LIDS 2012 - Maybe LIDS lite would have been a better title...

A good number of the club membership went to the London International Dive Show this year but after speaking to most of them the general consensus seems to be that it was a little sparse.

If you didn't get a chance to go then take a look at the picture and see for yourself but there just seemed to be a lot of space between the stands and the stands themselves were very small.  After speaking to a few of the exhibitors it seems the cost for a stand has gone up quite a bit.

There were some good presentations going on, Mark Powell talking about Solo Diving, Paul Rose (yes the bloke from TV) talking about his diving life and then various others ranging from filming Crocodiles in the water to How to win Photography competitions.

We did meet the skipper from the Newhaven boat we've booked for a couple of trips this year and he seems a really nice guy and I think we all got some ideas for where we could potentially dive next year as well.

The Southern Region team very kindly put some of our cards out on their table and quite a few went which is always a good sign.

There were a few bargains to be had and some of our newer members took advantage but after the success of the Big Scuba Show last year it just didn't seem to stand up.

What did you think?

Buckland or Bust! - 24th March

by Victor Grayson
Following on from last week’s training day at Holborough Lakes, today the club ventured out to another Kent dive site – Buckland Lake, near Cliffe. 14 of us – including 6 who have joined the club in the last year – arrived early for a day of training, testing kit and getting a few shake-down dives logged, ready for the start of the dive season.

The morning fog disappeared not long after we arrived, and the sun was blazing by the time everyone finished their first dip. Most reported a good dive – better visibility and slightly warmer water than last week, more Ocean Diver skills completed, and interesting things to see underwater (although the famous shark was away being repaired, apparently). Lee and Chris logged the longest dive of the day at an impressive 41 minutes, despite Chris being (but not freezing) in a wetsuit. Dave and Joe found a mysterious new gelatinous species in the bottom of the lake. Brett continued his foray into documentary filmmaking, and Maggie made the surface all fizzy with her free-flowing regulator, before sensibly terminating the dive.

Buckland Lake has a raised decking area with picnic tables which – being south-facing – proved to be a real sun trap, and pleasant enough for sunbathing (in March!). During our surface interval, divers made use of the tea-and-burger van, ate not-space cakes, and gave the resident dog a tummy rub.

The second dive was shorter for most of us, but also enjoyable. After packing up, we were ready and gone before 3pm, with one dry diver making use of the sunny afternoon to explore Cliffe Pools and the Saxon Shore Way nearby. Buckland Lakes is a decent dive site – easy to get to from southeast London, well organised with numbered kitting-up benches for each club, a clear briefing, and enough space. Kit hire seemed steep, and there’s a downhill/uphill walk between the car park and lake, but trolleys made this easier.

 
And so - next week Shoreham! Our first trip to the seaside this year!

Holborough Lake - 17 March 2012

By Pat Connelly and Mariette Ferreira
The great bit about cold water diving is it makes you appreciate how warm a drizzly day in March in the UK really is once you get out of the water.

With this in mind 12 hardy souls gathered at the lake at 9am for a morning of character building training and kit testing; whilst everyone was kitting up those with dry suits explained to those in wetsuits the water would be warm enough to take your breath away. The computer as well as various body parts confirmed it was a refreshing 8 degrees.

Colin who turned up with a note from himself claiming to have a cold was pressed into keeping the dive log and duly noted everyone’s times and declared he would be on the next one.   

There were a number of other divers at the lake and we were the second group in.  Fortunately the visibility was not bad provided you kept off the muddy bottom and our divers in there pairs began a tour of the lakes attractions.  These included several small boats, a transit van, some large tyres and a couple of training platforms which were used for various training exercises.

The conclusions from the first dive were that Peter now thinks the pool is warm; Richard is looking up the ‘How to fix leaks in Joe’s old suit’ course whilst everyone else appreciated the cuppa the dive centre rushes into your hands as you come out of the water

After a break for refreshments the second dive was conducted repeating the tour and completing further training concluding a successful first outing of the season.

-     Clive & Jane - Clive was a little rusty, but Jane luckily had a tube of KY handy. She sorted him out!  

-     Steve & Richard - Went well. Richard was comfortable and competent in the water, but could probably work on his kit-up time.

-     Victor & Pat - Victor practiced DSMB deployment and distance line use, which both went well.  Victor was appointed as Assistant DM and efficiently delegated all his duties to Colin. Future Club Chairman in the making!

-     Lars & Peter - a few unplanned surface intervals, but went well overall. All skills for OO1 and OO2 completed comfortably. Also did AS and CBL.

-     Mariette, Grant & Brett - Grant was very comfortable in the water with good buoyancy control. All skills for OO1 and OO2 completed successfully.

-     Colin - had a cold so couldn't dive, but helped with surface cover.

We have another session booked for 24 March at Buckland for anyone needing open water training or would just to like a shake down dive before we start diving for the year to make sure all you kit still works.

Committee Meeting Notes - 8 March

We had another Committee Meeting on 8th March and the following points and actions were discussed:

- A Dive Manager's Pack containing details relevant to the dive and the club phone will be put together - to be circulated to each dive's DM 

- Dive Managers will be appointed now for the rest of the season based on the dive list to give members visibility in advance

- All members should contact the club phone the evening before a dive to find out whether the dive is still on. The DM will keep the club phone. Club phone number: 07518398845

- The website has been updated with Hints & Tips, Training Schedule, updated joining fees, new committee details and updated Dive Schedule (thanks Brett!!)

- Dive list for first dive of the season (Shoreham - April 1st) was reviewed

- Attendees and instructor support for the open water inland dives in March (17th & 24th) were discussed

- James from our favourite dive shop, Amphibian, was invited to join us one Wednesday evening to show off some of his new kit and to give new members the opportunity to ask questions and get advice about kit. Wednesday 11 April has been provisionally agreed for him to come down

As always, if you have any questions, concerns, ideas or offers of support (always welcome!), please get in touch with any member of the committee.

LDC Lectures at the Royal Geographical Society

Clive organised some tickets for us to spend the evening at the London Dive Chamber lectures at the Royal Geographical Society.  This evening’s speakers were Rick Stanton (world record cave diver) and Monty Halls (TV presenter and all-round nice guy). 

Although a couple of us had seen Rick Stanton before a couple of years ago at DIVERSE his talk was still very interesting and went over the further diving he has done in the Pozo Azul cave system in Spain.  With a cave dive of almost 10,000 m it’s pretty impressive although most of the club decided they wouldn’t sign up for the trip just yet.

Monty gave us a brief overview of his presenting gig on the BBC production ‘The Great Barrier Reef’.  This was a really entertaining presentation as all of Monty’s are and the bloopers reel at the end was a real giggle.  He followed it with a few pictures and a taster on his latest job working as a Cornish fisherman for 6 months which is due to be on TV soon.  This looks to be a great insight into the small boat fishermen on the Cornish coast.  One to look out for.

These evenings have always been in support of the ScubaTrust, helping divers with disabilities and we got a chance to hear from Barry, a tetraplegic who learnt to dive with Scuba Trust and we even got to see a short film of Barry diving in the Red Sea which really goes to show the great work that the Scuba Trust.  Following on  the back of our Try-Dives with Aspire this really goes to show how we can help to make a difference.

All in all a great evening followed by a beer at a local establishment before catching the train home.

Bermondsey AGM – 1st February

Apologies for absence from members.

Chairman’s Opening Remarks

• Talked about our Try-Dive with Aspire
• Discussed our attempts to forge links with FUSION about publicising the club
• Also discussed that when emails come out to the membership that it would be useful to get some kind of response even if it is a no, just to know that people have got the email

Diving Officers Report

• Talked about last year’s dive schedule
• Joint dives with DAGSAC and noted that there are 2 joint dives at Brighton carried over from last year
• There is also a deposit from the cancelled Dover dive that still needs to be refunded to us
• We’re diving some different dive sites this year, Shoreham, Salcombe, Swanage training weekends

Training Officers Report

• It’s been a good year with plenty of training going on both lectures and practicals
• TO reminded all trainees that if lectures and practicals are arranged for them then they need to attend or at least let people know if they are not coming
• The training schedule will be set up within the next couple of weeks and the training records will be available on the internet so that members and instructors can check the lectures and practicals they require
• The club have also been quite lucky with instructors helping out  with training and hope this will continue for the next year

Membership Secretary Report

• Club are now approaching 44 members, 30+ active divers which means that we are doing well but need to keep up the momentum
• Due to the increase in member numbers we need to be a lot better at look after members data and as such on all club related emails from now on only the committee email addresses will be shown and all others  hidden.  This is to safeguard your information and also should cut down on the number of one word emails that bounce around sometimes.
• If any member wants to contact the club then they should email a committee member and they will forward it out to the club distribution list.
• The club will be following the BSAC guide lines for Data Protection.

Equipment Officers Report

• Currently have 6 complete sets of kit along with a BC and regulator but no gauge or octopus.  This has been down to a number of members selling or donating kit to the club
• Any members with spare kit that they no longer require and would like to donate please contact the equipment officer.
• As part of our commitment to training and member safety, all the club kit will go in for servicing, although it will be staggered to allow for training to continue.

Treasurers Report

• With the increase in members our financial situation is better than it has been in recent years.
• The pool hire is going to be increasing sometime soon although with the current membership this should be manageable so club subs will stay at the same level for this year.
• As with last year we will not be rolling over any deposits with skippers so that at the end of each season we have all monies in the branch.

Nominations and Elections

• There were a number of nominations for the committee this year but after all the votes were counted the only change was in the Training team where Brett became Training Officer and Clive became Assistant Training Officer.

After thanks to Teresa for the use of her Hall we retired to the Queen Vic for a post-meeting pint.

Try Dive with Aspire

So we managed to get through our first Try-Dive with Aspire without losing anyone and judging by the write up on their website we did quite a good job.

There were so definete points of improvement but once we got started it really went well.

Hopefully we'll be able to make a diffrence to some people and if it gets them into diving as well them its all good.

The aspire write up can be found here Aspire Write Up and below are some of the comments that got forwarded through to us from the staff at Aspire.

'Scuba - diving was awesome, great way to have a first go - there are lot's of people who I think would be up for trying it.'

'Thanks very much for the opportunity yesterday, it was good to experience how the equipment feels, I did find the breathing a little strange but think I could get used to it. I think it would be great to have a longer session and maybe even run one of the first courses available perhaps over a day or weekend.'

'Thankyou for the experience.. was wicked.. I woulda stayed there hours if had had the time.... BRILLIANT...'

'Thanks for organising the Scuba session! It was excellent and I hope to do some more... maybe in Egypt next time!'