CLUBFOCUS
Club night at Luton ’ s Inspire Sport Village
What training do you offer ?
We want to give members as many resources as possible ; we run courses throughout the year as required , rather than starting on fixed dates . We offer Diver Training Programme courses at all levels , and many in-house Skill Development Courses . This season we already have run a Mixed Gas Blending course with another one to follow in April and Boat Handling , Chartwork and Position Fixing , and VHF
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Radio courses are planned . The club runs an increasing number of technical courses . The plan is to add more SDCs to our training programme , including Accelerated Decompression Procedures ( ADP ) and Twin-Set Diving .
What instructors do you have ?
Our instructor team has five Assistant Diving Instructors , eight Open Water Instructors and an Advanced Instructor .
Member Vicky Mellows at pool night
We have a total of 186 years of diving experience within the instructor team . Our newest instructor qualified as an Open Water Instructor last year and our longest qualified instructor became a Club Instructor in 1988 .
What about recent diving ?
2021 was an unusual year because of Covid , but we still managed to run nine successful UK diving trips from Ocean Diver to Dive Leader level , excluding monthly training ( and fun ) dives to Stoney Cove . Most of these were one-day or weekend trips to the south coast , but we managed two four-day trips away . A trip to the Farnes was planned but didn ’ t take place due to a lockdown .
How much do you use the club boat ?
The club RIB is used for about half of the trips that we do . We ran a RIB trip from Greenwich to Hammersmith Bridge in the early part of 2021 to check out the boat and give members some boat handling experience , as well as an opportunity for a riverside picnic in the sunshine . A member of the branch brought a second RIB along and both boats ventured through the Thames Barrier and past London City Airport .