Club life as we know it has been turned upside down. Not being able to dive, snorkel or train in the same way, or hook up with club buddies is going to be really tough.
However, despite the challenges and unknown times ahead, we will do our best to rally as an organisation and do what it takes to ensure clubs and members come out of this as well as possible. We have already seen the network pulling together and supporting each other. You are a creative, clever and resourceful bunch that’s for sure and we’re confident as a community we’ll remain strong.
Albeit from our various homes, it’s business as usual for BSAC staff in terms of putting clubs and members first and delivering the greatest possible value in membership. However, as so much has changed our priorities and ways of supporting you need to change too.
We are already looking at how we can embrace technology to deliver additional value to members. We’re looking at webinars, online community platforms and an online learning platform, plus a program of content to keep our much-loved sport in members’ minds. We’ll keep you posted on all of those things.
Our key challenge will be to keep members with us through this journey and there is an open call-out to our community for you to share any ideas, thoughts or knowledge in terms of how you think we could add value to your membership during this time.
Obviously, right now, protecting health and our families is everyone’s number one priority. Our hearts are with you on that. But if you do have some time, here are some thoughts for you to take away and maybe, when you’re ready, discuss with fellow club members.
Continuing with theory training
We are looking at delivering a programme of centrally-organised online theory lessons via webinar but it will take a week or more to get that together.
Meanwhile, resourceful clubs are already using software platforms such as Google Forms (for people to sign up) and Microsoft Teams to deliver their own theory lessons online. One such club, Reading University BSAC, is running online Dive Leader lectures this weekend. We're hoping to get a How-To blog post from the club's Training Officer David Ashmore online next week, but if you can't wait that long, David is happy to be contacted by email if you are looking to do a similar thing and have questions.
Diving for All Dive Managers & Buddies course
We've managed to schedule a couple of DfA online courses for the next few weeks - and they're free! Places are limited to ensure effective management of the WebEx operating system, but we're hoping to schedule some more dates and further online courses soon.
Talks on interesting topics
We’ll be going out to all members very soon to ask what topics they would like webinars on so we can start a programme. Meanwhile, however, you could also use the same software as above to simply run interesting talks. Please feel free to let us know if you think you have speakers that would appeal to the wider membership! You can email us anytime or call 0151 350 6224.
Websites for clubs
We hope you’ve seen this already, but there has certainly been a lot going on so maybe not. A couple of weeks ago we launched a new partnership with a company called Kolodo Uniform who are masters in building websites for networked club-based communities such as ours. We’ve worked with them to create stunning, functional and easy-to-use websites for your club. Our diving world will come back, get one of these and your club could come back stronger than ever. More info.
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