March to April 2009

Inside this Issue

1. Message from diver Dicky

2. 2009 Diving

3. Sunday Nights

4. Pool Rota

5. Diving Medicals

6. Social / Upcoming Events

7. Blondisms

8. Octopush

9. Diver reports

10. Pool Costs

11. Marc’s Training Update & Latest Qualifications

12. Website

1. Message from Diver Dicky

Only the one club dive occurred during two of the peak diving months. Is anyone else doing some diving? You only have to write a few words similar to what goes in a dive log – when, where and what you saw – was it any good?  Don’t worry too much about content and grammar, it can be jazzed up! It is edited and proof read by Karen’s mum before issue anyway.
Cheers Diver Dicky

2. 2009 Diving

Location	Boat	Date	Dive Opens
Weymouth	XDream	11-12th July	1st January
Scillys	Evert	12-14th Sept	1st January

3. Sunday Nights

Pool session (8-9pm), then drinks 9.15 ish in the bowling club (behind pool). Meet other club members, all are welcome and we hardly talk about diving! Lectures held in the same place before pool sessions.

4. Pool Rota

Thanks to all who do the pool rota – collecting pool fees and acting as dry / pool side supervision. PLEASE try to make your turn so people don’t miss out on a swim because they have to do the pool rota. If you can’t do it let someone know. No texting facility at the mo so we have to resort to a list and email – so more responsibility for making a note of your turn.

5. Diving Medical Certificate

Club rule – everyone supplies one to Peter (Memberships) prior to going on a club dive. Either done as a self cert, with your G.P, or a dive doctor. Any yes’s on a self cert and you need a proper dive medical. Try Doctor Dave Rogers 01277 373974 in Brentwood (was £50 – 2008).

6. Social and Upcoming Events

4 July 2009 HSD Saturday night out – Curry night at the bowling club.
A group of us mainly ex members and spouses went to the bowling club for a free chicken curry night. An enjoyable evening with background music videos showing hits from 70’s and 80’s – the good ole days. The food was very nice said Spikey after his 4th or was it 5th bowl. Our chairman was seen strutting his finest Michael Jackson / Bee Gees moves on the dance floor and the ‘one more beer for the road’ seemed to last for ages especially when the evening culminated in a Rod Stewart sing along.

22 July 2009 Docklands Sailing
A small group of us went to Docklands Sailing club for a twilight sailing event. We eventually got kitted out and more or less rigged our own boats before taking to the water. Quite a blustery evening so some good speed was to be had at times. There were a few capsized boats but fortunately we all stayed dry although Phil nearly had a you’ve been framed moment when exiting the boat on the dock.

An enjoyable evening but Julie must realise that sailing boats are not bumper boats. There was a great fishy bbq afterwards and a few beers overlooking the dock. The night was cut short due to a power cut in the region so a quick dash back to Hornchurch to Wetherspoons for the obligatory one for the road.

7. Blondisms

From Weymouth, apparently someone sent up an SMB without attaching their reel!

8. Octopush

After the last match I decided there was too much ‘moving of the goal posts’ so I have made some!  I know you are all dying to see what they look like. A new game to be arranged soon.

9. Dive reports

Stoney Cove – nothing received

10-12 July 2009 Weymouth
Not a fab weekend for diving as the weather restricted which dive sites  we could dive, so we had dives around the outside of the harbour.
Poor Rebecca was not allowed in to the Spoons as she had no I.D. and after a wasted trip back to the B&B to obtain something suitable she still got turned away. She was vaguely heard questioning the bouncer’s parentage. Selena notched up her 100th dive – congrats – drinks on Selena. Funniest moment was Arthur falling asleep on the sofa at his B&B as he was locked out of the room – see separate report.

On Saturday we dived on a scallop bed and came up with a few goody bags crammed with them. This was followed by a dive on the dredger wreck on the outside of the harbour wall. Not much to say about this wreck as there is not a lot there. Some long dives though, in relatively shallow water. On Sunday we couldn’t get round Portland Bill as it was too rough so ended up doing a drift along another scallop bed and on this dive allegedly The Dog found one of Black Beards cannon balls but it was too heavy to lift. Shame no one else witnessed it! A distinct lack of fish on these inshore dives.

Arthur commented the viz was naff but the pies were worth going on the dive boat for. Re blondism above, apparently the reel parted company with the SMB as the knot came undone.

Sunday 26 July 2009 Leybourne (by Gary Neal)

Gary, Terry, Ian, Matt and Adam started off their sports diver training, weather was good and despite being very busy the viz was 5 metres on first dive and 2 to 3 metres on the second dive. We completed DSMB work and diver rescue training. Hoping to arrange a visit to Stoney Cove soon.

10. The Pool – Covering the Costs

I mentioned before that the club’s biggest expense in the last newsletter. £50p.w. is equivalent to 25+ people in the pool and how often does that occur? Since then, we had 3 weeks with a total of 48 try dives helping towards the pool costs. Ways of increasing pool income are – diver/student training, rescue skills review, testing kit, practicing skills, swimming (not everyone’s cup of tea), octopush (hooray!) and TRY DIVES.

TRY DIVES (£15 for a full 1 hour or £10 for ½ hour) are the best way to help cover the pool costs. So if you know of anyone young or old, a group, a club or an organization who might want to try scuba diving then let me know. Our instructors and assistants get satisfaction out of seeing someone try something new and really enjoy it so it’s a two way thing as well.

The last try dives were scouts so hopefully this demonstrates who we can cater for, usually 8 at a time (16 in one night) larger groups can be split over 2 or more weeks.

11. Marc’s training update and latest qualifications

We have three new members starting their ocean diver training. They are Becks, Adem and Tim.
Sports Diver Students are continuing with their training and Derek, Becca,  Paul and Peter starting Dive Leader training. We are looking at a sea training dive in early October.

12. The Clubs Website

The new website is up and running although is being tweaked constantly check it out!