Sunday Catch Up

On Monday, Gary was working with South Essex College where all the students passed their final exam on the PADI Open Water course. Well done everyone! They all have one final theory session with the Recreational Dive Planner to complete the theory section of the course too. Although we use computer based open water crew packs and all our regulators have dive computers on them, we still teach the basic dive tables so everyone has the basic understanding and knowledge before moving on to the computers.

We were back in the deep pool on Tuesday night in Basildon. It was a busy night including Open Water and Rescue courses, which are all progressing well. Carol, who just came back from Egypt after completing Instructors Exam, was back teaching DSDs, and two of these students are going onto open water, which will be Carol’s first students starting next week!

Gary headed to Hadleigh, near Southend, on Wednesday to have a meeting regarding working with some young adults with behavioural difficulties. This follows on from the work we do with Basildon Academy and we are planning to also work with SkillForce, who are a charity that works in schools, drawing on the skills of ex-Forces personnel, to inspire young people to succeed. A lot of this work is made possible from the funding we receive from Sport Essex, which help get young people who aren’t sport motivated to get into sports. We feel that this also works to help with their confidence and self-esteem, and to possibly back into mainstream education. In the late afternoon, Gary was working with young students on their Confined Water 1. The 10/11 year olds are taught in centre, rather than rely on them to learn themselves at home in their own time.

As part of work we do with Basildon Academy, on Thursday Gary attended a careers convention for year 10 and 12, along with friends Laura and Steve, who each told the students their personal stories of how they got to where they are today. In the afternoon, Scuba Travel came to the centre to talk about next year’s holidays (2016):

1. One week on a liveaboard to the Red Sea 
2. A week on a liveaboard in the Maldives, followed by a week in a resort on the island. More news on these trips to follow!

As well as this, Janie was getting the equipment ready for South Woodham Ferrers that evening. Again at the pool, we had great fun with the Writtle College Red Sea Trip students, who were split into three groups working with three different instructors, Dave Chapman-Young (DCY), Rhonda and Gary. Nadine was also working with two people having their first experience scuba diving with the Discover Scuba Diving programme. In addition to this, Jamie headed up the SEAL Team, with the help of Janie and Nicole, which ended up with the usual Splash Time - a free for all in the water with students and staff!

On Friday Gary was back in Basildon Lower Academy with the Sports BTEC students, who are doing really well and we are starting to see all their skills come together. During Saturday, we had an open water referral course start in the deep pool at Basildon. Petros had got in touch trying to arrange an open water course as him and his friend Nikolas, are going to the Philippines at the end of March and could not find another centre to cater to this short time frame and they will be finishing their course off next Sunday. While this was going on, Andy Harris was also in the pool with three young DSDs who had a great time, and two very proud grandparents watched through the window and took photos to share with their family! After taking the open water referral course, Rhonda then took the last EFR course for her rescue students, which one student, Richard, finished this morning. Well done!

We have two pool sessions this week – Tuesday in the deep pool and Thursday at South Woodham Ferrers. We are also back in the deep pool Sunday – times will be posted on Facebook later in the week. Our other new instructor Ian Herbert, will be running a Night Diver speciality course in April. More information about this will become available later, but if anyone is interested please get in touch with the centre!