Minutes of Hackney Sub-Aqua Club

Committee Meeting

 

 

Date:                            Monday 30^th November 2009

Venue:                            The Approach Pub

Time:                            9.45pm

 

Present:               Chairman – Caron Smith (CS)

Dive Officer – Mat Humphrey (MH) Georgia Robson (GR)

Training Officer – Jo Kelly (JK)

Expeditions Officer – Anne Pariso (AP)

Equipment Officer - Will Norman (WN)

Membership Secretary – Richard Clegg (RC)

Marketing Officer – Mat Humphrey (MH) Georgia Robson (GR)

Secretary – Tom Reynolds (TR)

                            Voting Member – Clyde Phillipson (CP)

 

Apologies:                            Evan King, Liz Ellston

 

1.Introduction

 

CS introduced the meeting. The purpose of the meeting was for the committee to tell the club what they had been up to and to get some feed back. CS then asked each committee member to provide their own update.

 

 

2. Secretary Report

 

TR said that his job was to take the minutes and prepare the agenda. If any member of the club wanted to see the minutes of a committee meeting they should contact him. If they wanted the committee to discuss any matter they should contact him and he would put it on the agenda for the next meeting.

 

 

3. Equipment Officer

 

WN explained that his job was to make sure that the kit was in good working order and if anyone knew of a faulty piece of kit they should let him know. He reminded members that if they filled up cylinders they would have free air for the next pool session. He asked for volunteers to fill cylinders.

 

4. Voting Member

 

CP said that his job was to vote on issues at committee meetings.

 

5. Expedition Officer

 

AP said that she hadn't booked much yet for next season. AP had put down a deposit on Poole which although the weather was poor last year the diving was brilliant. AP said that last year the club tried out Newhaven and Brighton as new sites. They were very good and she thought that we could do more one day dives next season. AP was not going to book less weekends trips but would add in extra one-day local dives. AP thought this would be good for Ocean divers to do some the training.

 

Swanage was a good location for training and we took Ocean divers there recently. It was out of season and was cheap. AP was planning another Swanage dive trip. CP was planning some shore dives. CP also said that we did do some midweek dives.

 

AP confirmed that she had booked Oban in Scotland again. So far we had 3 people confirmed on the list. She will be booking the Farne Islands but does not know the date yet.  AP will book 3 to 4 Dover dives, 3 to 4 Eastbourne or Brighton dives, a Weymouth weekend and a Poole weekend. She has made enquiries about Normandy diving however the only available date is 6 days in June which may be too long.

 

AP said what was disappointing last year was the lack of turn out for the Farnes. Everyone who went had a fantastic time and we were lucky because Lee the skipper only charged us for those who turned up rather than the whole boat. There were only 4 or 5 of us on the boat. AP thought that the low turnout was because Rob books 2 boats for the Farnes in June.

 

TR and CP thought that it might be because the trip is organised for late August which is in the middle of the school holidays. AP confirmed that Rob had booked that date and she would have preferred to have booked it for early August. CS said we should consider more carefully what date to book for the Farnes. CS also asked for suggestions of other dive sites that people might want to go to.

 

AP asked if anyone wanted to do a trip abroad. MH asked whether the prices for Lundy had come down. AP he said that it was £60 per a day the last time she had checked. It is probably too late to book for this year but she will look at it for next year. She will also look at booking Scapa Flow in the next couple of years.

 

AP said that hopefully in a few weeks she would be able to book the trips and the dates will be put on the website.

 

AP said if we couldn't get the full boat some skippers would broker dives so we could dive with another club. AP had been in contact with other clubs to share boats as last year we had a problem in filling trips.

 

CS asked people to book up trips early as it helps us plan whether we need to open it up to other clubs.

 

6. Training Officer

 

JK asked if people could e-mail her on a Thursday or Friday so she could arrange an instructor for the session on Monday.  CS said that we did not have many trainees at the moment so we had the opportunity to arrange practice sessions for any level of diver to practice skills. Brian suggested doing a re-breather course and suggested that we invite someone from BSAC down to give us a demonstration. Everyone was in favour.

 

 

 

7. Diving Officer

 

MH said he had been contacted by an underwater performance company who wanted to employ some divers for their performances. Mickey Gee pointed out that there would be health and safety problems. CS pointed out that BSAC was a recreational diving organisation and their insurance would not cover it. If we did what MH was proposing it would be outside HSAC. MH confirmed it was not an HSAC activity but thought it would be of interest to qualified divers. The performance would start off in London and then go on tour.

 

GR said that we had had a couple of incidents last season and they had been reported to BSAC. Mickey Gee had given a talk on safety and she was asking Michele and Yeung to also give talks.

 

8. Membership Officer

 

RC said that when he started as membership officer we had around 60 members. Membership had decreased and now we have around 45. We needed to get more members and promote the club. He had some postcards and flyers and asked people to hand them out. He invited any suggestions to boost membership. CS asked for old dive magazines so that we could put our contact details on them and leave them in doctor's waiting rooms and the like.

 

RC said he was going to contact Sea Search and asked them to come in and run a course in January.

 

CS said that we needed to contact local papers and have a push on advertising in January. CS said that BSAC offered a Scuba4you package which was a try dive voucher, certificate, underwater camera etc. and they make good gifts for Christmas.

 

9.Treasurer

 

Unfortunately LE was away but CS confirmed that we had about £5,000 in the bank. This amount was going down and we needed more members.

 

7. Entertainment Officer

 

EK was not there but CS asked for any ideas for entertainments and reminded people of the 35th anniversary of HSAC.

 

AOB

 

CS said that we needed the lifeguard cover for the pool sessions. The pool sessions can’t be run unless we have a pool marshal present, so we need volunteers, of Sports Diver level or above (i.e. trained in rescue skills). If everyone could marshal 1 or 2 evenings, that would cover us for the whole year.

 

GR said she was planning to do a holiday abroad probably around April next year. It could be a live aboard in the Red Sea or a shore based dive in somewhere like Malta. It would probably cost in the region of £850.

 

Meeting closed.

 

 

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