Keeping Our Club Alive

Why we need your help

We are BSAC Number 1, the UK’s first-ever British Sub-Aqua Club branch. We need your help to save our club from the financial pressures of COVID-19!

Over the past ten years, we have been saving up to replace the ageing engines on our club boat. At the end of 2019, the engines broke beyond repair. We intended to replace them in 2020.

In 2020, the world – and our club - was hit by COVID-19. With pools closed, we had to interrupt our scheduled training and momentarily stop recruiting new members. We had to cancel most of our dive trips and for the few that went ahead, we could only have six divers instead of our usual twelve to comply with social distancing guidelines.

As you can imagine, this impacted our finances massively and we’re no longer able to afford to replace the engines. Without fixing them we’ll be unable to attract new members or train our existing members and, as a result, we’ll struggle to retain them.

This may lead to the first-ever British Sub-Aqua Club closing down.

In 2020, we have also seen a reduction in the number of members attending club trips. We believe this is due to the financial burden COVID-19 has had on our community. 

As a result, in 2021, we would like to introduce cost reduction measures for new and existing members when joining dive trips. We intend to reduce the price of renting our most popular scuba equipment to £1 and our membership fee to £1 for students.

This is why we need your help.

Who we are & what we do

As the original branch of the British Sub-Aqua Club (BSAC), we have been an integral part of the British scuba diving community for more than 67 years. Over the years, we have seen many divers come and go, and shown hundreds of them the beauty and wonder that can be found below the waves.

Our unpaid volunteer instructors have taught hundreds of divers to dive and to respect the fragile beauty of our seas. As a non-profit organisation, all of our members, committee and instructors contribute to the running of the club voluntarily.

Our revenue comes from membership, courses and dive trip fees, with all of our income used to pursue the club’s objectives and keep it running. We always strive to offer our members diving that is affordable and great value for money.

Why we need a club boat

Our club boat ‘Perseverance Too’ gives us our independence, allows us to explore and dive when and where we want.

It enables us to teach members boat handling skills and enables non-diving members to be an active part of our club and keeps our older members who have retired from diving active by coming out to boat handle.

One of our member's first go at boat handing, under the instruction of one of our instructors.

Supporting a younger, more diverse membership

This appeal is important, not only to fulfil the demands and expectations of potential new members but because the club has grown in size and changed in nature over the last few years.

Significantly, our mix of members has changed considerably. We now have a greater proportion of younger and junior members, bringing diving and the love of the sea to another generation.

It’s crucial that we can offer younger members both training and dive trips from our boat, as diving from it is considerably cheaper than chartering a hard boat.

Please help us to keep our heads above the water.

Our youngest member (12 years old) before her first-ever open water dive.