Snorkellers Fees

[Carol]

What have I missed?
I see that Scuba Divers fees are still £43 but snorkellers fees have gone up to £53. Unless there are pages which have not yet been updated - jumping between dot org and dot com is more than a little confusing.
I hope that someone can explain this to me in order to encourage me to remain a snorkeller and not become a Diver.
Although, I must admit that my card says I am STILL a DIVER because in order to qualify for the £5 discount which CI DIVERS get I sign up as a DIVER and not a snorkeller.
Carol

[GMulhall]

Carol,

As far as I can see, the snorkelling membership rate is the same as a diver -
£43 for full membership. This is the info on the .ORG site (http://www.bsac.org/services/membership0502.htm) and is also linked from the .COM site (http://www.bsac.com/comediving/howtojoin.html).

Another point is that there is no reduction for grade, as there is for divers or diving instructors. If we are trying to increase the popularity of snorkelling to non-divers perhaps this should be looked for Advanced Ocean Snorkel & Snorkel Dive Marshall or Snorkel / Advanced Snorkel Instructor.

Gary M.

[Adrian Kelland]

Hi Carol and welcome to the forum.

Could you post a link to the place where you found the reference to £53, it could easily be a typo.

Adrian

[Carol]

I had to hunt around to find the page here
http://www.bsacsnorkelling.co.uk/bsac/about.htm
Def says £53 for snorkelling membership!
Delighted to hear that it is prob a typo however!
Carol :confused:

[GMulhall]

Carol,

I can see what you mean - I would hazard a guess that the £53 fee is for BSAC Direct. There is a £10 premium over normal Branch membership rates.

Gary M

[Adrian Kelland]

Carol,

I can see what you mean - I would hazard a guess that the £53 fee is for BSAC Direct. There is a £10 premium over normal Branch membership rates.

Gary M
Doesn't mention BSAC Direct there, one for someone in the snorkelling team to sort out and confirm I think.

I'll let them know.

Adrian

[Carol]

Thanks, guys.
Hopefully sorted out by the time my renewal comes up.
I'd also like the Scuba discount :rolleyes:
Carol

[John Williams]

In defence of the website..the ONLY membership available through the Snorkelling HQ website is through BSAC Direct ...and the ONLY price for members through BSAC Direct is £53 (unless you go down the associate member route and forgo the magazine and voting rights).

If you join through a branch then you get the £43 option (with all the discounts for qualifications available). However - the branch is free to include/append its own local levy ...and therefore to offer a price on a national website is simply not a good idea (they'll all be different and are subject to change without HQ knowing)

It may have been appropriate to mention that discounts on National Membership rates are available to those joining through a local branch - and to contact them direct for details (with a link to a branch finder function?)

However - if the discounts available for qualification in the SCUBA world are not available to snorkellers then Alistair (as Snorkelling Chief Examiner) could do with raising that in BSAC Council ....I'm sure that Council would wish to offer similar encouragement to snorkel divers as it does to SCUBA divers.

If Council do not act on his suggestioin then I'd certainly support a motion to the next AGM bringing snorkelling membership into line with SCUBA membership rates.

John

[Keith Lawrence]

Hi Carol

I've got Bob Healy sitting next to me at the Council meeting this weekend :) I'll flag this one up to Bob, he's the expert in this area, we'll get it all clarified for you and change the website if there's anything wrong there.

Regards

Keith L
BSAC Council

[Bob Healey]

Hi Carol,

The £53 is for Full Snorkelling membership to BSAC Direct, the same as Full Diver, if you join through a Branch it's £43 the same as Scuba.

Hope this helps, will try to get the bsacsnorkelling web site amended this week. Would also be interested in any other updates you think are necessary as it is one of my Council tasks. The Branch contact list is in the throes of being updated but not an easy task as I believe you are aware.

Bob Healey
BSAC Council Member and Northern Snorkel Development Officer.

[Carol]

Thanks for clarifying that.
I'd be quite interested to know how many people pay £53 to be a snorkelling member of BSAC not attached to a Scuba Club.
Carol

[NickPheas]

Thanks for clarifying that.
I'd be quite interested to know how many people pay £53 to be a snorkelling member of BSAC not attached to a Scuba Club.
Carol
I'd be fairly interested to know how many people would pay to be snorkellers at all.
We've one guy in our club who snorkels, but doesn't dive. He used to dive, but he's older now, doesn't want the faff, don't think he's a BSAC member any more.
The kids aren't interested. They consider snorkelling as one of those things you just do, not something you want to be in a club for.
We've offered a couple of times to be part of the snorkelling week promotions, but no-one's every turned up. It's just a week from the regular training schedule wasted.
Obviously there are some, there's Bob, but he's the only BSAC Snorkeller I've ever met.

[Sean Gribben]

A totally untapped market with so much potential for branches if only some of them would realise!
There are more snorkellers going to the Red Sea than divers.
Not much teaching required for basic qualification and revenue to the branch.

Sean

[Carol]

Hi Sean,
Thanks for pointing that out!
I'm just back from a week in Sharm and saw several boat-loads of purely snorkellers going out. Pointing out my qualifiations to the Dive companies allowed me to go with the divers and snorkel alone - which I was quite happy with.
I just followed the divers who were at 20 odd m and joined them when they surfaced after about 50 mins. I could also be trusted to go for a snorkel Drift dive (Jackson ? Reef) which they wouldn't allow unqualified snorkellers to do.
Most snorkellers didn't want to stay in the water after 15 mins and they were all encumbered with huge lifejackets fully inflated and sometimes with no fins(!!!!) and resting on one of these coloured tubes!!!! :rolleyes:
One of the Disclaimer questions was "Can you swim?"
I went with a girl friend of one of the divers and she expressed horror at me wearing a weight belt with my shortie wetsuit.
How much more enjoyable they would all find it if they had a few sessions in a pool before they went!
And Yes.... trip report is coming, Alison! :D
Cheers
Carol

[Dave]

A totally untapped market with so much potential for branches if only some of them would realise!
There are more snorkellers going to the Red Sea than divers.
Not much teaching required for basic qualification and revenue to the branch.

Sean

I would dispute the usefulness of the market for clubs

Consider the suggestion...

In order to run a course, then the prospective persons would have to (a) become bsac members at GBP43 as well as Branch membership fees in order for the branch to undertake the training ( I presume ) and (b) the branch would have to be doing it without a profit to avoid HSE issues and to avoid BSAC principles of clubs not charging for training

Unless the people were going to want to learn to dive ( in which case trying to advertise and recruit snorkellers is unnecessary ) , even those that did take a snorkelling course are , I suspect , unlikely to have an ongoing interest in it and so I do not see that the club would gain unless they made a profit on the course (against point b above).

The only way I can see it working to a worthwhile level is as a standalone course for sale , but that would seem to be limited to schools

Dave

[Bob Healey]

Membership for Snorkellers is £13, for basic no frills membership, no mag, no vote, but still with the insurance and access to SDC's and the best training in the world.

I've come across thousands of people who say they can snorkel, but very few who can really snorkel.

Leicester Underwater Explorers Club, this years Heinke Trophy winners summed it up at the DOC last weekend, "Good Snorkellers make Good Scuba Divers" These Branches who don't do snorkel training, properly, should try it, well worth while.

Bob Healey.

[NickPheas]

Membership for Snorkellers is £13, for basic no frills membership, no mag, no vote, but still with the insurance and access to SDC's and the best training in the world.

Bob Healey.
£13? It was £43 only a couple of days ago.

[Dave]

Membership for Snorkellers is £13, for basic no frills membership, no mag, no vote, but still with the insurance and access to SDC's and the best training in the world.

I've come across thousands of people who say they can snorkel, but very few who can really snorkel.

Leicester Underwater Explorers Club, this years Heinke Trophy winners summed it up at the DOC last weekend, "Good Snorkellers make Good Scuba Divers" These Branches who don't do snorkel training, properly, should try it, well worth while.

Bob Healey.

In post #10 , you stated that it was GBP43. Good snorkellers may make good divers but that does not mean that you have to be a good snorkeller to be a good diver.

Dave

[John Williams]

£13? It was £43 only a couple of days ago.

Hang on!

Full membership (with "all the frills" as Bob called them) IS £43

Basic Snorkelling membership (without the "frills") is £13

Where's the problem?

The marketing opportunity comes not from MONEY ...but from members = branch survivability!

Get young people involved and they will probably, eventually, have kids. When the kids reach snorkelling age - they join...making all branch social events more fun! The parents can also come diving and go snorkelling between dives (or share the diving place and go snorkelling with the kids too!). This means you have more members available to fill the boat.

And possibly a lightweight asst cox who will be happy to keep logs, move weightbelts out of the way, help you put fins on/off!
Or shore cover who will run for another pen, will fill logs in, will run back to your car for the dSMB you left by the towbar!

When these kids - who learned to snorkel at 8 hit 12 then they can develop SCUBA diving skills. More members - and the parents can now fill even more places in the boat!

What this means to YOU is not PROFIT...but more accessible diving that costs less = happiness! All because you encouraged snorkelling in the branch!

Because you did it properly the youngsters have self discipline and good water skills and understand the basis physics of diving before they ever contemplate taking on Ocean Diver.

Because you did it at all - their parents are still around!

Marketing does not have to = MONEY!

[Bob Healey]

Dave,

Try reading the posts in between, John explained the membership price, sorry I can't make it any simpler.
£13 for no frills membership.
£43 for Full membership
£53 for Direct membership.
Quite simple really!

I never said that you had to be a good Snorkeller to be a good Scuba diver, but it helps, and to be a good all round diver then you must be a good snorkeller, after all we are all Divers. Not all good snorkellers make good divers and definitely not all good scuba divers make snorkellers, good or otherwise.

Try snorkelling you may be pleasantly surprised, freedom in the water without a clumbersome tank on your back, no decompression to worry about. I have had many more brilliant snorkel dives in the Red Sea than I have Scuba dives. Just a thought.

Bob Healey

[Bob Healey]

I would dispute the usefulness of the market for clubs

Consider the suggestion...

In order to run a course, then the prospective persons would have to (a) become bsac members at GBP43 as well as Branch membership fees in order for the branch to undertake the training ( I presume ) and (b) the branch would have to be doing it without a profit to avoid HSE issues and to avoid BSAC principles of clubs not charging for training

Unless the people were going to want to learn to dive ( in which case trying to advertise and recruit snorkellers is unnecessary ) , even those that did take a snorkelling course are , I suspect , unlikely to have an ongoing interest in it and so I do not see that the club would gain unless they made a profit on the course (against point b above).

The only way I can see it working to a worthwhile level is as a standalone course for sale , but that would seem to be limited to schools

Dave
Hi Dave,

HSE does not cover snorkelling under the DWR 97 as no one is using compressed gas underwater.

HSE would come into effect from a risk assessment point of view though, but we already do those, don't we?

Bob Healey