Target reached!
Bring our gas storage cylinders back into service. These will be filled with various...
Totnes Sub Aqua Club Covid Recovery Project
Dartington, England, United Kingdom
Aim
To safely resume diving and training whilst supporting our members and the local community as we come out of this pandemic.
Impact of Covid-19 on the club
Last summer our boats were modified and new procedures bought in to minimise the risk of transmitting the Covid 19 infection. These added complications and the periods of lockdown meant that diving in 2020 was down to around a third of previous years and training was severely restricted with many of our members not diving at all. This cut our revenue, left us with a backlog of training and many members not getting any value from club fees.
We hope that we will be able refresh our skills, dive and train more in 2021 but this involves even more equipment to provide protection while teaching and practicing rescue skills. We also want to help our members get back into diving in safe steps whilst minimising the financial burden on them.
We were able to cut many costs last year, but we still had to maintain, insure and in some cases replace equipment. As we come out of lockdown we are desperate to have access to a swimming pool and a room for training and meetings. The cost of these facilities is increasing as organisations look to minimise their losses.
A plan to replace the aged garage door on the boatshed and install an oxygen booster and a replace the old cylinder filling panel with a gas mixing panel have been put on hold until club finances have recovered.
Service to members
The club prides itself on both the range of diving and the amount of training that it provides its members. It caters for all conditions and disabilities alowed under British Sub Aqua Club rules
We take our boats to sites all over the Sout West in all available depths on wrecks, reefs and seagrass, to suit all interests and abilities. We are always looking for new and rarely dived sites.
We have a thriving photography group supported by internationaly renown photographers.
Our qualified volunteer instructors do what ever they can to get members through their training and diving in the sea. Some members have more chalenges than others but that makes it all the more rewarding for them and their instructors when they get to see what lies beneath the waves.
We reduce the cost of diving by providing used equipment on loan and for sale at exceptionaly low prices.
We have a compressor and control panel for filling diving cylinders with air but want to upgrade to provide safer gas mixes at affordable prices.
Like any good club we look out for our members and do what we can to support them in difficult times.
Totnes Sub Aqua Club in the community
The club is very active in the local community and whilst all events were cancelled last year we expect to be helping out again once they are reinstated. These include:
- Teaching snorkelling to children at Giant Camps most weeks during school holidays
- Providing safety cover for Raft and Canoe Races on the River Dart
- Introducing Scout groups to diving
- Beach cleaning
- Releasing baby lobsters
- Seagrass surveys and planting seagrass
Seagrass is the most threatened underwater habitat in the UK. It is home to seahorses and a breeding ground for many fish.
- Recovering golf balls from ponds
- Raising funds for Dart Sailability and the Diving Diseases Research Centre
How the money raised will be used
- Buy an additional Resusci Anne to practice our rescue skills, as Covid 19 restrictions limit use of manikins
- Replace the old double boatshed door
- Support the refurbishment and reopening of Meadowbrook Community Centre
- Offer members two free shakedown dives to refresh their skills and get back into diving
- Install an oxygen booster and new gas mixing facility that will enable us to provide safer breathing mixes to members.
This is the existing cylinder filling control panel
The situation is dynamic, the needs have changed as we have developed this campaign and may change again. What we do know is that our members are desperate to get back into the sea.
Our target to raise £15,000 is ambitious but with matched funding from National Lottery it is achievable.
Rewards
To encourage you to donate through Crowdfunding we have a great range of diving and non-diving rewards on offer. A selection are shown below:
Painiting donated by Alexandra Jacobs
Macrame Jewellery donated by Hilary Scott
Goodies donated by Fourth Element
This picture of a nudibranch is one of a selection of mounted photographs provided by award winning photographers Dan Bolt and Simon Temple
This is an example of the shortie wetsuits for swimmers that have been donated to the club. We also have full single piece suits, two piece suits and semi drysuits available for diving and snorkelling.
Sport England: Active Together has provided £6,000 of match funding
DCC's Community Chest has provided £500 of match funding
This project successfully funded on 13th July 2021