Bermondsey BSAC committee meeting - 17th June 2015

Venue: Seven Islands Leisure Centre

In attendance: Pat, Teresa, Lee, Clive, Ken, Chris, Ross, Victor

Apologies: Colin

Chair: Pat

• Agreed that the club will buy 2 sets of regs. Ross/Lee to enquire at Amphibian [post-meeting note: James at Amphibian advised a £270 Oceanic reg set would be suitable, and includes parts for life].
• Training is going well. Ben and Vinay are to do a lake dive on 21/06/2015. Georgi, Miro and others should be ready for a lake dive in July. Swanage dives are booked for the 4 people who have signed up so far, and more students could join that trip. Sara is now qualified as an Ocean Diver.
• The club has seen a good proportion of try-divers joining the club to do their dive training.
• A new cohort of Ocean Diver trainees could start in late July. Victor to let recent try-divers know when they could start training.
• Try-dives are scheduled for 01/07/2015 and 08/07/2015. Another 2 people want to do a try-dive on 08/07/2015, but this may have to happen on 15/07/2015.
• For pool training, students need to be in the water at 9pm to avoid slippage in the training programme. This means kit assembly and briefings need to be done before 9pm. Students also need to arrive on time [post-meeting note: weekly emails will no longer mention 9pm starts for pool lessons, and will request students arrive at 8.30pm for briefing, changing and kit assembly]. Everyone in the club can assist instructors and help make sure that training starts at 9pm. If late starts continue we may need to designate a pool marshal who would be responsible for ensuring training starts on time.
• BSAC sent the club a certificate, confirming we were the branch (or one of the branches) to have achieved the third most new Open Water Diving Instructors in 2014. Well done, Ken!
• Weymouth trip in June still has 2 or 3 empty spaces, despite it being widely promoted. Ken has found 2 divers online.
• For the Poole weekend in July, Victor emailed skipper last year to confirm booking, but skipper never replied and was not chased. His group for that weekend has booked all spaces, and plans to dive to 60 metres. We would have had to have cancelled that trip anyway, with only 4 people signed up. Of those 4, only 1 expressed interest in an alternative trip, so nothing else has been organised.
• Shoreham day dive in July is now full.
• Weymouth trip in September could be suitable for newly-qualified divers.
• Agreed that standard charge for diving will be increased to £50/diver/day, as many skippers have increased their prices. Victor to update dive list.
• 2016 dive calendar discussed. Pat has prepared a list of neap weekends. South coast skippers aren’t likely to be taking 2016 bookings yet. Provisional plan agreed as follows:
• Red Sea – February half term.
• Scubafest – early May bank holiday.
• Pembrokeshire – late May bank holiday (Chris to organise).
• Lundy – possibly early July (Victor) [post-meeting note: this is more likely to happen in late July, and may be dependent on another club agreeing to take half the boat’s spaces].
• Plymouth – August bank holiday (Victor).
• Scapa Flow – already booked for October by Ken.
• Somewhere warm – late November, Malta and Cyprus were considered.
• There was disagreement regarding organising a Weymouth weekend. These trips have proved difficult to fill this year [post-meeting note: Pat, Clive and Lee subsequently discussed this in the pub, and a Weymouth trip is now provisionally planned for the weekend of 25-26/06/2016 – Pat to speak with Woody].
• Next meeting date to be confirmed, but likely to be 07 or 09/07/2015.