Being new here, I started a thread in two sections and I did reply, but here it is again. There is one basic reason I posted here, to find public domain information on learning how to dive. I have been given some great info so that mission is being accomplished. Secondary to that, is my viewpoint on education and information in regards to me being the CEO of a sports nonprofit that is 100% volunteer. (except for the challenged adults we support) Sailing is much more of an activity for us than scuba, but all sports are part of our mission.
Exciting or unusal sports like sailing, scuba, amphibious vehicle operations, underwater video and more are rewards for volunteers at our sports nonprofit.
Being 100% volunteer, we rely heavily on volunteers. They need to have exceptional motivation, training and athletic ability to do things such as coach a special Olympic sailing team.
Taking the viewpoints from a single agency for any sport, excludes you from the deep ocean of methods, techniques and more from around the world. The solution, open source instruction for not just sailing or scuba but for any sport.
If you look at my profile pic you will see an amphibious vehicle in our pool. I suppose we could write up a complete course description, pay fees and wait for months to see if an agency who has no experience with these vehicles at our location with our physically challenged clients approve of the way we are doing it and then implement their own ideas without them having the first day of experience here.
Or, we might want to go global, open source and we might even find somebody else that does this. I can tell you right now, that other than our facility insurance for all sports and other activities, any dive insurance plans would surely choke over paralyzed divers driving amphibious vehicles and firing weapons from them! (A pic on my start here page)
So for sailing, unusual sports and activities and more, a scuba agency membership just dosn't do anything for us. Free and open source instruction does.
I am also ticked off about cutting the instructor out of the classroom, and if the agencies are going to compete for an online prescence, then by golly, we will too!
I hope that wasn't too muddled.