Starting a dive club - What now...

[Riverrat Dave]

Let me tap into the vast sea of knowledge here...
A few of us want to start a club , we have a great place to meet and a core of four charter members with alot of energy, so...
1. What is the best way to get it started?
2. What are some of the "watch out for" things?
3. What are some of you success stories related to club activities?

 

[fire_diver]

Seems odd, or maybe this is a trend I haven't noticed. Lot's of requests last week or two for info on starting a dive club.

I'm trying to start one myself. Here's what I am doing; lots of thinking, and lots of research. Spend a few days on the 'net cruising other dive club websites. You can get lots of great ideas for how other clubs are organized, funded, and thier activities. Of course your local conditions will play a major role in your club activities. I have also sent emails to the presidents of about 2 dozen dive clubs seeking info about getting started. So far only 1 has responded.

Do a search here for dive club. There have been some good responses to the other questions.

FD

 

[Riverrat Dave]

Thanks Fire Diver... I have done pretty much the same thing. Actually read your earlier posting. We are up here in the North, at the bottom of Lake Huron... cold but some really good diving, but, it seems like our diving community is somewhat fragmented. I think we just want things a little more accessable. Dive buddies, events, get togethers, etc...

 

[JahJahwarrior]

- put up really well designed flyers in all the local dive shops. Also see if any local colleges have clubs, put flyers there too.

- design a good website. Keep it updated!!! Better to have a simple, updated site than a cool unupdated one. If you aren't going to keep it updated, then forget about it. Make it cool, put up pictures, plan dives on a consistant basis and put ALL info up: pictures of dive site so people know what to expect on the surface, GOOD directions and a map, info on every possible fee and any important forms to fill out. Also, contact info and get a good logo.

- If you have time/money, make or buy a banner. Home depot sells grommet kits and canvas dropclothes. Trim and sew the edges of the dropcloth, paint the entire thing white and make a banner with paint! Or, actually pay someone to make one. Always hang it up when you are out diving someplace: make it all feel official!

- once you've got lots of members, make shirts. A single colour shirt, say black ink on a white shirt, is quite cheap. Like, $3 a shirt cheap. Ask for $5 or something, and try to make sure everyone to know has one.

What you are aiming for is to get word out, and have something for word to get out about. Try to get deals on airfills at a local shop, like, a special dive card where every 10th fill is free for members of your club. Have a dinner and a movie night once a month and atleast one dive a month, so there are actually things going on for new people to come to. Try to get instructors at an LDS to give free seminars to you or something, like, a short teaching on how to dive BP/W and then let people try them on at a local dive site. Again, this is all substance. Advertisements get people excited, events keep them excited. Make sure everyone is super friendly so no one feels intimidated at all. Infact, put notices up at schools even maybe, or YMCA's or something, anyplace there are some divers. I know about four divers who aren't a part of any club or forum. If I see a flyer up for some cool dive club, I'll mention it to those guys. We'll come check you out at some dive, where we get invited to a movie thing in two weeks. We go to the movie thing and get some friendships going. We join, and pay $5 to get a tshirt that looks cool and a laminated card good for every tenth fill free at some LDS. We wear the shirt, people at the LDS say "oh cool, nifty club, eh?" because they recognize it. We start to div more and enjoy some free fills. Becuase we are diving more becuase of some free fills, dive shop gets to know us, and we dive with club members so we get to know the club people well. Then I find out some other guy at my school dives, and I invite him. He joins, because this is a pretty kick butt club. 6 months later, there are 50 people and the club starts meeting at the back of the dive shop. They offer us discounts on further training after 6 months of membership with the club, and we get chances to try out new gear and work on techniques at special dive days and seminars held for free by the LDS for the club. we keep going in our dive training and eventually start teaching some seminars ourselves, and help spawn smaller "breakoff" groups within the club, which now has 100 members. A local school wants to offer a way for students of a biology class to try diving, and our club provides equipment in conjunction with the LDS and teaches them a bit about diving. We are mentioned inthe local paper. Our online forums are now buzzing all the time, therea re 150 members of the club, the LDS is booming. Local dive sites are overrun by club members, and we have printed shirts for the sixth time and you can't turn around without seeing one. 25 more people join and learn to dive after seeing the article in the paper. And all this because you started doing dives once a month with a homemade banner with you and three buds.

 

[SparticleBrane]

Don't start a "dive club"--they normally don't dive. They get together and socialize and talk about diving, but don't dive.
Just get a few people together and start diving...simple as that.

 

[Rick Inman]

Don't start a "dive club"--they normally don't dive. They get together and socialize and talk about diving, but don't dive.
Just get a few people together and start diving...simple as that.

Bingo.

I started a dive group three years ago (see link in my sign. line). We dive every Tuesday night all year. I made the (crummy) web sit for people to be able to log on and see where we're diving, and I've done almost nothing to it since. There are no dues, no fees, no meetings, no tee shirts, no officers, no forms to fill out, nothing. We just dive. If you don't show up, fine. If you do show up, fine. I get calls every week, "Where are we diving?" And that's all the work I do.

If you just got your BOW yesterday, you're welcome to join us. Or, bring your doubles or your rebreather. Last week we had five guys in doubles. The week before, none. We've had divers from all the local shops. Sometimes we have BBQs and the non-diving family and friends join us on the beach. Anyone is welcome.

We've had as many as 30 people show up. But in the winter, it's usually just a few of us.

It's working. My dive group is the only continuous, weekly open dive group in all of eastern Washington and northern Idaho (that I know of). I credit the success to the fact that there are no rules or procedures or qualifications.

We just dive.

 

[SparticleBrane]

That's why I love NCDivers. (insert blatant plug here)
There's no fees or dues. We do have tshirts, though...
Usually there's someone from our group diving somewhere every weekend. We have everyone from brand new OW to rebreather cave explorers.

 

[renpirate]

Several of us in my area did the same thing as Rick, although we have a local board like scubaboard to plan things. The link is in my signature line. No dues, no officers, no slideshows of Cozumel, just diving.

 

[RJP]

First Rule of Dive Club, don't post about Dive Club!

 

[theskull]

Bingo.

I started a dive group three years ago (see link in my sign. line). We dive every Tuesday night all year. I made the (crummy) web sit for people to be able to log on and see where we're diving, and I've done almost nothing to it since. There are no dues, no fees, no meetings, no tee shirts, no officers, no forms to fill out, nothing. We just dive. If you don't show up, fine. If you do show up, fine. I get calls every week, "Where are we diving?" And that's all the work I do.

If you just got your BOW yesterday, you're welcome to join us. Or, bring your doubles or your rebreather. Last week we had five guys in doubles. The week before, none. We've had divers from all the local shops. Sometimes we have BBQs and the non-diving family and friends join us on the beach. Anyone is welcome.

We've had as many as 30 people show up. But in the winter, it's usually just a few of us.

It's working. My dive group is the only continuous, weekly open dive group in all of eastern Washington and northern Idaho (that I know of). I credit the success to the fact that there are no rules or procedures or qualifications.

We just dive.

That's how mine works, too. But we don't even have a website. I just send out a mass e-mail each week reporting how that weekend's dives went and where we plan to dive for the next few weekends.

Started as an e-mail list of my favorite dive buddies, then the local dive shop asked if they could advertise our existence and refer divers to us.

I also offer to match people up with a buddy if they need one for a particular site or on a weekend that I am doing tech dives and can't invite everyone along.

theskull