We were talking about changing our dive club's waiver system at a meeting last night and I wondered if anyone has any experience with this type of thing and what constitutes a valid waiver, etc. Ideally, of course, we want to protect the club from liability in case someone is injured on a club related excursion. Our waivers in the past have been done annually and we have required them to be notarized. My questions are as follows:
1) Does anyone know how long waivers last? We have had complaints that it is a pain to do them annually so we would like to relax that...is there anything wrong with doing them biannually? What about for the duration of membership (unless we change the waiver)?
2) The notarization issue..anyone see a point here? They started doing it long before I got there as a means to "show" that the person was cognizant since he/she had to take the waiver, fill it out, and then take it to get notarized. Is there a point to this?
3) Do these releases need to be area specific? What I mean is that since we are in DC, we have a broad membership from VA, MD, DC...anyone know if local differences in the law will necessitate different waivers?
4) Do we need a waiver for all members regardless if they plan to go on trips with us or not? If not, would we be liable if they came to a club meeting at a local restaurant and a ladder fell on them?
Thanks in advance for all your help!
1) Does anyone know how long waivers last? We have had complaints that it is a pain to do them annually so we would like to relax that...is there anything wrong with doing them biannually? What about for the duration of membership (unless we change the waiver)?
2) The notarization issue..anyone see a point here? They started doing it long before I got there as a means to "show" that the person was cognizant since he/she had to take the waiver, fill it out, and then take it to get notarized. Is there a point to this?
3) Do these releases need to be area specific? What I mean is that since we are in DC, we have a broad membership from VA, MD, DC...anyone know if local differences in the law will necessitate different waivers?
4) Do we need a waiver for all members regardless if they plan to go on trips with us or not? If not, would we be liable if they came to a club meeting at a local restaurant and a ladder fell on them?
Thanks in advance for all your help!