Affiliation question

[Don Wray]

Hi, I was wondering, if I decided to crossover to SSI and become affiliated with a local shop, and later find out the owner of the shop is a total ******* and I quit or am fired, what happens with my ability to teach? If the owner is well connected with SSI and black balls me, what happens? Can I teach?

[deco_martini]

In all honesty, if they could blackball people, then I doubt a certain local rival would be certified as an SSI Master Instructor as much as he bad mouths the shop McNeese founded before becoming an SSI honcho. That's about as tolerant as tolerant gets.

[clint@uniquescuba.com]

If you are teaching the SSI system through a shop and decide to part ways with that shop you will need to find another shop to teach through, or start teaching PADI or NAUI. This would not be an SSI thing unless you were teaching unethically or did something REALLY bad. If you just couldn't get along with, or came to hate the store owner I don't really think SSI would black ball you. I know the people at SSI very well and thats just not the way they run their business.

[Tom Smedley]

You would not be "blackballed" from SSI but you would be placed on inactive status and could not certify students until you affiliated with another SSI store. SSI does not allow independent instructors

Since you are out in the middle of the middle I seriously doubt that there is an SSI Facility in Sardis. If you affiliate with a shop say in Memphis and you fell out with them then you may be able to affiliate with a shop in Oxford or Tupelo or Pontotoc if there were one.

However, if there is a shop in Sardis they probably would not allow you to associate with a shop in say Grenada and bring competition to the local business. It would have to be on a case by case basis.

For a real answer contact your SSI Regional Representative. I believe you will be in South Central which is Eric Peterson's territory 512-392-0963.