Exeter College Sub Aqua Membership is a small college membership that thinks massive, striving to make diving inexpensive with out direct monetary help from the uni. Interview by Kristina Pedder.
When was the membership fashioned?
A founding date of 1975 is a finest estimate from the oldest EUSAC alumni that now we have encountered. As a college membership, we undergo from data loss attributable to our three-year churn, as most members come and go on a degree-course primarily based cycle.
What number of members come and go annually?
We had a massively busy freshers’ week in 2023, working three strive dives for our largest ever turnout of 23 divers. In whole now we have round 60 members.
Who’re your members?
We now have Ocean Divers, Sports activities Divers, Dive Leaders, Open Water Instructors and Assistant Open Water Instructors. We should not have any Superior Divers or First Class Divers. Members are largely college students and school. We closely subside their development, as we’re virtually at all times coaching the subsequent technology of our committee. We’re helped by our alumni Iain Logan and Laura Bramwell, who’ve labored so onerous to help the membership.
How do you make diving inexpensive?
Our annual payment contains air and tools rental. We provide free entry to socials and industrial diver talks (topics vary from underwater micro images to rebreather diving and cave diving) and any journeys are at all times run at price. We keep a inventory of 18 regulators, 40 BCDs and 25 cylinders; we additionally present full protecting tools together with semi-dry wetsuits, hoods, boots and gloves. Gear secretaries Mathew Atkins and Jake Curry work very onerous to keep up our package. We merely couldn’t maintain going with out the assistance of T.H. Dive Providers in Plymouth, the place we repeatedly get our package serviced.
Do you get monetary help from the college?
Sadly not, so now we have to lift cash repeatedly for the membership and its companies to proceed. Ocean Diver coaching raises funds, which covers the servicing prices for our tools. Our present Captain Daisy Kearley began the 12 months by crocheting a number of plush aquatic animals, which we then raffled off with a couple of different scuba prizes and raised £300, which actually helped. Funding is an space the place we’re open to constructing a relationship with native enterprise ought to they be fascinated by us working crew constructing strive dives or working alongside the college’s marine biology division.
What’s day-to-day membership life like?
We prepare in St Lukes Pool and in a college constructing virtually immediately reverse, so we maintain issues easy. We now have entry to a storeroom beside the pool, which we lovingly confer with as our Animal Home. We now have a really small compressor that our volunteers work on night time and day. We lately bought our outdated membership boat, however Plymouth Sound BSAC and Exeter BSAC have been an actual assist to us as native companions. We depend on their generosity to get our members out on RIB dives. We maintain a number of versatile memberships with Plymouth Sound, enabling members to dive with them at gas prices. They’ve been nothing however accommodating.
This 12 months hasn’t been one of the best weather-wise, massively affecting the visibility on native dives. This hasn’t stopped our divers from moving into the water. The membership has been on 11 native diving journeys for the reason that begin of the educational time period in September and every week overseas in Malta. Our Christmas meal organised by Social Secretary Mathew Aitken was a hit with 13 folks attending a beautiful meal, adopted by a go to to the pub.
The place do you go diving?
At a spread of shore diving websites close to us, together with Beacon Cove, Babbacombe seashore, Brixham breakwater, Exmouth docks, the Waterfront and the Japanese Kings in Plymouth. We additionally dive at native inland websites Vobster and Cromhall; and we organise RIB dives from Portland with Terry Cox and Malcolm Strickland from Portland BSAC, sort retired gents who assist us out sometimes with coaching and fairly priced diving round Portland and the Dorset coast. They’ve been longstanding EUSAC helpers and we’re without end grateful. A number of deeper dives have been performed lately off Japanese Kings in Plymouth. These are sensible, as EUSAC has beforehand been very targeted on coaching and this has pushed away a few of our extra skilled college classmates.
What does your teacher crew seem like?
We now have Coaching Officer Megan Gardner (Assistant Open Water Teacher – AOWI), OWIs Laura Bramwell and Iain Logan, AOWIs Daniel Rosen, Bryony Hobden and Euan Nicholas, who all work very onerous to make sure our members have a good time studying with EUSAC. Our TO has been improbable, organising three coaching weekends for our Sports activities and Ocean Divers. We even managed to get 4 Ocean Divers and a Sports activities Diver by way of open water coaching within the first educational time period. It is a new report for us.
What coaching do you present?
Every year now we have round 22 Ocean Diver trainees. We additionally repeatedly put money into sending our Sports activities Divers on Teacher Basis Programs to fulfill demand for instructors. Oh, and we must always point out that we emphasise educating sustainability in our diving.
What does greener diving seem like to you?
We repeatedly take away litter and plastics from the websites that we dive, and had been lately concerned with the 1000 Tyres Challenge. It is a neighborhood enterprise that includes plenty of enthusiastic volunteers working alongside the venture crew. You will discover out how you can get entangled on their web site. The goal is to take away tyres and different pollution from our marine surroundings, beginning by cleansing up Plymouth Sound in Devon. Up-and-coming trainee Dive Leaders Euan Nicholas and Francesca Molinari additionally led an underwater litterpick for EUSAC divers.
Do you run any Talent Growth Programs?
Sadly we don’t, we focus purely on the Diver Coaching Programme; however it’s one thing we might like to work on with different native BSAC golf equipment if there’s a possibility. We’re at all times on the lookout for methods to work with native golf equipment, and by offering free gear rental to our members we’re opening up a whole lot of alternatives for them with native diving firms corresponding to Teign Diving Centre, which affords further low cost on journeys.
The place does open-water coaching happen?
Our common coaching weekends have to happen early within the season, virtually at all times in October and January, to slot in with examination durations, so we frequently have issues with the climate. Being so close to the ocean we are able to simply cancel and pivot to an inland web site. A current very chilly weekend at Cromhall Quay noticed 13 new, very hardy Ocean Diver trainees, who refused to again down and reschedule, full greater than 60 per cent all the classes deliberate for the day. A large thanks to Daniel Montegue (our ex-club captain from 5 years in the past) and Kevin Betts (an OWI who sometimes helps out) for his or her assist.
What’s on the horizon for EUSAC?
With yet one more model new committee simply beginning out now we have achieved so much this 12 months; loads of native diving in phrases one and two, a time when now we have beforehand struggled to get out attributable to poor climate. Membership planning is sort of onerous due to the frequent modifications to the committee, however we wish to proceed to work with native golf equipment and provides alternatives to our native scholar divers or potential divers. We hope to lift consciousness that Exeter is a good college membership to work with.
This Membership Focus was initially printed in SCUBA journal, Problem 146 June 2024. For extra membership advantages, go to bsac.com/advantages.
