April 3, 2012
2012 April Pres. Msg
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President's Message April 2012 - What's In It For Me?
Why do people belong to dive clubs? Of course there are all of the usual reasons that anyone belongs to any type of club: making friends with similar interests, participating in social events, getting group discounts, attending meetings with informative speakers, opportunities to participate in group activities, etc. It dawned on me that in today's scuba diving community, the main benefit of belonging to a dive club had a lot to do with the changing nature of the dive industry in general.
When our club was founded, one was a certified diver or an Instructor. We didn't have Advanced Open Water Divers, Specialty classes, Rescue Divers, Master Scuba Divers, or even Divemasters as a category rather than a function. You were either in or you weren't. You could either teach diving, or you couldn't. Becoming certified was a long, arduous effort that involved doing a lot of skills and requirements that today's Open Water Divers never have to undertake. If you were a certified diver, you had been trained up to the level of what today would be considered a Rescue Diver, or you didn't get a card. Sure. Some agencies were tougher than others, but then, as now, the level of your training had a lot to do with the quality of your instructor and not the agency your instructor represented.
Today, we find ourselves operating in an industry that is very liability conscious. More and more, when one travels to dive locations, dive operators are looking to see what your most advanced certification is before they will assign you to dive certain sites and dive under certain conditions. If you have your certification card from the 60's or 70's and haven't taken any recent continuing education, you could find yourself left out of some exciting opportunities on your dive travels.
Dive clubs offer one way to overcome these inequities. Your fellow club members are there to keep you up to date on the latest techniques, equipment, and provide support for you when your skills get rusty or you just need some help keeping up with the changing times. Most clubs allow dive professionals (Divemasters and Instructors) free or reduced price memberships to encourage people who are up to date with the latest information to be available to members to help them with their questions or problems.
A club like the AVDD has a special problem. We are located over an hour from the ocean. There are not a lot of diving opportunities in the local area, so going diving is not a casual telephone call to a buddy and an impromptu trip to the beach. It is a major endeavor, involving car pooling, rendezvousing, and weather research, not to mention at today's gas prices, a major investment in not just time, but also money.
Your club tries to help you with all of this by scheduling group events, providing necessary training in safety and dive techniques, and the support of having experienced divers to accompany you on your adventures and assist you with anything that may come up. We schedule our boat trips with reputable operators who come equipped with all of the relevant safety equipment and training and we insure that our beach dives also are covered with trained personnel and safety equipment, either by the club or by public agencies at our dive locations.
The times have changed. Dive Computers, Integrated Weight Systems, Nitrox, etc. I could go on for hours about all of the new changes in the scuba diving community. Our affiliation with the Palmdale Parks and Recreation with drop in scuba allows members who haven't been in the water for a while to check out their equipment and their skills in a safe environment, assisted by some of our experienced members, especially our Instructors. When we plan a dive, we follow our club procedures and make sure that all of the safety aspects are considered and that our members have every kind of back up that we can arrange.
Your fellow club members are your greatest assets. They are there for you if you have questions or concerns and can be counted on to be your dive buddies or even your emergency response team when you need them. So. The next time you are at a meeting or at one of our activities, talk about your skills and your assets with your fellow members and get them to share theirs with you. Diving is a safe sport, but as with all outdoor activities, it is not foolproof. There is strength in numbers and there is wisdom in the collective knowledge of our members. Take advantage of it.
As always, Be safe, stay wet, and dive well!
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March 1, 2012
2012 March Pres.Message
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President's Message
Here we are again at our annual busy season for your board members! I have felt like the proverbial one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest for the last couple of months because, truthfully, I have had some health issues that have limited me often to just one leg. Hehehe. Nonetheless, I am having a great time with great people. We just returned from our annual participation in the Avalon Harbor Cleanup Dive on Santa Catalina Island. Raul and his staff at the Seaport Village Inn did their usual outstanding job of caring for our members and he continues to support our club with a raffle prize for the upcoming banquet. Many thanks also to a dive group from Bakersfield who graciously allowed Raul to change their accommodations for the weekend so he could put us up in style in our usual suite of rooms.
There were over 450 participants at the cleanup dive this year, a substantial increase over recent years when attendance has been declining. We were joined by the Peoria (Arizona) Desert Divers for a group picture after their president, seeing our AVDD banner, approached and asked "What desert to you dive in?" Dr. Bill Bushing was in attendance and he had some good things to say about our club and humorously remarked that he would love to come out and talk to our club "if he could find it with his GPS." Ken Kurtis played his usual key role in the cleanup activity and he told me at the cleanup dive that he was making every effort to get AVDD a table at the annual Chamber Night Event in May. The good news is that I just got a confirmation from Ken this Monday morning that AVDD does have a table for ten and we will be raffling off two tickets to the event at our Annual Installation Banquet, a $180 value. More information on that later.
Some other familiar faces were Sport Chalet's Bob Taylor, the eight AVDD members who participated in the cleanup dive, and your humble correspondent who participated, camera in hand, by cheering them on from the safety and comfort of the beach. We took the opportunity of the occasion and our location near Casino Point's terrific night dive location to initiate Larry Ladd on his very first night dive and to celebrate Robert Wisdom's recent birthday with a great meal at Steve's Steakhouse on Saturday night. Sam Childree made his fiftieth dive and is only two specialty classes away from his Master Scuba Diver rating. We also appointed Sayuka Hani, better known to us as "Hanna," a co-worker of Robert's at Honda Motor Company, who came all the way from Japan just to make the cleanup dive with us, as an honorary member and she represented us very well indeed. She was honored by the Cleanup Dive Committee with an award as the person coming the longest distance to do the dive.
Altogether, it was a great weekend for the AVDD and it caused me to reflect on a little considered aspect about our sport and the benefits of belonging to an active, involved dive club. Scuba diving is a time intensive activity. You have to plan your trip, select and purchase gear appropriate to the mission of your dives, set up and pack your equipment, travel anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of days to get to where you can dive, gear up, and then dive for a very short period of time underwater when compared to the amount of time that it took to get there. Then you have to pack up, travel home, break down and clean, service, or repair your gear, and start planning for the next trip.
Altogether, you spend about twenty or more times as much effort just to get to the dive site than to do the dives themselves. Noted Canadian poet, Robert W. Service, in his poem "The Spell of the Yukon," noted that "There’s gold, and it’s haunting and haunting; It’s luring me on as of old; Yet it isn't the gold that I'm wanting So much as just finding the gold." You could substitute "scuba diving" for gold in that verse and easily understand what I am talking about. If a diver doesn't approach all of the preparation, travel, and down time (service intervals, flight restrictions, etc.) as being worth the effort, then scuba diving can become a tiresome endeavor.
We had a great time on the road, on the boat, at the restaurants, in the hotel room, and just about everywhere we went because we did it together. We supported each other. We laughed. We teased each other, swapped stories true and tall, shared our expertise with newer divers, and just spent quality time with people who share our enthusiasm for diving and our zest for life in general. Sure. There are the lonely hard core divers who don't appreciate the social aspects of the sport, but most people don't want to spend their non-diving time contemplating their navel. They want to have fun and the AVDD are a fun bunch. If you haven't been participating in our diving activities, you are missing out. I couldn't dive this weekend and I really missed being able to dive one of my favorite activities in one of my favorite places..., but I had a great time and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. My thanks to Robert, Sam, Larry, Dave, Ken, Barb, Bill, Kyle, and especially to Sayuka Hani, our "Hanna," for making my dry weekend into a memorable experience.
Once again, our Annual Installation of Officers Banquet will be held on March 3rd at the Palmdale Hotel. This year's theme is "Follow Me to Adventure!" There are still some tickets available from any board member at a cost of $30.00 apiece. We have some great raffle prizes (Custom jewelry from Hodgkins Jewelers, a pair of Apollo Pro-C Bio Fins, an Aqualung Titan Regulator, Two tickets for the Chamber Eve event, Some dive trip deals from Channel Island Dive Adventures, a Seaport Village lodging package, and more still coming in every day.), our First Annual Underwater Photography Contest results, Dr. Chris Cory's fantastic magic show, and the good fellowship always found among our membership. I am looking forward to seeing you there.
As always, Be safe, stay wet, and dive well!
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February 3, 2012
February's Message
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Last year at this time, I encouraged you all to join us in getting back to the basics, the ABC's of our club charter. Here is what I wrote:
We are a dive club, first and foremost, and that is what we do. What we have lost sight of in the past decade is what our charter with the State of California says we do:
A. Educate the general public about water activities such as snorkeling, skin diving, and scuba diving.
B. Provide education and instruction to the general public to develop skills in snorkeling, skin diving, and scuba diving.
C. Provide education and instruction to the general public on underwater safety and underwater conservation and ecology.
We are off to a good start this year with our education efforts. We had an outstanding guest speaker, Ken Kurtis, for our January General Membership Meeting on January 9th and this month we are featuring the beginning of a series of three video presentations from the Divers Alert Network (DAN) concerning various aspects of dive safety. These outstanding presentations will provide the latest information on decompression Illness, the impact of diving with medications, and the prevention of dive accidents. The first presentation, "I May Be Bent, Now What?" will show at our February 13th Meeting. The others will follow throughout the coming year. Our Vice President, Mike Orlando, did a great job of lining up these terrific, informational videos from DAN.
Our Program Coordinator, John Nichols, has lined up a roster of educational, interesting, and entertaining guest speakers for our spring line up of meetings and is beating the bushes for more. John has made sure that our programs are advertised in the local news media and, as a result, we have had members of the general public showing up to our meetings and added a couple of new members in the process.
This month we are fielding a sizeable team for the Avalon Harbor Cleanup dive on February 25th. Contact any board member for information on travel arrangements and accommodations. March 10th will see the club making a dive at Newport Beach Pier and La Jolla Shores is on tap for the April club dive.
Our Annual Installation of Officers Banquet will be held on March 3rd at the Palmdale Hotel. This year's theme is "Follow Me to Adventure!" Tickets are available from any board member at a cost of $30.00 apiece. Everyone was very well satisfied with the facility and the meal last year, so we are pleased that we could get the same venue for this year's banquet. We will be installing the club officers, selling some raffle prizes, and announcing the winners of the First Annual Underwater Photo Contest. We hope to see you and your guests there.
You invited the board back, so we can't have done that bad of a job. Your board is committed to continuing with our efforts to make this not only one of the oldest dive clubs, but also one of the best. As always, Be safe, stay wet, and dive well!
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February 3, 2012
New Year's Message
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We closed out a good diving year with a great dive at Deer Creek Beach and a last attempt at getting some good photos for the First Annual Photography Contest. You have until midnight on January 9th to get your entries in. See the web site for complete information.
The year was filled with a string of successful dives, both as club activities and some great personal effort on the part of the members. Palos Verdes' Long Point, Anacapa's Three Arches on the Raptor, Newport Pier, The Avalon Harbor Cleanup, Heisler Park's Rockpile Beach, Chamber Day on the Cee-Ray, The Clam Chowder Dive at Leo Carrillo, July 4th on the Cee-Ray and in Robin's pool, Big Sur and Jade Cove, June Lake Cleanup, City of Palmdale's UW Pumpkin Carving, the Annual Fall Excursion to Casino Point, and finishing up with a couple of great dives at Deer Creek Beach.
No fantasy divers in this club! We had club members in Hawaii, Cozumel, Boynton Beach in Florida, and Little Cayman. A number of our members made local dives on their own, as well. We had a great cooperative effort with the City of Palmdale providing their pools for our members and the general public to practice their skills at Drop-in Scuba. Many of those evenings were followed by some good food and a good time at Vince's Pizza.
We had some fun and made some money for the club at Angel's Bingo and we continue to improve our skills with three new Rescue Divers in the club. Your board was re-elected and we will continue to pursue the new programs and goals we set last year for a great dive club and an active Antelope Valley dive community. We are currently looking for someone to fill the open appointed position of Dive Coordinator. if you want to dive every month and want to share your enthusiasm for diving with your fellow Antelope Valley Divers, then maybe you are the person for the job. Step up to the plate and get ready to have some fun diving.
We participated in Sport Chalet Discover Scuba programs, solicited new members at Open Water Diver class orientations, and started working with the Boy Scouts and the Four-H trying to promoted scuba diving and snorkeling to the Antelope Valley youth. Stand by! There is more to com.
Be sure to tell everyone you know about our outstanding guest speaker, Ken Kurtis, for our January General Membership Meeting on January 9th. Ken is a distinguished member of the Southern California dive community and he will be talking about diving at the Aquarium of the Pacific, volunteer opportunities, Immersion program.
So Happy New Year to you all. Let's continue to expand our horizons for diving and improving our participation in the Antelope Valley diving community in the new year. We hope your will prosper in the new year and don't forget to dive well, dive safe, and stay wet.
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December 5, 2011
Merry Christmas!!!!
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It's time for our annual good time at the Christmas Potluck and Yankee Gift Swap on December 12th. It is something I look forward to all year long. It is also time for our annual Election of Officers, also on December 12th, and the following slate of nominees will be presented for the memberships selection:
- President: Jack Cook
- Vice President: Mike Orlando
- Secretary: Colleen Hodgkins
- Treasurer: Robert Wisdom
- Conservation Officer: Larry Ladd
- Newsletter Editor: Terry Hodgkins
- Program Coordinator: John Nichols
Only one Absentee Ballot has been requested, thus far. Absentee Ballots will be accepted up until 7:10 PM, at which time the ballots will be collected and counted by two Board Members and the results announced as soon as possible. The ballots will also allow for write-in candidates, for any last minute contenders for the board positions.
I enjoy traditions just for traditions' sake. In my family growing up, we cherished the holidays, all of them. We pursued any excuse to gather friends and family for a laugh or two. I even celebrate September 19th each year, International Talk Like A Pirate Day. Avast, mateys! Sure tís we be havin' a hootin' good time!
When Cathie and I lived in England for our first Christmas there, we served goose just like Bob Cratchit's boss, Ebenezer Scrooge. We observed Boxing Day (the day after Christmas). We had a dark-haired man carry a coal through the front door on Hogmanay (Scots New Year) for good luck. When we lived in Germany, our family visited the Kristkindlmarkt (Christmas Market), served Glühwein (hot spiced wine) to our guests, and participated in the Weinachts Abzug (Christmas Eve Procession) on Christmas Eve on our Christmas holiday in Austria.
We have celebrated Hanukkah, which this year begins on December 20th and ends the 28th, by lighting the Menorah for those eight glorious nights assisted by my grandson so that he may gain an appreciation for what the Festival of Lights is all about and understand the great traditions of the Jewish people.
While there is no exact equivalent Muslim holiday for Christmas, there are the month of Ramadan and Eid-ul-Fitr, the Muslim New Year, which occurred on August 30th, this year. I have wished my Turkish friends "Allahaismarlidik" (May God go with you) when they have taken their leave from me and responded "Güle, güle" to their reciprocal wishes when I have left their company. I have eaten moon cakes during the Moon Festival and sent red and gold "money" to friends on Chinese New Year. I have celebrated Vietnamese holidays like Tet, their New Year, sometimes with fireworks that were unwelcome (1968). Any excuse for a party is okay with me.
In this holiday season, on behalf of all of the AVDD Board, I want to take this opportunity to tell you all how much we love you and to wish you happiness for the holidays and good health and prosperity in the New Year. You are in our hearts and prayers and we hope you remain there for many more years. After all, the alternative is depressing.
I have wished people throughout the world well on their sacred and secular holidays in a number of languages. On this occasion, I wish my Christian friends "Merry Christmas," (Fröhliche Weinachten, Joyeux Nöel, Feliz Navidad, Gongsi Shen Dan Jie, Buon Natale, etc.) my Jewish friends "Happy Hanukkah," (a lichtigin Chanukah [Yiddish], Chag Sameach {חג שמח} [Hebrew]) my Muslim friends, " May every year find you in good health" (Kull 'ām wa 'antum bikhair {كل عام وأنتم بخير} [Arabic]) and all others "Happy Holidays." If in my attempt to wish you well I have somehow offended you; Oh well, Merry Christmas anyway!
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November 5, 2011
President's Message November 2011
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It's Your Club
November sees not only the fall trip to Catalina, but also the solicitation of nominations for the Antelope Valley Desert Divers, Inc. Board of Directors followed by the election conducted at the December General Membership Meeting on December 12th. Ballots for the election will be available at the November meeting on November 7th for those who will be unable to attend the December meeting and who wish to vote by mail as an absentee voter.
Nominations received before the publishing of the December newsletter will be placed on the ballots available at the December meeting and will be published in the December newsletter. The nominations will close at the opening of the December meeting, but each ballot will still have a line for each of the seven offices contested for members to put their own write-in candidates.
Each absentee ballot must be received either via mail to our corporate address at Antelope Valley Desert Divers, Inc., 38713 Tierra Subida, Box 200-227, Palmdale, CA 93551, or by handing the absentee ballot to any board member before the vote takes place at the December GM Meeting. Each absentee ballot must have the AVDD Secretary's original signature to verify that it is a valid ballot. No copies or facsimiles will be accepted without the original signature of the AVDD Secretary. The ballots will be counted by two AVDD board members and the results announced as soon as they are known, either at the December GM Meeting or via email as soon as possible. The officers will assume their duties after the January GM Meeting and will be formally installed at the Annual Installation Banquet in either late February or early March 2012.
Your participation in the election shows whether you think your club is headed in the right direction, or not. If you don't like the way things are done, you need to let the board know. If that doesn't accomplish what you want, then you need to place your name in contention for the board position of your choice. I don't think any board member I know would regret being replaced by a qualified person. Being on the board is a job that can take a lot of time away from other things that the board members would like to do, like going diving, traveling to exotic locations, or hanging out with their grandchildren. We don't toss and turn in our sleep fearing that we will be replaced. We are concerned that the person who replaces us is qualified and willing to do things to make the club better.
Over the past eight months, your Antelope Valley Desert Divers, Inc. board has been trying to keep our promise to bring the club back into compliance with our chartered purpose and make our operating procedures reflect what we really do. We have made some real strides in doing that, but we have a long way to go. There are plans in the works and we have programs in place for the future that should meet the requirements of our charter. Here are a few:
- Youth programs with the 4-H and the Boy Scouts have begun. The groundwork for a snorkeling and a Coral Reef Conservation program for local 4-H youth is in progress. AVDD is cooperating with the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) in encouraging local troops in completing the Snorkeling BSA activity badge, Scuba BSA activity badge, and the Scuba Diving Merit Badge. There are now two merit badge counselors for the local BSA Council and seven 4-H Trained leaders on the AVDD Board of Directors.
- We are now working with the Southern California Diving Community to support the Hyperbaric Chamber on Catalina and the Catalina Marine Society in their scientific, medical research, and safety activities. Our increased emphasis on fund-raising will hopefully increase our ability to support such worthwhile organizations.
- Improvements on the guest speaker program are ongoing. We are making contacts in the scuba diving community of Southern California with a view to developing a speaker's bureau and our fund-raising activities have placed us in a position where we can provide some expense money to compensate our speakers who have to travel significant distances to address our club. We have been advertising our speakers in the AV Press and via our Facebook page and have recently been drawing in more people from the general public to our meetings because the public is interested in the themes we are presenting. We are hoping that our 2012 program will have at least 7 outside speakers who will draw more guests to our meetings from all areas of the community. March, July, and December are the exceptions due to other planned club activities, and two meetings should be dedicated to some kind of safety or diving techniques training.
But that is not the end of it. Club membership should have a benefit not only to the community, but also to the club members. We have had a more aggressive program of diving during the past eight months. We have had more members in the water this year than in the last few years. We have tried to have a diving activity every month. While we always haven't been successful, we are making progress and I think many of our members are much happier with the program than they have been for a long time.
- We had three members on a Cozumel trip in June and they got a club discount.
- We had five members on a Raptor trip and they got a club discount.
- We had four members on the July 4th Trip on the CeeRay and they got a club discount.
- Our members attending the November Avalon trip will be getting a club discount on their lodging and other club benefits for the weekend.
- This next year we have three trips available to Utila Lodge in Honduras (May 19-26, 2012), North Carolina Wreck and Shark Tooth Diving (June 16-25, 2012), and Cozumel Drift Diving (Sept. 15-23, 2012), through Channel Island Dive Adventures (CIDA) in cooperation with the Channel Island Divers Dive Club out of Ventura, all with a club discount.
- You are getting a 10% club discount at Sport Chalet on all scuba purchases.
- You get a free air fill card for ten air fills from Sport Chalet with your membership.
- We have instituted the First Annual AVDD Photography Contest that challenges our members to take better underwater photos and submit their work to the admiration of the membership.
These are things that we have done over these past eight months. If you want to join us in our program or if you think you want to go in a different direction, throw your hat in the ring and run for office. We need your expertise and your input. Join us on the board or, if you choose not to run, please provide us with your ideas and enthusiasm. I repeat: IT IS YOUR CLUB. IT SHOULD BE WHAT YOU WANT IT TO BE. Come on board. We welcome your ideas and input.
Stay wet, Dive well, Be safe!
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