Am I missing something here?

[TerryH]

Well the first ones have arrived. Nice new THICK plastic
membership cards with pretty pictures of divers and a strip for
us to sign.

Has date of membership.
Member Name
Club and Member No.

And Diver Grade so at last we can use it as a annuly updated
& free C-Card??????????

Nope!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!

[Adrian Kelland]

Well the first ones have arrived. Nice new THICK plastic
membership cards with pretty pictures of divers and a strip for
us to sign.

Has date of membership.
Member Name
Club and Member No.

And Diver Grade so at last we can use it as a annuly updated
& free C-Card??????????

Nope!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!

Would have been nice, wouldn't it Terry? What a missed opportunity.

Adrian

[iainmsmith]

Well the first ones have arrived. Nice new THICK plastic
membership cards with pretty pictures of divers and a strip for
us to sign.

Has date of membership.
Member Name
Club and Member No.

And Diver Grade so at last we can use it as a annuly updated
& free C-Card??????????

Nope!

Something to contact HQ about and to formally suggest? It shouldn't take that much to change the printing on the cards, I would have thought.

Iain

[Mike Halligan]

Well the first ones have arrived. Nice new THICK plastic
membership cards with pretty pictures of divers and a strip for
us to sign.

Has date of membership.
Member Name
Club and Member No.

And Diver Grade so at last we can use it as a annuly updated
& free C-Card??????????

Nope!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!

You're missing nothing, AFAIK, except that my C-cards from both BSAC and PADI bear my mugshot (not a pretty sight).

Then there is always the added complication that my HQ membership record appears to depend upon my notifying (without evidencing) each successive qualification to HQ. I do this by crossing out the old grade and ringing the new one on my membership renewal notice. Hence, until I applied to HQ for a C-card or a controlled attendance SDC or an Instructor rating, and had to produce QRB pages, I guess I could just claim each successive year to have achieved another milestone - without ever passing a diver grade in my life.

Hey presto, a psuedo C-card at AD level, granted whilst still a Novice 1, crikey!

Mike ;-)

[TerryH]

:=
You're missing nothing, AFAIK, except that my C-cards from both BSAC and PADI bear my mugshot (not a pretty sight).

Then there is always the added complication that my HQ membership record appears to depend upon my notifying (without evidencing) each successive qualification to HQ. I do this by crossing out the old grade and ringing the new one on my membership renewal notice. Hence, until I applied to HQ for a C-card or a controlled attendance SDC or an Instructor rating, and had to produce QRB pages, I guess I could just claim each successive year to have achieved another milestone - without ever passing a diver grade in my life.

Hey presto, a psuedo C-card at AD level, granted whilst still a Novice 1, crikey!

Mike ;-)

Not so fast Mike.

We dont have mugshots on credit cards, so why on C-Cards?

The 4 (3?) part form that's sent out to the branch is computer
generated and has your grade on it. The Club Membership Sec
is responsible for ticking the box when that changes and
somebody at HQ has the job of punching in the data. So it
is annuly updated on the BSAC database and is already in
electronic format.

Now if you are saying that this method is open to abuse then
that's an admin problem, not the cards fault.

If the computer can churn out Name, DOB, Club/Membership
number, I'm sure it can manage OD, SPT, DL, ADV, 1st as some
sort of pre-fix as per PADI. DL62345678, AI62345678,
OWSI62345678 etc. Same number, but the prefix denotes the grade
held on the database.

If the membership card is that important as a receipt or
proof that the holder is insured etc. then why not go that
one step further and make it a full C-card?

TerryH

[vice-chairman]

Just to let you all know that council did consider including diver and instructor (where appropriate) grade on the membership card as part of the review. It was felt that we should not issue qualification cards without a photo and to include a photo on the membership card would be logistically difficult and expensive. We therefore decided to keep the existing system of qualification card with photo on demand.

Thanks

Marcus

[allan j bretherton]

And provide a valuable source of income?

Just to let you all know that council did consider including diver and instructor (where appropriate) grade on the membership card as part of the review. It was felt that we should not issue qualification cards without a photo and to include a photo on the membership card would be logistically difficult and expensive. We therefore decided to keep the existing system of qualification card with photo on demand.

Thanks

Marcus

[terryh]

Just to let you all know that council did consider including diver and instructor (where appropriate) grade on the membership card as part of the review. It was felt that we should not issue qualification cards without a photo and to include a photo on the membership card would be logistically difficult and expensive. We therefore decided to keep the existing system of qualification card with photo on demand.

Thanks

Marcus

Bad move. Even if it's not used as a C-Card the addition of
diver grade is an indication of what's actually on the
database at HQ.

Just ask those doing the paperwork and applying for SDC's and
IT events about the hassle over incorrect entry level grades
on the database.

Even if the pics are too involved or costly (has it actually
been costed?), adding 2 or 3 extra letters to the membership
no. isnt likely to cause any problems.

TerryH

AO A123456789
That's Advanced Diver / Open Water Instructor No. 1234566789

[Mike Halligan]

Sorry, Terry, I foolishly thought all those query characters meant you were asking. Silly me.

[matt]

Hi Terry

I don't suppose you are going to agree, but I sympathise with the BSACs position, having gone through a similar discussion in a branch committee meeting - and we were only talking about 100 members not 32,000.

Just ask those doing the paperwork and applying for SDC's and
IT events about the hassle over incorrect entry level grades
on the database.

Our branch committee came to the consencus that the only reliable source of qualification information was the QRB. The QRB is not a perfect system but at least each qualification is signed and stamped by a club DO, so is traceable to an extent.

Even if the pics are too involved or costly (has it actually
been costed?),

High volume photo card printers are costly, trust me on this. You also have to consider the time required to scan and size images. Additionally there may be development time required to reference the photo's from the database records.

adding 2 or 3 extra letters to the membership
no. isnt likely to cause any problems.

Unfortunately you are showing your ignorance of database systems here. I am not saying it can not be done, only that you can not assume it is simple or possible without seeing the data-model and the management system which drives it. Even if it can be done, alterations to production Db systems require costly design and testing. Just imagine the disruption that would result from the membership Db collapsing.

The fact that such an obvious idea was rejected indicates to me that council have probably been talking to someone that knows what they are on about.