newdiverAZ once bubbled...
are you implying that you set this up for me?
seems to me it was set up to pad someone's pocket, hence the reason so many have lost interest?
Seems some feel dir is not only the right way to dive it is the right way to make money too. Hmm isn't that what padi takes all the flack about?
Let me see if I can address some of the concerns, since I disagree with your premise. Let me start off by saying that I'm a partner in a Business Management firm in Beverly HIlls, and just for point of reference my billing rate to my clients is $250 per hour. Obviously I don't take home that much, but the point is that every Friday that I miss work it's 8 billable hours out of the office, multiply that by almost every Friday that I miss work to travel to different locations and you can see that my firm is loosing quit a bit of money, as am I personally, to bring DIR to locations that would otherwise have no access to the class..
The class generally begins at 7:00pm on Friday evening and ends at 11:00pm. That's 4 hours on Friday. Saturday begins at 8:00am and goes until 11:00pm, so that's 15 hours, and Sunday begins at 8:00am and goes until approx. 4:00pm, that's another 8 hours. That's 27 hours of instruction, coupled with normally a 10 hour commute. For example, last weekend in Gilboa I left my house Friday morning at 4:00am, to get a 6:00am flight. We landed at 4:00, traveled to the class and lectured to 11:00 Friday evening. I left Sunday evening at 8:00pm and didn't get home until 1:00am, and then went to work Monday morning..
In other words, in addition to 27 hours of class time, there is travel time.. If you think that 27 hours of instructor time isn't worth $200 per student then, with all due respect, I don't think this class is for you. We work very hard and put our heart and soul into every class we teach. Moreover, when we travel to a foreign city we try as hard as possible to help the local dive shops get a first hand look at DIR. Many know nothing other then what they read on the internet, and as we all know most of that isn't accurate. So if a local shop wants to tack on a fee for overhead, I see no problem with that. Like any business, shop owners are there to make money and I don't think the fee that this shop charged is out of line.
Furthermore, as a businessman for a living, I'm very cognizant of return on investment. My video camera cost $1,700, the housing was another $2,000+, the projector was another $2,500, the laptop another $1,500 notwithstanding the time, effort and expense of going through the GUE internship and ITC.. We try as hard as we can to provide value to our students and I simply don't think that a $200 per student fee, plus a variety of expenses constitutes an outrageous "padding of pockets"..
I do agree that it is a value assessement that every potential student needs to make on their own, hopefully when a student makes a commitment to take our class they receive what they expect. I'll allow other's to make their own comments in that regard, but Andrew and I have a policy that says that if you take our class and can honestly say that you haven't learned anything we will refund every penny of your money. Our goal isn't to "pad our pockets" [ trust me on that one], it's to help build and grow GUE and we wouldn't be growing if we didn't provide value to our students..
Hope that helps speak to the issue, but I'd be happy to follow up if you still have questions.
Later
It constantly surprises me when people make a conscious decision to be cheap about dive instruction. Hmph 
