adventurelarry
Guest
I recently joined a local scuba club. I'm just wondering what characteristics make up a good scuba club? Any suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Larry
Larry
Successful scuba club?
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I just became the President of a local Diving Club and am wondering the same!
BDSC
Contributor
There are two things that I think go a long way in making a scuba club successful.
1. You need a strong shop presence. I know not all but most scuba clubs are associated with a local shop. I can speak from experience when I say that the more successful clubs are going to be clubs where the shop owner, staff, instructors, and DM's buy into the importance of the club, attend the club meetings, and promote the club to new students. In most cases, the shop is the life-blood for the club.
2. Club members need to be very outgoing to new members. Again, speaking from experience, it makes all the difference in the world when a new guest or visitor comes to a club meeting and several members of the club introduces themselves to the guest, makes them feel welcome, and invites the guest to sit with them or something like that. People will come back if they feel they are wanted back.
1. You need a strong shop presence. I know not all but most scuba clubs are associated with a local shop. I can speak from experience when I say that the more successful clubs are going to be clubs where the shop owner, staff, instructors, and DM's buy into the importance of the club, attend the club meetings, and promote the club to new students. In most cases, the shop is the life-blood for the club.
2. Club members need to be very outgoing to new members. Again, speaking from experience, it makes all the difference in the world when a new guest or visitor comes to a club meeting and several members of the club introduces themselves to the guest, makes them feel welcome, and invites the guest to sit with them or something like that. People will come back if they feel they are wanted back.
For me...the only reason to be in one is quite simple: To go dive! The club focus, to me anyway, should be setting up local dives, dive trips, etc.
I don't want to go to meetings, such as a happy-hour or whatever, to sit around and talk about diving.
I don't want to go to meetings, such as a happy-hour or whatever, to sit around and talk about diving.
dbulmer
Contributor
Some food for thought!
1) It has to be fun for everyone ! A trainee should be enjoying the club as much as the well seasoned diver and this means everyone has to learn to listen and compromise as much as safety will allow.
2) Encourage everyone to participate in helping to run the club. It does not matter how big the role is, try and get everyone to lend a hand.
3) Encourage new people to join and when it comes to diving be completely honest about their ability - (sometimes you risk turning people off but safety has to come first).
4) People in positions of authority do not and have never had a monopoly on capability or skill - sometimes it's wise to accept that you can be wrong and there's nothing wrong in admitting it.
5) goto 1)
1) It has to be fun for everyone ! A trainee should be enjoying the club as much as the well seasoned diver and this means everyone has to learn to listen and compromise as much as safety will allow.
2) Encourage everyone to participate in helping to run the club. It does not matter how big the role is, try and get everyone to lend a hand.
3) Encourage new people to join and when it comes to diving be completely honest about their ability - (sometimes you risk turning people off but safety has to come first).
4) People in positions of authority do not and have never had a monopoly on capability or skill - sometimes it's wise to accept that you can be wrong and there's nothing wrong in admitting it.
5) goto 1)
Actually the club can be the lifeblood for the shop. A number of clubs have their own compressor and some may even have their own local site. More important than anything is communicating with the membership. The club I belong to had a meeting/dinner at the end of January. The next one was last night. The email reminder went out the day before. That is not enough time for many people. There was some kind of mixup with the system for my email but that may have been my fault. Mine arrived 15 minutes before after registering with a new email addy.
Try to welcome everyone. This can be problematic when affiliated too closely with a shop. Ours happens to be. Not sure what that will mean at the next meeting I am able to attend as I just took on a line of gear myself after much soul searching and finding a line I could deal in with a clear conscience and terms I can live with.
Have a speaker at every meeting with some topic the members are interested in. Use memebers as speakers. You do not need Jacques Cousteau at every meeting. We had an excellent one where a club member presented on his trip and dives at the Georgia Aquarium with the whale sharks. Nice vid, answered questions, well received. I did my "Failure of the Buddy System" talk last year and will be doing at least one more this year because my GF wants to hear it.
We usually meet at a restaurant. Member get their own dinner, BS a bit before and after then the speaker. Does not have to be long. Hour max is about most want to spend. I shoot for 45 min max with 15 min for questions.
We do mostly dive related meetings in the summer at local sites. But they also go bowling, laser tag, and anything else a few will find fun.
Try to welcome everyone. This can be problematic when affiliated too closely with a shop. Ours happens to be. Not sure what that will mean at the next meeting I am able to attend as I just took on a line of gear myself after much soul searching and finding a line I could deal in with a clear conscience and terms I can live with.
Have a speaker at every meeting with some topic the members are interested in. Use memebers as speakers. You do not need Jacques Cousteau at every meeting. We had an excellent one where a club member presented on his trip and dives at the Georgia Aquarium with the whale sharks. Nice vid, answered questions, well received. I did my "Failure of the Buddy System" talk last year and will be doing at least one more this year because my GF wants to hear it.
We usually meet at a restaurant. Member get their own dinner, BS a bit before and after then the speaker. Does not have to be long. Hour max is about most want to spend. I shoot for 45 min max with 15 min for questions.
We do mostly dive related meetings in the summer at local sites. But they also go bowling, laser tag, and anything else a few will find fun.
This thread had some good discussion about the same topic.
I would say (again) that different personality types, different dive profile types (wrecks, tooth hunters, reefs, etc) and an active calendar with meetings and trips are the things I've been looking for in a club. Unfortunately most of the clubs around here don't have much of a web presence, so I'll say that's high on the list too. I want something I can find out about without playing email/phone tag for weeks before a meeting.
EDIT: It would help to add the link... second try for the win!
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/basic-scuba-discussions/359350-what-do-you-look-dive-club.html
I would say (again) that different personality types, different dive profile types (wrecks, tooth hunters, reefs, etc) and an active calendar with meetings and trips are the things I've been looking for in a club. Unfortunately most of the clubs around here don't have much of a web presence, so I'll say that's high on the list too. I want something I can find out about without playing email/phone tag for weeks before a meeting.
EDIT: It would help to add the link... second try for the win!
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/basic-scuba-discussions/359350-what-do-you-look-dive-club.html
All good points, but if I could only choose one I'd say build a community.
All members should strive to know one another almost on a family-type basis. When it comes down to it, it is a buddy sport. You dive with a buddy so he/she can bail you out of trouble or even in the extreme, save your life.
Be friendly and open to everyone, and they'll surely return the same.
That's how I feel it's like at the school club. We all know one another to the point that we're comfortable diving with each other merely at the thought. We joke around, enjoy hanging with each other, and in general don't HAVE to be under the water to have a good time with each other. We also only hold 1 club meeting every 10 weeks, the rest of the logistics are held over emails.
Of course in our case, it helps that most of us have been through the same program, either TA'ing or being students.
All members should strive to know one another almost on a family-type basis. When it comes down to it, it is a buddy sport. You dive with a buddy so he/she can bail you out of trouble or even in the extreme, save your life.
Be friendly and open to everyone, and they'll surely return the same.
That's how I feel it's like at the school club. We all know one another to the point that we're comfortable diving with each other merely at the thought. We joke around, enjoy hanging with each other, and in general don't HAVE to be under the water to have a good time with each other. We also only hold 1 club meeting every 10 weeks, the rest of the logistics are held over emails.
Of course in our case, it helps that most of us have been through the same program, either TA'ing or being students.
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It depends on the type of club. Most dive clubs have some affiliation to a shop ... but many don't. I prefer ones that are less tied to a particular shop, as you are otherwise going to be limited to members who choose to associate with the shop.
What makes a dive club attractive to me would be:
- Lots of diving opportunities. People usually join dive clubs to increase their pool of dive buddies and diving opportunities. The focus on the club should be diving.
- Sociable and outgoing people. This starts with leadership. Avoid "cliques", as it won't be very good for new membership.
- Accepting of new divers. Our club has what they call a "Big Buddy" program, where new divers are basically adopted by a more experienced member. On top of the mentoring program, we have dives that are specifically geared toward pairing up new divers with more experienced divers. Both of those programs are specifically geared toward helping new divers get more bottom time, as well as helping them learn about aspects of diving that are often overlooked in a class.
- Avoid politics ... whether it's shop politics, personal drama, or the type of "infighting" that often comes from people who want to be "in charge", it's a huge turnoff. It can be a difficult thing to control anytime you get a group of people together, but for the most part your members aren't going to want to see it ... they just want to go diving, and spend time with other divers.
- Keep your club rules and policies simple and clear. Dive clubs aren't any different than any other place where a group of people congregate ... there will be those who will want to push boundaries, just to see what they can get away with. The less ambiguity they have to work with, the better. This goes especially for anything costing money ... like club dues.
- Schedule things that will keep people interested when they're not diving. Things like events at the local aquarium, photo contests, beach cleanup events, show and tell (e.g. presentations from the member who just got back from someplace really cool), guest speakers on topics of interest to the club members, etc.
Keep it fresh, keep it entertaining, keep it friendly. That's what I think most folks want in a dive club ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
What makes a dive club attractive to me would be:
- Lots of diving opportunities. People usually join dive clubs to increase their pool of dive buddies and diving opportunities. The focus on the club should be diving.
- Sociable and outgoing people. This starts with leadership. Avoid "cliques", as it won't be very good for new membership.
- Accepting of new divers. Our club has what they call a "Big Buddy" program, where new divers are basically adopted by a more experienced member. On top of the mentoring program, we have dives that are specifically geared toward pairing up new divers with more experienced divers. Both of those programs are specifically geared toward helping new divers get more bottom time, as well as helping them learn about aspects of diving that are often overlooked in a class.
- Avoid politics ... whether it's shop politics, personal drama, or the type of "infighting" that often comes from people who want to be "in charge", it's a huge turnoff. It can be a difficult thing to control anytime you get a group of people together, but for the most part your members aren't going to want to see it ... they just want to go diving, and spend time with other divers.
- Keep your club rules and policies simple and clear. Dive clubs aren't any different than any other place where a group of people congregate ... there will be those who will want to push boundaries, just to see what they can get away with. The less ambiguity they have to work with, the better. This goes especially for anything costing money ... like club dues.
- Schedule things that will keep people interested when they're not diving. Things like events at the local aquarium, photo contests, beach cleanup events, show and tell (e.g. presentations from the member who just got back from someplace really cool), guest speakers on topics of interest to the club members, etc.
Keep it fresh, keep it entertaining, keep it friendly. That's what I think most folks want in a dive club ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
- Messages
- 98,208
- Reaction score
- 99,921
- Location
- On the Fun Side of Trump's Wall
- # of dives
- 2500 - 4999
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