- Messages
- 540
- Reaction score
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- # of dives
- I just don't log dives
dward,
This doesn't prove anything, one "kind of" accurately reported year doesn't forgive the many others that are spun up for "the good of the club". Training is great, but some people do get off playing Alpha male over just ordinary people that enjoy doing a very safe sport. But others hit a ceiling due to the calls made by the executive as all types of associations/corporations end up being run by a handful of people who call the shots and choose who "they" want to ascend in the ranks. Non-conformist/libertarian type personalities have a hard time in such environments, it take the fun out of it......
Here's some criticism aimed at BSAC by one of their own who really knows the score too well...... Diving Rant
From Nigel Hewitt's blog- I like his solo diving piece on the blog.
"BSAC
This is based on something I posted to the "Change one thing" thread in the BSAC forum.
It tries to describe a problem in the way the British Sub-Aqua Club works in practice.
Now I admit I'm a BSAC fan and I think we do a lot of things well but this is an area where what we used to do needs leaving behind.
I am discriminated against in the BSAC system because I am not a loud person. That is I will not push myself to the front. I certainly will not push myself in front of somebody else.
To paraphrase a quote in a forum thread: you "Hand hold OD trainees, lead SDs, expect DLs to run a bit of their own training but for AD they're on their own".
This selects for a certain personality type in the higher grades and it is a type that thinks it obvious that if you aren't like them you aren't Dive Leader material. To them it is obvious that to be AD or such you need that sort of 'stand up for yourself' aggression and they can't see why it should be otherwise. Think assertive. Think military. Think 'getting things done'.
I have to question this.
This type of personality selection closes the doors to a good percentage of our members and these are the type of person who are choosing to do the new look 'hobby' diving rather than the old 'hero' diving. People aren't coming into scuba now 'to boldly go' but because it looks a lot of fun. These should be the people that will rise up and run our trips and run our branches but the current system tends to drop them at SD so that's where they stick. Divers but not dive organisers.
Many will have good jobs and good organisational skills because diving tends to appeal to that type. They will slide into the non-diving committee positions and we run the risk of having well organised, well financed branches but no ADs, no AIs, no FCDs etc. Our diving will become increasingly segregated into the mundane club dives while the teckies, like myself, are going out and doing specialist stuff outside of BSAC and the training is reduced to just accepting crossovers.
We need to beware of characterising our divers with an out of date model. If you want something done in my office it goes, not to rufty tufty Don with his military 'make things happen' ethos but to sweet little Pauline who finds out, works out, arranges and then makes sure it is happening. How is a diving club and dive planning different from that? The distinction is subtle however because Don will pester me for something he wants but Pauline won't. Similarly I will not force my branch to use my ADI nor to finish my DL. I'm an old enough diver with other qualifications that it doesn't really matter either to them or to me as it doesn't restrict my diving. However what about the new people coming through? We don't have a big pool of ADs to draw from so our DO had better look after himself and not get promoted or offered a big rise to go and work somewhere with less silt in the sea. (I wrote this before we elected a DL to the post in a one candidate election).
I've had problems with DL, the stories I've heard of AD imply it is even harder to get the training and the approvals, the rumours of FCD imply it is almost deliberately made impossible to accomplish even before you pick up a manual or zip up your suit. If that is the policy can it be stated and monitored so everybody gets the approved amount of grief? If not can it be changed?"
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I did hear bsac no longer offer dive insurance anyhow and in anycase, both Australia and Britain offer full medical assistance and a welfare safety net- who can afford life insurance, even if you don't dive(I know I can't, it would mean I can't afford to dive so regularly as I do).
Save the premium and do a family trust/invest fund you see most people way ahead in the long run; enough rich financial sector people as it is....but english people wouldn't like that seeing 25% of the british gdp is derived from bank and insurance "schemes".
Here in Australia most deaths are newbies, tech divers or heart attacks/strokes and the vast majority are buddy pairs. we have around 9 deaths/anno. and it's ranks as a very safe sport statistical, the difference is if you play ol boys rugby and die of a heart attack, they write it up as a heart attack not a rugby death.
We'll got checkout some time, lets not make doing things a right pain in the arse! Obesity is far more dangerous then scuba diving.
Billy no-mates' solo diver,
Damo' ps- the vast majority of my diving is 5 to 15m depth, all the best photo's happen there!
