Eastcote Sub-Aqua Club tells its story behind extraordinary growth

Eastcote Sub-Aqua Club had plateauing membership numbers when Chair Diederik Kohnhorst took over in 2015. Having followed BSAC's Let's Grow Diving advice, Diederik talks about how the framework can really help club growth.

When I took over as chairman in 2015, I did a quick analysis of the club and the viability of its survival. The results showed that the club would be viable if we were able to grow the club and improve the club spirit. But how to go about it?

Firstly, let me give you some key statistics for our club in 2015. The key indicators of the club were as follows:

1. Membership had fallen to just over 30 members with less than a dozen active divers
2. Club dives for the year were below 300 dives
3. There were less than 5 active trainees in the whole club
4. Pool sessions were poorly attended
   
   

How was I to turn the fortunes of the club around?

Costs had been slashed before I took over, so that was one avenue I could not pursue. The only major expense that the club had was the weekly hire of the pool. This facility was critical to training and giving the club a focal point so it would not have been possible to cut this without sounding the death knell for ESAC. So this left me with only one aim for the club, survival and turnaround. The only way to do this was to develop a plan to change the club, notably:

1. Culture change – We had to energise the members into wanting the club to regenerate and to look forward to our pool sessions and more importantly dive trips in the UK and abroad.
2. Passionate committee – Building a committee of dedicated people that would help to implement the vision that I had for the club.
3. Membership growth – Attracting new members to the club, both new to diving and existing divers.
   
   

The last two areas are where I devoted most of my activities and this would bring about the culture change and then ESAC could move forwards. I started talking to members and identified a few key individuals that would be willing to put the effort in and persuaded them to become committee members and some volunteered. They all wished for the same outcome as me and were prepared to commit some effort to their duties. Once the committee had been put in place it was a case of adding some new committee members as and when we needed extra effort.

The key area to work on was attracting new members to the club by improving the visibility of the club to the general public and making it known that we were there. To do this I decide to redesign the website and become more active on Facebook, there was no time to do anything else. This slowly brought about a small trickle of enquiries and members started coming to the pool sessions.

I went to the BSAC Conference in 2017 and met with Debbie Powell who outlined the Let's Grow Diving initiative within BSAC. It confirmed to me that I had the right approach, and I redoubled the effort to grow the club. I set targets at each AGM for membership and number of club dives. We achieved most of them and surpassed some of them.

After five years, we have achieved a lot of success. The club is thriving and we are receiving a steady stream of enquiries and adding new members, including ten new Ocean Diver trainees starting just next week. We now have a marketing and communications person on the committee and have widened our use of social media to Instagram and Twitter.

Eastcote Sub-Aqua Club

"The key area to work on was attracting new members to the club by improving the visibility of the club to the general public and making it known that we were there."

So now that we are in 2020 what are the key statistics for Eastcote Sub Aqua Club?

1. Membership is well over 60 members and over 50% are active divers.
2. Club dives were over 600 dives last year and the calendar for this year is filling up fast. At the last AGM, I set a target of 900 club dives for 2020, I think we will achieve that.
3. The lobby is full of divers on a Tuesday evening chatting away before we get in the pool and you have to fight for a place in the deep end to do your training.
4. Club trips are posted and filled within a few days whether it’s a hard boat or RHIB.
   
   

Eastcote Sub Aqua Club is doing well and continuing to thrive. If you want to join a friendly and active diving club in West London then please get in touch.

Our club’s success is proof that the Let's Grow Diving framework works!

Diederik Kohnhorst
Chairperson
Eastcote Sub-Aqua Club

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