BSAC operates at several levels (ignoring overseas franchises):
Branches. These are the local clubs which actually go diving. As a sideline, to maintain numbers, they train people. This training is mostly Ocean Diver, Sports Diver and Dive Leader but can extend up to CCR, boat handling, etc. The branches are run by an elected committee and almost completely independent of BSAC, have their own bank accounts etc. If they wanted to affiliate with SDI, the SAA or whoever then they can. Small branches might have a dozen members, larger ones a hundred or (maybe) two. Some own premises, boats, most have kit for trainees to borrow.
Regions. The country (and beyond...) is split up into several (half a dozen or so) large ‘Regions’. These are sort of of HQ outreach, but not quite There is a coach and a couple of people who organise training covering many branches. These courses (skills development courses or SDCs) are advertised on the BSAC website and open to any member of BSAC suitably qualified. Typically higher end training such as Trimix or CCR will be done at the region level. Also slightly more awkward parts of Dive Leader that work best with a larger group of students or Advanced Diver which is less common.
Instructor Training Scheme. This is essentially a cross region effort at training new instructors. In practice many of the same people are involved but it is more coordinated at the HQ level than regional events. Note that instructor grades are parallel to diving grades.
All the people involved above are unpaid volunteers. Many don’t get expenses.
HQ. There are a dozen or so paid employees in an office in NW England who run central operations. The key services they provide are issuing the qualifications, providing the training materials, marketing and taking money. They keep a database of members, run a website and provide advice. There is at least one full time employee to provide diving advice. Within the HQ umbrella there are various (unpaid volunteer) committees that actually decide what the policies of the club are, design the training and so forth.
There are also ‘Centres’ which are commercial dive schools. They are logically sort of like branches but actually the kind of Dive Op you will all be familiar with. There is a monthly magazine too.
Following the money....
Joe Blogs wants to learn to dive. He Googles a bit and finds bsac.com. There he uses a branch/centre finder to discover branches local to him. Maybe he looks at the web sites of the branches, ignores the ones last updated in 2018 and asks the tool to send off an enquiry.
Someone at the branch gets the enquiry and invites Joe along to an evening at the pool (branches typically hire an hour or two of pool time from a local authority or school on a weekly basis). Joe gets booked in for a try dive. Maybe a fee, say £10, is charged - this goes to branch. They will have used forms designed by HQ to try to have Joe sign his life away.
Joe thinks this is great and wants to learn with the branch. They sign him up via the BSAC HQ web site (formally a big book of forms provided by HQ). He pays an annual membership to HQ (about £60) and a monthly membership to the branch (£18.50 in our case - covers the pool, kit, loses on half empty boats etc). He buys the first level training materials (a couple of books and a folder for his training record) through the branch but from HQ for £40.
If lucky and enthusiastic, Joe turns up every week for 12 weeks and a couple of weekends and gets trained by instructors within the branch. Once signed of by the branch he receives a plastic card (paid for with the training materials) from HQ and they put his qualification in a database.
Each year for a couple of years Joe buys another set of materials (£30) and ticks off the training for another level. Maybe he finds all the instructors are concentrating on brand new divers (Grow You Club!) and he goes to a commercial Centre for a course, possibly on holiday in Malta, Spain or Egypt.
After a couple of years Joe decides he wants to be do shorter deco, maybe be less narked or do dives impractical with 15 and a pony etc. He wants to do accelerated deco, then trimix, CCR and so forth. Some branches can do these in house. Some not. Those that do may advertise them as regional SDCs to get worthwhile numbers. Say he does ADP with me. The materials are about £100 (HQ make you buy tables) there will the usual entry and gas costs. Maybe the diving happens on a trip to Scapa and there is no extra cost. Later Joe does CCR with South West Region. He borrows a AP CCR from HQ (£30 postage) and pays about £500 for materials, expenses etc to the region running the course. They are supposed to be just covering costs. When I did trimix my course fee included gas. People doing training for a region tend to be more concerned with expenses. If I am training someone I will dive with I don’t care. If the bloke from SW is running 8 trimix courses a year he will get poor quite quickly and probably never dive again with most of the students.
At some point the branch realises Joe is keen and sends him on the Instructor foundation Course run by the ITS team, then get him reaching in the pool, then on the Open Water Instructor Course to teach outside, then through the exams to have another full instructor. After that there is Advanced Instructor and First Class Diver if extremely keen.
