Gozo Trip Gets off to an "Early" Start

The conversation went a bit like this ...... "morning Ben and Emma. What are you doing at the centre today? Morning David, going to Gozo. Not until tomorrow you're not. Oops!" Promised I would get it on the blog before you got back to Gosport! See you both tommorow morning.

A Clean Sweep at the PADI Instructors Exam

All the hard work during the IDC finally paid off at the weekend for our 4 candidates at the IE all of whom passed with flying colours. There was plenty of wailing and gnashing of teeth though ..... having successfully managed not to get the hover (not his fave!) Paul was mortified to find it appeared as one of the 5 skills required in the skills assessment. And who decided to put that question about Spencer wash outs into the presentations! Doh! However, so well prepared were the candidates that they even managed a classy night out in Staines on Saturday evening! Well done to all 4 new instructors. We look forward to seeing some of you working in the dive centre soon.

Beach Clean - 17 September

Many thanks to everyone who turned up on Sunday for the anual Beach Clean. There were about 25 club members and members of the public who turned up on the day and there was plenty of rubbish to collect. The results of the clean up have been passed on to MCS and Project AWARE. Thanks to Katie for her hard work in coordinating the event.

Sheep Running Scared in Hereford

Our West country reporter informs us that sheep are running scared in the wake of the latest human population increase to the area. Our cameraman snapped this intelligent looking chappie who is apparently taking over a farmersootikal research team in Hereford! eek time to stay off the drugs then!

Stop Press another Ian Brown Story

After Ian's nasty swimwear scandal, it has now turned out that he also fanices himself as a bit of a model. Now we know you are moving on to a new job Ian but I must admit maybe modelling isn't the way forward.....

Successful IDC Candidates (Written in PADI Instructor Speak)

Congratulations to Alex, Neil, Paul and Ian on the successful completion of their Instructor Development course yesterday. Good job guys (in an irritating american accent with high fives all round). The last 9 days have been quite a test of stamina but we particularly liked the way they maintained a good sense of humour throughout. There were a few problems; one of the candidates had a heavy night mid way through the programme, and there were several shocking attempts at trying to blag some non-diving training aids into the presentations. They all now know how to teach in accordance with the PADI system and they will be using this in the near future on the completion of the Instructors Exam next weekend.

Fire Station Open Day

Fun was had by all at the Fire Station Open Day..... and more importantly money was raised for the Fire Services Charities. We thought it might have been a quiet day but how wrong we were. We were taken by surprise by about 40 kids and adults who all enjoyed a splash in the pool and a taste of what scuba diving is all about. Thanks to everyone that came along and a special thanks to the club members that helped out.

Full House at the Club Meeting

It was a full house at the September monthly club meeting. Not sure whether it was the promise of cow and ale pie (which went down very well), the scubapro presentation or just the prospect of another great night of socializing, but well over 80 turned up. The raffle raised £110 for charity and once again thanks to everyone who donated prizes and bought tickets. Many thanks as well to Matt Armstrong from Scubapro for his presentation and bringing along the latest computers and torches from the range. It added that little bit extra to what was a brilliant evening and was much appreciated.

Beach Clean Up Blog

We have a blog set up for the beach clean up to keep everyone up to date with the project. You can view it here. All the information you need is there, so point friends, family, next door neighbours in the right direction if they would like to help out.

Fire Station Open Day

We are putting up our try dive pool at the Southsea Fire Station (Sommers town) open day on 9th September. Try dives and photo certificates will be run and all proceeds will be going to the fire service charities. Please come along and support the event! (Club Members: if you want to come along and help out we'd love to see you)

Another good month on the website

August did not break the record number of unique visitors that we had in July (infact it was about 150 short at 1250), however, it was good to see that some familiar visitors had returned. One visitor in particular who only managed about 25 pages in July surpassed themselves by looking at a staggering 120 pages in total over the month. Now that's dedication. Keep clicking guys!