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The positive power of scuba
“ WHEN I WAS UNDER THE WATER, I DIDN’ T feel ill. My legs worked, my arms worked, my breathing worked. It was totally awesome.”
In early February this year, members of Stafford Sub-Aqua Club were excited to welcome Victoria Emery to dive in our pool. What made this such a special occasion is that Victoria was diagnosed four years ago with Parkinson’ s disease. Having previously instructed scuba diving in Thailand, her greatest wish was to scuba dive with her brother, as she had never been able to.
Victoria is a patient at Katharine House Hospice( KHH) and was surprised to receive
Hartford hits 60
HARTFORD SAC IN CHESHIRE TURNED 60 on 1 May 2024! Our club was initially named The Mid Cheshire College of Further Education Sub Aqua Club, but fortunately this was changed to Hartford SAC by the second meeting. We started our celebration year with a formal dinner 60 years to the day of the 1st committee meeting, joined
30 a call at Christmas from the nurse saying they had arranged for her to scuba dive with her brother at Stafford Leisure Centre, with Stratford SAC.
Just before her 44th birthday, Victoria noticed something was wrong. She suddenly started to fall a lot and then deteriorated quite quickly. She said:“ I’ ll always be grateful to Katharine House Hospice for the support they have given me and for arranging for me to go scuba diving once again.”
KHH is a charity close to a few of our members’ hearts; words can’ t describe how glad we are as a club to be a part of making
by current and former members and our special guest, the son of one of the founding members.
We held a dive weekend in Anglesey at the end of June, where in traditional British fashion, the Saturday weather involved torrential rain, gales and a thunderstorm. A few of the hardiest divers managed a shore dive in the rain at Holyhead Marina after 2nd breakfast before heading back to base to rearrange the dinner to an indoor BBQ and birthday cake! The Sunday weather was much better and we managed to get both of our boats out of Anglesey and a shore party
Victoria’ s dream come true, and to support her. When our instructors took Victoria down into the water with her brother you could see she was not hindered in the water at all. We were thrilled to see the joy on Victoria’ s face as she emerged from the water; it such a special moment.
Greg Round, Chairman of Stafford Sub Aqua Club, said:“ As a club, we were really pleased to help. It was our pleasure to make Victoria’ s dream come true and fabulous to be able to give her and her brother a memory they will keep forever.” STRATFORD SUB-AQUA Club
diving the Menai Strait.
Throughout the year, we’ ve also held a family BBQ afternoon, New Year’ s Walk and Burn’ s Night party. Our celebration year challenge was to record a club dive at 60 different locations. We completed this by the end of October, with dives from Scotland to Plymouth via Anglesey and the Red Sea! The 60th club dive was in Coniston Water from Bailiff Wood and was commemorated by placing a stone flag with HSAC @ 60 on it, at a depth of 6m directly out from the beach. JOANNA SCOTT, HSAC Secretary