Farewell to Andy Stanbridge
IT IS WITH GREAT SADNESS THAT WE report the death of Andy Stanbridge . Andy was the Diving Officer of Octagon Divers in Nottingham for most of the past 21 years , since joining the club . He died in April after a long illness .
Andy lived and breathed diving . He and Helen did their first dive in the Seychelles on their honeymoon and started training on their return home . He never looked back , working rapidly through the diver and instructor grades . His first UK sea dive , together with Helen , was in Plymouth . His diving heaven though was Scapa Flow . Every four years or so he would ‘ feel a Scapa trip coming on ’ and off we all went .
He joined Octagon Divers in 2001 and quickly rose to the dizzy heights of Diving Officer . His infectious enthusiasm inspired many new recruits , while his focus on planning and safety was a great example to the rest of us .
He managed to bring a huge amount of expertise to his training , but was always great fun . He had a seemingly bottomless pit of truly terrible jokes – delivered with a twinkle in his eye and never offensive . He was a great socialiser and helped organise many social events for the club . He invented
Andy Stanbridge
the ‘ wrinkly diver ’ award for the diver who spent most time underwater during the year – needless to say , he was an enthusiastic competitor for this .
Outside of diving , Andy had an incredibly varied career , ranging from coal-miner to chef to IT teacher ; he even worked in the education department in the local prison , and was a keen photographer .
In addition to his work , he was part of the Area Coaching Team for many years . He continued to play a lively and active role in the club , even when ill health forced him to give up diving in 2017 .
Andy leaves his wife , Helen ; he is greatly missed by all his diving buddies . ROSY BARKER , Secretary , Octagon Divers
Thistle Divers ’ golden years
THISTLE DIVERS SUB AQUA CLUB HAVE BEEN DIVING INTO THE BEAUTIFUL GREEN waters off Scotland ’ s coastline for half a century this year . We plan to celebrate our 50th ( Golden ) anniversary with a lovely dinner and a party ; we are looking to get in touch with anyone who has been involved in the club over the past five decades to help us celebrate this landmark anniversary .
The venue will be our local : The Coachman Hotel , Kilsyth on Friday 28th October 2022 with tickets priced at £ 40 and will be available from Andrew Gibson , email andrewgibson131 @ live . co . uk or Anne Peck on 0780 3213266 . Expect a fun varied night with speakers , games and lots of chat about the underwater world . ANNE PECK , Thistle Divers
In praise of Regional Training
LIKE MANY CLUBS , OUR instructors are working flat out at the moment , trying to get through the Covid backlog as well as training our numerous new recruits ( thanks to our successful recruitment efforts ). Our instructors are also divers too of course , and it felt to me that we were getting to the point where they were doing too much instructing and not enough diving for their own pleasure .
I need a few more skills signed off for my Dive Leader qualification so , with our instructors ’ workloads in mind , I contacted Bob Huyton , our local Regional Coach to see if he could offer any support or advice . Bob was super-helpful : he has organised a bespoke training day for me and a couple of colleagues in the near future to get through a few remaining skills and also suggested I attend a Practical Rescue Management course he was helping to run .
The Practical Rescue Management course took place recently and it was a load of fun . It was really interesting to be taught by different instructors – you definitely pick up new nuggets of advice from instructors with a slightly different perspective and experience to your ‘ usual ’ instructors . Having a really high instructor to pupil ratio meant the course ran very efficiently and instructors were always on hand to offer advice . It was great to make contact with like-minded divers from other clubs too – there were also familiar faces from other courses I have attended previously . The morals of the story are :
■ If your club is overworking your instructors , then do contact your Regional Coaching team . They will do what they can to help you as an individual and your club more generally .
■ Look at BSAC training days / courses as a means of both getting skills signed off and developing your diving . You will definitely gain lots by attending them . SIMON WATKINS , Stratford on Avon SAC ( 0730 )
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