SUMMER NEWSLETTER 2010 

We are well into the 2010 dive season and there’s been plenty of diving, both local and further afield, the “viz” has improved tremendously since the early season dark pier dives bravely attended by most of the trainees and instructors and with the warmer water and welcome sunshine there has been some great diving.  Just a reminder to all those new to the Club, you need to sign up for diving on a Wednesday evening at the Club; Martin will put the dive sheets on the notice board for you to put your name down.

As well as local diving, both at Lundy and along our own shoreline, there have been two very successful rib-aways to St Ives and St Keverne – also many enjoyed a great weekend in Cornwall at Dive Fest 2010 where not only did we actually manage to dive this year (last year was blown-out by the poor weather) ILFSAC also won 1^st prize in the pirate fancy dress competition thanks especially to the great effort of Ricky and Chris who built our own Club pirate ship!  - photographic evidence in Dive magazine. 

The Lundy Splash-In took place last weekend and well done Mags for winning 3^rd prize in one of the categories of the photographic competition.

The 50^th Anniversary celebrations are well underway – a 50^th Anniversary Dive was held on 17^th April 2010 where twelve members did a morning dive off Ilfracombe Pier and that same evening the Anniversary Dinner was held at the Braunton Hotel attended by 141 past and present members – it was a great night that took a lot of planning and organising and the Committee wants to pass on its thanks to everyone who contributed to the success of the evening.

The next important planned event is the Ilfracombe Dive Fest taking place over the weekend 26^th / 27^th June 2010.  The details of the weekend are at the Clubhouse but the success of this event is reliant on all members offering their help.  There are lists at the Club for people to put their names down for when they can help, in whatever capacity and details of the programme of the weekend – this includes Friday night at the Club, diving during the Saturday for guest divers, a pig-roast and entertainment on the Saturday evening at the Rugby Club and guest diving and Club diving on the Sunday.  It is suggested that Club members take their dive kit as there may be an opportunity to get a Club dive in on the Saturday afternoon and the Sunday. 

The decoration of the Club House is more or less complete and is looking really great.  Now the task of putting back all the pictures / artefacts is underway which needs to be completed before our Dive Fest weekend.  The wall displays are a reminder of our Club history and 50 years is something to be proud of.  Could everyone also please be mindful of keeping all parts of the Clubhouse as tidy as possible and in particular when taking cylinders please make sure any that are moved forward need to be put back – recently the cylinders seem to have moved more and more forward creating a lack of space and also running the risk of getting them mixed up with cylinders being filled for visitors.  With the Dive Fest coming up and with the extra divers who will be visiting the Club House we need to be as tidy and ordered as we can to accommodate them as well as proudly display our Club history and successes.

The training programme is well underway with members achieving their sports diver and ocean diver qualifications.  There is a dive leader course planned with the offer of existing dive leaders attending the theory sessions as a refresher if they so wish – see details of dates on the notice board.  It is hoped that the dive leader rescue skills can be completed in July – date to be confirmed.

Finally, there have been problems recently at the Club when using computer equipment – for some unexplained reason there have been power surges which have caused serious problems to the hardware.  With this in mind, if you are using laptops to share photos please use the extension lead with a surge protector in order to protect your computer equipment.

 Fran.