain all of your purchased online classes and DVD’s, as well as your membership activities. The online classes you’ve purchased are yours for life and can be accessed indefinitely, but as a UTD member you will have an administrative portal to manage these purchases and so on.  
4. Access to the UTD members only group which has information, articles and other benefits that are not available to the community at large. 
5. As a UTD Premier and Platinum Members you will receive a one time 10% discount coupon for purchasing equipment thru the UTD Equipment store. 

These are just a few of the new benefits you will receive as a UTD member. UTD membership renews annually, so the sooner you sign up or renew your membership, the sooner you can take advantage for the 2011 benefits. 

On the Unified Team Diving Training front we have a lot of exciting things happing. In 2010 we introduced all of our materials in Italian. In 2011 it is our goal to finish Spanish, French and Korean, and start on German. Therefore, by the end of 2011 all UTD materials will be available in 5 languages. We very much welcome the opportunity to work with anyone wishing to help expand the materials into their language, with a very nice way to be compensated for your efforts. Please contact Jeff, atjeff@unifiedteamdiving.com if you are interested. 

Everyone knows the heart of UTD is the quality of the instructor core. With that in mind, we have decided to limit the growth of the UTD Instructor base, as the requests for instructorship in 2010 was overwhelming. We still want to insure diversification within the instructor experience but we are limiting the number of instructors we develop worldwide in 2011 to only 36. With that be said, we have already interviewed and accepted into the instructor program more than half that number, so space is becoming very limited. So, if you are an interested, it would be best to contact us as soon as possible to schedule an interview and get on the roster.  

We are also introducing a range of new programs, including the Essentials of Scientific Diver program. We worked very closely with some very prominent people in the industry to develop this program specifically geared towards helping divers prepare for a College Scientific Diver program or to be able to work or volunteer at their local aquarium. This is an exciting new step for UTD and is the first of many programs that we will start providing to be used within the “Working” diver community. 

Another fantastic new addition to the 2011 class line-up is the Side Mount Diving class structure. Information about the new programs can be found in the new Standards and Procedures which were published January 2011. There you will find the Essentials of Recreational Side-Mount Diving, which is geared towards using a single Side Mounted Tank in your recreational diving. The next class would be the Essentials of Technical Side-Mount Diving, which would keep the consistency from the single tank setup but allow the diver to add a second stage and/or multiple deco bottles. These programs are designed to cross over the divers from back mount to side mount at their current level of certification. UTD does allow a divers to take the next level of training in Side Mount configuration provided they are side mount trained at their current level and have some experience diving at that level. We are also offering the Essentials of Cave Side-Mount Diving and the Side-Mount Cave 3 level course as classes which allow you to use side mount in the overhead environments. These classes and materials - online classroom materials, DVD, workbooks and so on  - are scheduled for release the second quarter of 2011.

These are only a few of the new and exciting things coming up in the training department in the 2011 year. As far as Equipment we have a lot of new things on the horizon as well as expanding on the current versions. 

Let’s start by looking at the MX SERIES mCCR Rebreather. It has always been our goal to not only configure an existing Closed Circuit Rebreather into the the UTD/DIR MX configuration, making mixed team diving possible (CCR, pSCR and open circuit divers are all now capable of diving within a unified team), but more importantly to create a configuration the will unify the variety of manufacturers rebreathers into a single style configuration so that divers can now have a choice of brand of CCR rebreather, yet they can configure and dive as a Unified Team. 

We started out configuring the Megladon rebreather in 2009 to fit within the UTD/DIR configuration, then we set our sights on a different manufacturer and developed the Hammer Head configuration to meet the requirements of the MX series. Then in late 2010 and going forward we worked closely with the KISS rebreather manufacturer and become factory trained and certified to sell, teach and make instructors to use their KISS Classic rebreather in the MX configuration. So now you can choose a manufacturer, have it configured into the MX Series configuration, and receive training from UTD or become an Instructor for UTD to teach the MX Configuration. We have not excluded the Meg or HH, our goal as a training agency is to provide a consistent configuration and approach to teaching CCR Rebreathers and building them into our exploration. 

We have also developed and released the new Z-System - recreational version - in the later half of 2010. This is a side mount equipment configuration which keeps side mount divers consistent within their configuration and allows you to dive seamlessly with UTD/DIR divers in traditional back mount configuration. This system was not only designed to be consistent, but also scalable to all levels of diving and allow for easy mixed team diving. As you can well imagine, we designed this system from a variety of resources - side mount diving, pSCR rebreather diving, commercial diving, and so on. This system was designed to be consistent and scalable to allow divers to place the tanks and/or rebreathers on their side - side mount - and yet still stay within the UTD/DIR equipment philosophy. We released the 20lbs/9kg lift trim device and a 40lbs/18kg version will be coming in 2011, along with the other configurations including technical side-mount, rebreather side mount, and cave side mount. Along with the equipment, you’ll see UTD releasing the side mount educational programs, so divers can be safely trained to side mount and use the Z-System. 

Last but not least, you will see a continued push of the UTD Adventures. This is a really important aspect for both UTD, our Instructor and you the diving community. Getting out and diving in the environment for which you trained should be priority number one after you class. We see UTD Adventures as an avenue that we believe can provide a resource that you can join other like minded divers in diving some very unique adventures. Stay tuned for our full roster of adventures in 2011 .

This is just a brief view of all the new and exciting things we have coming in 2011. We look forward to your continued support and hope to see you one either diving, in a class or online in one of our online classrooms. 

Andrew Georgitsis

Unified Team Diving