Club vs. Shop training

[acwest]

I've seen this subject come up a few times, most recently in a thread comparing BSAC to PADI for training. I'm interested in the more general case. I have done most of my training with a scuba club (Etobicoke Underwater Club) in Toronto, Canada. There are a few clubs (at least 3 that I know of in the Toronto area) that train divers but have no shop affiliation. I know that in England they have BSAC, where this is the norm for training, although PADI is apparently making inroads there. At least one agency (SSI, I believe) requires their instructors to be affiliated with a shop, which is pretty much the opposite situation.
I am fairly sure that club training used to be a lot more common than it is now. I am rather curious as to how common it actually IS now, though. Are there still a lot of clubs that train divers? If not, why not? I suppose one limiting factor is that the instructors aren't paid, so it could be hard to find people willing to do it. In my experience in our club this hasn't been a problem, but that could just be us. We don't need to pay people to give blood, either
So what other scuba clubs that do training are out there?

 

[Phil_218]

I belong to a club which has at least one instructor in its membership. I know they've done classes with normal fees, but haven't heard of any class given for free other than Discover Scuba.

 

[String]

From what i can see most "clubs" in other countries are just extensions of a shop which offers commercial training so they're no more really than just customers of a shop meaning they pay for training etc.

Not aware of a proper club in the same category as BSAC,SAA,ScotSAC or anywhere abroad which are non-profit, have no shop ties and train for free (other than membership) so not sure the system works elsewhere.

 

[it_mike]

It used to be pretty common, falling to the exception now. I'm lucky and belong to a group with an instructor who offers courses for cost (books/c-card).

 

[Sas]

Locally to me shop clubs are more common but there are a fair few independent clubs. Some are BSAC but others are not affiliated with any agency or shop. Independent clubs seem to be heavily biased towards experienced divers I've noticed. I much prefer being in an independent club now, mainly because the people are not motivated by cash and there's training as well (BSAC club, haven't had a problem getting training so far either)... In shop clubs, even the good ones, I can't trust the people running it to give me completely non-biased advice about training/equipment/diving. Often they mean well, but they are still very biased and tend to let the fact they need to make a living from me, get in the way of recommending stuff that suits me the best.

 

[rstofer]

I am not aware of any recognized club training in the US. The thing about BSAC is that not only is the training internationally recognized, it is also first rate from what I have seen of their divers. It's just a completely different approach than in the US.

There are instructors in the US that are not affiliated with shops but, sooner or later, they need something. Rental gear, pool facilities or something that ties them back to the shop. Not all, but many.

Then there is the Los Angeles County program. AFAIK, it is the last of the truly independent operations since the YMCA got out of scuba. I understand the program is highly regarded and not among the 'short' programs. I would really like to have my grandson do their program at some point.

I'm not a great 'joiner'. I don't imagine I would care for the club approach. Not only that, it's expensive. At something over $100/year for membership, that's quite a hit. Sure, you get a lot for the money but if you don't like clubs, this might not be the best approach. If it were, PADI wouldn't be making inroads in BSAC territory.

I don't think you can get unbiased opinions about gear anywhere. Every diver is going to recommend the latest gear they bought and probably slam the gear they just sold or scrapped. It's the same in every hobby.

Richard

 

[snowflake4727]

I don't give blood for free. I do it for the orange juice.

 

[acwest]

Our club doesn't run quite the same as BSAC, I don't think. We charge $275 for a 10 week open water course, to cover expenses (mostly pool rental), which includes the first years membership in the club, then the annual membership is about $100 (I'm not sure exactly, and there are various discounts based on families, etc.) We do our certifications with ACUC, and there are a couple of other similar clubs that do them through NAUI, I think.
The annual membership isn't a bad deal, you get to use the clubs pool time, and we get some pretty good prices on charters as a group.

 

[300bar]

From what i can see most "clubs" in other countries are just extensions of a shop which offers commercial training so they're no more really than just customers of a shop meaning they pay for training etc.

Not aware of a proper club in the same category as BSAC,SAA,ScotSAC or anywhere abroad which are non-profit, have no shop ties and train for free (other than membership) so not sure the system works elsewhere.

Just not thrue,

Every country in the world has it's CMAS devision.
Dutch have the NOB
Belgium has the Nelos and the Belos
France has the FFSM (or something like it.)


They are all national org. like the BSAC.All local clubs are member of these local groups.

When I started diving in the early 80's I started out with NAUI,in those day's there where very few,if any NAUI or PADI schools in the Netherlands.
So I started with the local NOB/CMAS club training.
In those day's there was no way to crossover from one org. to the other, so We had to redo what we allready knew.
There where NO instructors,just trainers,members with more dives and experiance then other divers.They where the guy's who where teaching "diving"
Funny thing was we thought him the NAUI tricks,he NEVER heard of.

In these modern day's the NOB/CMAS traines instructors, they didn't do that in the "old" day's.
They had some guidelines that's it.

 

[bs63366]

The dive club that I am in is trying to get some training going on for the members. I am not sure how they are looking at adding this on. As for the fees for the clubs, I have no problems paying them b/c for example the club has tanks that they let us use. They also fill the tanks and keep them up as well i.e. all the inspections.