BSAC Conference 2024, a review by Cathy de Lara

Early Saturday morning six Newbury Scuba Diving Club members braved the torrential rain, floods and the M40 to drive to Birmingham for the BSAC conference. First up was Sophie R (NDO) and Sophie H (head of training), otherwise known as “good cop” and “bad cop”! BSAC are keen to promote all things environmental and are now members of the Clean Water Sports Alliance, (who will be marching through London on 3rd November to persuade the government to take the issue of clean water more seriously) Other environmental topics included MCS litter picks, Operation Oyster and Project Seagrass, as a club it might be fun to get involved and enjoy some diving with a purpose. Next, Bad cop and Andy Torbet discussed snorkelling. The new “complete snorkel guide” is out soon. Snorkelling could be a pathway to scuba (with potential to grow the club), but it doesn’t have to be, Snorkelling is good for those who can’t dive, don’t want to dive or can’t afford to dive. As they said its Deliverable/Accessible/exciting. Just before the coffee break, we heard from 3 clubs who are now thriving. In 2019 Aberdeen club had 15 members, now, in 2024 they have 120! Here is a list of what they have done:

Had a joined-up strategy
* A motivated/dedicated team (including younger, and female members)
* A focus on a culture of diversity (making the club more female friendly)
* Each diving grade has its own chief instructor
* Only 1 intake of ODs a year and train over the winter
* 1 training trip on a hardboat per year
* Re-vamped the website

Improved communication both within the club and with new/prospective
members
* The website needs to be more mobile phone friendly
* Try to get 1 google review per week or month (needs to be consistent to boost the profile of the club)
* Put something big in the calendar per month, trips/holidays/socials etc
* If you have old drysuits, remove the boots, put seals on the ankles so they can be used to fit more students (use wet-suit boots)
* Build a good social diary to get new divers involved

Following the break, we heard all about seagrass and the “Seagrass spotter” an app used to record the presence/absence of seagrass on our dives (projectseagrass.org) Then there was a fascinating talk by Tiffany Norberg on the amazingly well- preserved wrecks of the Baltic (Badewanne.fi) Following various awards, we heard from Dan Orr about the mistake divers make, a serious subject delivered with humour. These mistakes included:

* Incomplete knowledge (39% of fatalities had dived less than 1 year)
* Poor communication
* Changing conditions
* Pressure (both time and peer pressure)
* Complexity/task loading
Between 1992 and 2003 the leading causes of fatalities were:
41% ran out of gas
21% entrapment
15% Equipment failures

Now the leading cause is Medical (over half are cardiac), and the causes of cardiac events are Immersion/Cold/increased work of breathing/stress. So how can we prevent these mistakes?
* Use a checklist
* Dive to your recent experience not your cert card
* Plan for emergencies with your buddy
* Situational awareness
* Learn from your (and others) mistakes
* Practice
* Remember shortcuts don’t work
* And for those of us who are not as young as we used to be, use nitrox but set
your computer to air
* Remember the 4 P’s Plan/Prepare/Practice/Perform

After lunch (we brought our own but may have added some extra cake from Costa….) was the Incident report, where all the incidents that have occurred in the last year are put together to see if any lessons can be learnt. The take home messages were:
* Age is a factor (those who died were 8.3 years older than those who didn’t
* 52% of events were medical
* Being solo is the factor most likely to end in a fatality.
But there were some positives
* AAS had a 83% success rate
* CBL 100% success at getting the casualty to the surface
* CBL +CPR, CPR alone, O2 enriched CPR and use of an AED alone all had around a 30% success rate which is very good when compared to a hospital setting, so the training works!

Later in the afternoon we heard the fascinating human stories behind the wreck of the Mona’s Queen in the Isle of Man. Then we had “living with oceans on a hotter world” which was a bit of a rant and probably not the best talk to finish with.
Finally there was the drinks reception, we all received a voucher for a free drink (some of us managed to find more than onw, and some went home early and took theirs with them…..) a great time to catch up with anyone we hadn’t already managed to catch up with! All in all, an interesting day out.
Cathy