Dacorum Sub Aqua Club

Purpose of the Committee

This page tells you about the committee.

The committee? What, when and how.

The committee leads the activities of the club and makes decisions about spending money, club events, courses, dives and policies.

The committee meets once a month in private. 

Individual committee members have responsibility and authority for managing their part of the club's activities. The Club Officers page describes each job on the committee. 

The officers of the committee run the weekly Thursday meeting and mainly carry out their jobs that evening.

Elections

The committee is elected every April at the Annual General Meeting of the club.

Occasionally a post is contested, in which case a secret ballot is taken. Generally, most of the posts have a single volunteer. The committee is able to co-opt  members onto the committee if a vital post remains vacant after the AGM or becomes vacant during the year.

There is some flexibility in the scope and naming of the jobs created each year: some years we have Social Secretaries, Grants Officers, or deputy Chairmen, depending on circumstances

Committee meetings

The committee generally meets once a month, in private. 

They make decisions on matters such as:

• membership fees
• course and hire fees
• approval of diving qualifications
• approval to spend money, replace or acquire equipment
• plans for club events

Minutes of the meeting are published on the club notice board, which can be viewed at the Thursday evening meeting.

The overall objectives of the committee are:

1. Ensuring Safety

The committee must ensure the basic safety of everything the club does, such as:

• general quality of training
• general quality of diving
• safety in the pool
• safety of the use of the boat
• the need for training and to conform to external standards in areas such as:
  • Instructing
  • Dive Marshalling
  • Oxygen Administration
  • Rescue Management
  • First Aid
  • Seamanship and Navigation in the use of club boat

2. Acting within the constitution

The club has a constitution which the committee must uphold.

3. Providing diving and training activities

When recruiting members the club promises them an active training and diving schedule. So, it is the job of the committee to ensure we deliver:

• dive trips
• diving courses
• skill development courses
• training dives

4. Ensuring  resources are available

One of the main reasons for being in a club is to share the cost of buying and maintaining expensive equipment. The committee must make sure the following equipment is there, working and ready for use:

• club boat
• pooling training equipment
• lecturing materials and projectors
• oxygen first aid equipment

5. Promoting Unity

Every member has an equal stake in the club and its important that each is able to benefit equally from the club. The committee must make sure:

• the club is for everyone. No one gets special favours or is discriminated against.
• that people have the opportunity to express their opinion if there is a problem.
• that they avoid cliques, factions and splits.
• that the use of resources and activities of the club are fair to everyone.

6. Maintaining a balance of experienced and training members

The club can only support a certain proportion of untrained divers - so, its important to get the right balance between experienced and novice divers. The committee:

• must recruit new members caused by the natural turnover of membership of a dive club
• needs to encourage people who want to become active diving in the sea around the British Isles
• should promote the training of dive leaders so that novices can dive safely with an experienced buddy
• should promote the training of advanced divers to organise and supervise dive trips with safety and skill
• should promote the training of instructors so they can properly train others
• should not recruit more entry-level trainees than the club can efficiently train

7. Obtaining and using funds

To achieve all these objectives means finding and spending money. The committee must:

• raise and collect money
• spend money to promote the activities of the club