carolinadivebabe
New
Hello. I'm new to this site, and relatively new to diving compared to most of you. I've been certified for a little over a year, but before that was on groundcrew with my local volunteer dive team in South Carolina. Now I am one of the divers and secretary of the team.
Our team consists of 8 certified divers, all volunteer. We provide our own equipment, and receive no funding. We are working on a few grants, but at this moment we do not even have team insurance (a top priority for us) making our relationships with the local police and fire departments a little (!) strained.
We are also working to improve our bylaws and create our SOP. Our team has been around for a few years, but has had some difficulties and turnover. Now that we have people practicing and attending meetings again we are hoping to organize more, and make ourselves more respected and legit.
As far as training goes, we practice search patterns normally once a month. We generally meet once a month too for business. Primarily our calls are to retrieve a vehicle from the river. It's been three summers since we've had a drowning in our own county (knock on wood), but our divers have responded to other counties to assist in recoveries.
Anyway, I am searching for direction. Lol. If anyone would like to share SOPs, budgets or training agendas or anything with us, I'd appreciate it. Even just websites so I can be nosey. We are 501c3 nonprofit and if anyone knows of grants available that would also help.
As you can see I'm very new to this, but a very good listener/learner and I'd appreciate any guidance anyone wants to give.
Thank you thank you thank you!
Tara
Our team consists of 8 certified divers, all volunteer. We provide our own equipment, and receive no funding. We are working on a few grants, but at this moment we do not even have team insurance (a top priority for us) making our relationships with the local police and fire departments a little (!) strained.
We are also working to improve our bylaws and create our SOP. Our team has been around for a few years, but has had some difficulties and turnover. Now that we have people practicing and attending meetings again we are hoping to organize more, and make ourselves more respected and legit.
As far as training goes, we practice search patterns normally once a month. We generally meet once a month too for business. Primarily our calls are to retrieve a vehicle from the river. It's been three summers since we've had a drowning in our own county (knock on wood), but our divers have responded to other counties to assist in recoveries.
Anyway, I am searching for direction. Lol. If anyone would like to share SOPs, budgets or training agendas or anything with us, I'd appreciate it. Even just websites so I can be nosey. We are 501c3 nonprofit and if anyone knows of grants available that would also help.
As you can see I'm very new to this, but a very good listener/learner and I'd appreciate any guidance anyone wants to give.
Thank you thank you thank you!
Tara