Poll- Do you agree with the CDS getting out of the C- Card business?

[jcr]

how do you handle a diver thats really training on vacation, many certified CAVE DIVERS simply dont have the time to maintain skills, you have a person that comes to Florida and becomes certified over a year or whatever time frame, they can do almost anything they want once they have the card but if they make it down one a year for a week it will take them 10 years to gain the experience that a local can in 6 months....

You discourage them from the sport and set up experience requirements that must be completed within a certain time frame for their provisional cert to become permanent. Furthermore, you establish experience requirements for periodic renewal of their cert.

I would love to climb 8000m peaks in the Himalaya but the truth is I don't live in the mountains and couldn't possibly climb enough to develop and maintain the skills necessary to participate in high altitude mountaineering. Similarly, cave diving is not for everyone.

Charlie

[bletso]

I have seen too many instructors, who IMO, should not be teaching cave, both CDS and NACD. There are some I wouldn't trust to polish my shoes. Everyone's instructor is always the best. This is true with both OW, cave and technical. Who wants to admit their card may not be what it should because of a sub-standard instructor. I personally have no objection to the organization offering training. My main concern is across the board for all organizations in that they all seem more interested in numbers than quality with few exceptions. I dropped out of the CDS a long time ago due mainly to their political infighting and administrative short comings. Saying that, they are and have always been hands down better than the NACD, IMO.

I do feel that the CDS has over the last few years lost focus and has become to much like other mainstream training organizations and has become an instructor oriented organization rather than a member at large organization.

Safe Diving

[diveconjeff]

... My main concern is across the board for all organizations in that they all seem more interested in numbers than quality with few exceptions. I dropped out of the CDS a long time ago due mainly to their political infighting and administrative short comings. Saying that, they are and have always been hands down better than the NACD, IMO.

I do feel that the CDS has over the last few years lost focus and has become to much like other mainstream training organizations and has become an instructor oriented organization rather than a member at large organization.

Safe Diving

SO this got me to thinking a bit... and that generally hurts if I do it for too long.

It may be a fine distinction, but who is it that is really concerned about the numbers? The organization? The general membership? Or maybe the instructors affiliated with the organization?

I am not so naive as to think the dollars for instruction have no impact, but the question I am asking myself is, "I wonder if it is possible to have an organization that offers instruction AND has a strong enough membership where the non-instructor component has an equal footing with the instructor component.

It would need to offer benefits and be attractive to both instructors and members.

Of course, if instruction is your livelihood, passion, or both, you might tend to have a much more strongly vested interest. Is this something that general membership can either compete or co-exist with? If instruction is not there, will the organization be able to have sustainable level of membership at a national level with out "breeding" more membership? I strongly believe there are tangible benefits to having a large organizations from a number of perspectives.

Ouch, my head hurts now.

I have seen too many instructors, who IMO, should not be teaching cave, both CDS and NACD. There are some I wouldn't trust to polish my shoes. Everyone's instructor is always the best. This is true with both OW, cave and technical. Who wants to admit their card may not be what it should because of a sub-standard instructor.

Early on, I once had an AOW instructor that could not bend over and put his own fins on. Never thought he was one of the best. Never wanted to dive with him again.

[rchrds]

Can anyone say in a short clear statement exactly what doing away with training is supposed to accomplish?

It eliminates the massive impact created by instructors who insist on being paid for caving, and then form the organization around sustaining that pay level instead of embettering the organization by promoting the science and study of caves and cave diving.

[JerseyJersey]

According to the CDS Constitution

"These objectives include 1) promotion of the conservation, exploration, and study of underwater caves; and 2) education for increased awareness, safety, and skill in cave diving."

[apitkin]

According to the CDS Constitution

"These objectives include 1) promotion of the conservation, exploration, and study of underwater caves; and 2) education for increased awareness, safety, and skill in cave diving."

The CDS has essentially become a cave diving training agency, with a few other activities that play second fiddle to that.

Some of us would like it to concentrate on (1) and by all means (2), as long as it is education rather than training (i.e. within a commercial relationship between an instructor and a student). The problem now is that the tail is wagging the dog.

Andy

[Jont]

According to the CDS Constitution

"These objectives include 1) promotion of the conservation, exploration, and study of underwater caves; and 2) education for increased awareness, safety, and skill in cave diving."

Good points and its impossible to accomplish those without training, another issue is if you downsize the CDS all of the babies that complain about "old boys clubs" will come out of the closet screaming like the lazy people they are because membership and involvement may require a little more then paying an instructor.

Whatever the case you cant unrig the training agency bell without serious and what I believe to be negative consequences, regardless of how the agency was started it is viewed as a training agency today.

We know that Safety, skill and exploration equate to good training followed up by good practice and experience so there's a clear need for a path to certification.

So in order to enhance the conservation, study, awareness and exploration aspects of the organization it makes more sense to use the existing infrastructure of instructors,it will reach more people and therefore create a sustainable organization.

Now do I think that there's room for improvement....of course, with most things there usually is but that doesn't mean we need to destroy the existing structure in needs more focus and that goal is realistically achievable.

Now lets look at the ASA:

The BOD of the ASA has made it very clear that they want nothing to do with the business of training and thats great because that how its viewed today, its ironic that some fools call it a "new old boys club".....LOL, I showed up with $40.00 for membership as required by them and did some of the best diving I've ever done in my life and they didnt know me from Adam.......then a week later I showed up with a friend with 40.00 and did it all over again.......pretty far from some exclusionary "old boys club".

The other reason the ASA doesn't need to train people is because the success they've had is remarkable if not unprecedented, kind of funny how some members have been heavily criticized in the midst of such undeniable success.............huh....I wonder why that could be?????

The "Old Boys Club": this makes me laugh because they really dont exist. When any organization is criticized like this it can only mean one of several several things:
1) That person can't or wont pay the fee for membership.
2) That person can't or wont jump through the hoops required for membership
3) That person has a vested interest in competing with that org so they take shots at it.
but usually it means they are just lazy and bitter.

What might make a lot of sense if for the CDS to develop a strategic partnership with the ASA or entities like it, I think that these two institutions have a lot to offer one another and would be viewed as stronger.

See what I hear after reading the comments of those who support the destruction of the training program offered by the CDS is WE WANT MORE CONSERVATION, PUBLIC AWARENESS AND STUDY.............AND WE ALL WANT MORE CAVES......

I think there a way to do that without having to sever the hand that could feed such an organization.

Killing training equates to killing the CDS.

[cerich]

Awesome to hear about your experiences with the ASA, however the ASA is pretty regional in nature. What we are talking about is all that then some.

Good points and its impossible to accomplish those without training, another issue is if you downsize the CDS all of the babies that complain about "old boys clubs" will come out of the closet screaming like the lazy people they are because membership and involvement may require a little more then paying an instructor.

Whatever the case you cant unrig the training agency bell without serious and what I believe to be negative consequences, regardless of how the agency was started it is viewed as a training agency today.

We know that Safety, skill and exploration equate to good training followed up by good practice and experience so there's a clear need for a path to certification.

So in order to enhance the conservation, study, awareness and exploration aspects of the organization it makes more sense to use the existing infrastructure of instructors,it will reach more people and therefore create a sustainable organization.

Now do I think that there's room for improvement....of course, with most things there usually is but that doesn't mean we need to destroy the existing structure in needs more focus and that goal is realistically achievable.

Now lets look at the ASA:

The BOD of the ASA has made it very clear that they want nothing to do with the business of training and thats great because that how its viewed today, its ironic that some fools call it a "new old boys club".....LOL, I showed up with $40.00 for membership as required by them and did some of the best diving I've ever done in my life and they didnt know me from Adam.......then a week later I showed up with a friend with 40.00 and did it all over again.......pretty far from some exclusionary "old boys club".

The other reason the ASA doesn't need to train people is because the success they've had is remarkable if not unprecedented, kind of funny how some members have been heavily criticized in the midst of such undeniable success.............huh....I wonder why that could be?????

The "Old Boys Club": this makes me laugh because they really dont exist. When any organization is criticized like this it can only mean one of several several things:
1) That person can't or wont pay the fee for membership.
2) That person can't or wont jump through the hoops required for membership
3) That person has a vested interest in competing with that org so they take shots at it.
but usually it means they are just lazy and bitter.

What might make a lot of sense if for the CDS to develop a strategic partnership with the ASA or entities like it, I think that these two institutions have a lot to offer one another and would be viewed as stronger.

See what I hear after reading the comments of those who support the destruction of the training program offered by the CDS is WE WANT MORE CONSERVATION, PUBLIC AWARENESS AND STUDY.............AND WE ALL WANT MORE CAVES......

I think there a way to do that without having to sever the hand that could feed such an organization.

Killing training equates to killing the CDS.

[Sludge]

The "Old Boys Club": this makes me laugh because they really dont exist. When any organization is criticized like this it can only mean one of several several things:
1) That person can't or wont pay the fee for membership.
2) That person can't or wont jump through the hoops required for membership
3) That person has a vested interest in competing with that org so they take shots at it.
but usually it means they are just lazy and bitter.

I need to bookmark this.

[Jont]

Awesome to hear about your experiences with the ASA, however the ASA is pretty regional in nature. What we are talking about is all that then some.

Chris:

I think the question you asked was smart and I think it needed to be asked but not with the goal of making the change, its the best possible question anyone could think of for the purposes of taking the memberships temperature.

When you asked the question it became real clear to me as to why HOG has been so successful, if you recall I was very curious when we met.

I understand but the point is that there's not a shred of evidence to suggest that killing the training program will be beneficial, yet there are numerous ways to satisfy the overwhelming majority of the membership base through partnerships, JV's and an expansion of the training program with greater focus on the 3 missing pieces (conservation, public awareness and study).

Look at Coke, when they have a new product its so easy to get it to market because they have the distribution network in place, so does the CDS on a smaller scale, so use it to our advantage.

Personally I really dont care, I'll pay just for the right to dive COW alone, forget about the other sites, hell I'll pay even if I dont make it to Cow this year so either way I'm in, what I'm trying to do is look at this as selflessly as possible, based on my professional experience, so that the membership can be in the best possible position to make a decision after every possible alternative has been exhausted.

If some instructors wont play ball, fire them, new ones will emerge and the new ones can me controlled and held to a higher standard and thats also a complaint.

I've never seen such drastic "change" end well, it certainly hasent for most.