Third Pole in the elite group of PADI!

Another edition of the Podwodna Przygoda diving fair is behind us. As every year, it abounded in new equipment, trip presentations, lectures, and above all in meetings – official and those a little less, which we always look forward to with impatience, and then remember with pleasure.

However, not everyone knows that the fair is also accompanied by a number of closed events dedicated to diving professionals. One of such events is the PADI Member Forum. It is a meeting for divemasters and diving instructors associated in the PADI organisation.

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The forum takes the form of a closed-to-the-public event where not only are current issues and changes in the organisation discussed, but there is also time and space to share experiences, discuss the latest research, standards and safety guidelines.

As every year, the most pleasant part were the distinctions and awards for people who work in a special way for the diving environment.

At this year’s PADI Member Forum such honours were awarded to PADI Course Directors (an instructor who can train other Instructors). To become one, you not only have to have skills at a very high level, but you also have to be environmentally conscious and, above all, have a lot of experience in teaching other divers.

Further teaching statuses are awarded by measuring, among other things, teaching activity. The “silver” status, or Silver Course Director, was awarded to Joanna Kannenberg and Igor Nicolaos. The only “platinum” status in 2018, i.e. Platinum Course Director, was awarded to Maciej Jurasz from H2O Poznan Diving Instructors Academy. He is, so far, the third Pole in history to earn such a distinction.

Maciej has conducted thousands of training programmes to date, with varying degrees of difficulty, and his dive centre, “Płetwal”, is the first dive centre in the history of Poznan with such a high status – PADI 5* IDC Dive Center.

The Course Director level is the highest teaching level in the PADI organisation, and in turn “platinum” is the highest possible status. To illustrate the scale of the difficulty of reaching such a level, it is worth quoting a few interesting facts. In the whole world there are about 1300 Course Directors in PADI, the organisation which unites the biggest number of divers. Of all of them, only a few dozen have Platinum Course Director status!

In order to obtain it, Maciej Jurasz has trained as many as 100 divers to professional grades over the past year and each such training is several days of very hard work, both for the instructor and the accompanying staff, as well as for the students themselves. It is worth mentioning that since the beginning of the H2O Diving Instructor Academy’s existence, Maciej has invariably maintained a 100% pass rate at international instructor exams. This testifies to the very high quality of his training

We would like to congratulate Joanna Kannenberg – PADI Silver Course Director, Igor Nicolaos – PADI Silver Course Director and Maciej Jurasz – PADI Platinum Course Director and wish him further success!

Photo: Irena Kosowska-Gilwatowska and Marcin Ożarek

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