​The issue of children being able to dive is an emotive subject.  During my years in diving I have seen the debates rage back and forth about what age limit should be set.  When I became involved in the Clubmark scheme several years ago I was motivated not necessarily by the idea of attracting children into sport, as by the concepts of fair access and freedom from discrimination.  If you read the fine-print of many Branch constitutions many of them still include the ability to black-ball new membership usually couched in the phrase “membership applications will be subject to approval by the branch committee.”  The grounds and procedures for accepting or refusing a membership application and the mechanisms for appealing the assessment never seem to be included.  Even if you asked, I suspect no-one in the branch would be able to explain.  I have no idea how often, if ever, this clause is invoked – but wouldn’t you hate the thought that, after an evening’s visit to the club you are considering joining and a quick chat in the bar, committee members could decide that you just ‘don’t fit’ and refuse your application? Perhaps when joining a branch we should modify Groucho Marx’s oft quoted put down?  Please accept my resignation.  I don’t want to belong to a club that won’t accept anyone as a member.
Of course, the really successful BSAC branches are those who welcome everyone as a member.  These are the branches for whom getting a Clubmark award is just a case of putting the paperwork into a file and getting it sent off.  The biggest barrier to this happening is that they are probably having so much fun snorkelling, diving, doing outreach work and recruiting new members that there just isn’t time to get the evidence together. 
The politics involved in the management of a dive club can frequently overwhelm the members involved.  As the equipment and techniques involved in diving evolve, the long-serving members find that they are suddenly not the ‘expert’ voice that they were in previous years and feel deep resentment.  Young enthusiastic members feel frustrated as they argue their case in committee meetings. 
Dive clubs tend to elicit deeper bonds than other sporting clubs.  We rely on our diving buddies not only to share the safe diving we are all seeking, but to provide the support to take on more challenging dives and the back-up when things go wrong.  Members of other sports clubs don’t have to rely on each other in anything like the same way.  Poor teamwork on a football pitch means you lose the match, but no-one’s life would be endangered by it.  Poor teamwork on a dive trip means oxygen cylinders don’t get checked, dive briefs get skipped and the outcomes can be deadly serious. With strong links to the people in our dive club come strong emotions.  Longstanding members of a club will know each other’s families, children will spend their summer holidays on dive trips and learn to snorkel or dive within the branch.  Non-diving partners can frequently be found supervising a game of beach cricket for a coach load of divers’ children.  So woe-betide any Johnny-come-lately who suggests that, instead of the annual pilgrimage to Weymouth, they would like to head to the Farne Islands this year.  You are not suggesting that diving with seals might be a fun trip.  Oh no! You are (inadvertently) criticising years of family summer holiday tradition! How very dare you?
Diving attracts people from a wide range of day jobs and with that diverse background comes a wide range of skills.  The key thing for all of us is the ability to work within the team, to respect each other’s perspective, to negotiate change and to keep an open mind.  The job of the Diving Officer maybe delegated from the National Diving Officer but really good DOs will have a skill set that would make a recruitment agency go weak at the knees.  Some time ago a study tried to calculate the value of a mother, checking all her many roles and pricing the commercial equivalent.  The final figure was somewhere over £100,000 a year.  Putting a value on your DO will reveal a similar scary figure.  Can you imagine employing someone to check the training, observe instructors, meet and greet, strategically plan, keep tabs on the kit and manage the members within the branch?  For those frustrated members within clubs please note I specifically said putting a value on your DO, not a price! Dive branches can be the most frustrating places in the world at times – but they can also be the most rewarding and supportive environments for your dive adventures. Choose yours wisely.

​Christmas is an interesting time for divers, not least because it’s one of the few holidays that we actually take to spend with our families.  During the year, bank holidays are a chance to travel a bit further afield for some diving.  By Christmas, diving activities tend to be reduced by autumnal, windy weather.  Suddenly instead of fondling kit while you wait for your air fill, you’re fondling Hello Kitty plush dolls for your niece in a Toys R Us queue that makes the early morning rush at Stoney Cove look like a rather civilised affair. 
Let’s face it, all divers really want for Christmas is more dive kit.  But there are two things conspiring against you opening your perfect gift on Christmas day.  Firstly, divers are notorious for justifying new pieces of kit throughout the dive season, “my drysuit really won’t last until the end of June” or “I’m going to need a gas switching computer to take full advantage of the AMG course.”  And then the real clincher – no-one else understands what kit you need and that extends to your dive buddies too.  The kit that works for one diver is another person’s worst nightmare.  Just look around your next club dive and you’ll see all the different choices that we make for our dive kit.  So is it any wonder that your nearest and dearest buy you a micro towel, a flask for the post-dive coffee and a novelty bath plug in the form of a bright yellow jellyfish?  Act early!  Find out now if your favourite local dive store does vouchers.  Better still, find out if they will do vouchers over the phone or online. It is far too dangerous to let non-diving partners visit the store and see how much the kit actually costs!
Now I’m not a qualified meteorologist.  Living on an island has the advantage that I only need to know how much and which way the wind is headed over the Irish Sea and I can plan my dives accordingly.  But even during the settled high pressure systems in the summer, planning dives more than 48 hours in advance can be a dangerous game.  But I’m going to stick my neck out.  Christmas Day will be calm, dry and sunny.  Surface air temperatures of 8 degrees will match those in the sea, making for a pleasant diving day.  In fact this may be the most pleasant diving conditions of the winter season, and we’ll all be building Lego Harry Potter, challenging everyone to stay awake after lunch and trying to look like we really were experts with programming Big Track the first time around.
Your only chance is a Boxing Day dive.  Convincing Gran that she needs to babysit for a few hours so that you can go out to collect scallops for dinner is only going to work if Gran is going to eat the scallops too.  Most relatives would welcome a seafood diversion from turkey, and your offer will be accepted.  Suddenly, the pressure is on – now it’s not just a few scallops as you swim along on a gentle branch dive – now you have to prove your worth as a diver scavenger.  Come back with less than three scallops per person and face the scorn of the non-diving relatives.  There’s no point trying to explain the impact of dredging, overfishing or habitat loss.  You will lose the argument.  All that your nearest and dearest will see is the shiny, expensive dive kit that you loaded up in the morning and their empty supper plates in the evening.  It’s just not worth the grief that you will get.  Perhaps it’s safer to leave the kit in the garage until New Year, do the family thing and tell tales of your diving exploits instead? Cold turkey sandwich, anyone?
New Year’s Day usually brings dive clubs and their families together to blast off the excesses of the previous night.  A local dive for many clubs will mean the lake in the local nature reserve.  Ok so it’s only four metres deep and two of those metres are thick black sediment, but it’s water isn’t it?  Rope signals are reviewed, tenders practice their stance on the shore and the bravest/daftest divers slip into the water.  Families will stand around consuming mince pies and holding your new flask and micro towel ready for when you return! Happy New Year!