I'm an instructor in active status for NAUI, PADI,TDI/SDI/ERDI at the moment. The most I pay is $180 to PADI I believe. The others are less.
I would be surprised if any of the money they get from Instruction is kicked back to the NSS.
Originally Posted by Jont
Chris Richardson
So what you're saying is... you are only interested in the CDS if its a training agency correct? The study, exploration, and conservation of karst(these are core missions of the NSS) are not enough to hold your interest?
With the same training available from numerous other agencies, by the same instructors teaching CDS courses, why do you place such value in the training aspect of the CDS?
For someone who talks about being around a long time, it looks like you would want the CDS to get back to what made it work and grow. Really sounds like to hell with conservation as long as you are promoting yourself. This is why it needs to change.
This may be an unpopular opinion but I believe some of these arguments about removing instruction are delusional, echoed every so often by the same group of people.
You'all really believe the other agencies would "get into line" and conform to this "gold standard"...for no economic gain, with no prior agreement?
I don't, it'd be a huge failure.
Ok-- I would ask to play this out just a little, if someone's willing to indulge me. Can we say that in some future time, the NSS-CDS has decided that enough instructors might be willing to seek accreditation if the CDS is out of the certification business? Here are some procedures and back-of-the-envelope results I'd be interested in hearing:
- What process would a prospective instructor have to go through when he seeks accreditation?
- What does it cost the CDS per instructor to go through this process?
- What does the CDS charge the instructor?
- How many man-hours does the CDS spend per instructor, going through this process?
- How many people in the CDS will be approved to bestow accreditation?
- What is the process they have to go through to be evaluators in the first place? Who are they?
- How many evaluators are required in the process of accrediting an instructor?
- How many instructors might feasibly be accredited in a given year?
- How many students in a given year will seek cave training, regardless of whether or not they are able to book a class with one who is accredited?
- If it's nearly impossible to get training with an accredited instructor, more expensive to do so, and they are able to dive whether or not their instructor is accredited, are those students likely to care?
- If they don't care, has the CDS really accomplished anything at this point other than to quit offering instruction?
You must have not read thru the thread, this does not require any agency to "get into line", nor would it ask any of them to. They are free to do whatever it is they feel best.
A delusion is a belief held with strong conviction despite superior evidence to the contrary... you seem to have a belief what I am proposing requires other agencies to agree when I have clearly stated otherwise.
So who you calling delusional willis?
Chris Richardson
It has nothing to do with the other agencies, it has to do with their instructors. Its sellable.
Most of the answers to the questions you have posed would have to be developed out of the new training committee. Without knowing what they ended up recommending there is no possible way to answer them at this point.
I suspect the members of said training committee would do the accreditation.
By the way, your last two points scream to me "people don't care about quality so just give them what they want and get their money" and that it's all about certification. If that is the perception of the CDS then they have already failed and to be frank it's insulting to all the countless hours and efforts of non instructors doing yeoman's work on cave access, scientific survey and logging, conservation and broad based education on underwater caves. Easily as many (more) unpaid hours by members as paid hours of instructors teaching a class under the auspices of the CDS. To be 100% clear I am not one of them but I have been in awe of the work they have done, the hours and passion and they have my deepest respect.
I don't accept that premise.
Chris Richardson
Please realize-- I'm not the CDS. I'm just hoping to get a realistic and practical view on the table of what's being proposed with people wrangling of this magnitude.
To be a meaningful process, it's going to be costly and time consuming. Who's going to pay? When the CDS starts charging for it, a contingent will start criticizing you for making a profit off this big scam. Or else, the CDS doesn't charge-- so the accreditors volunteer their own time, and the CDS absorbs the monetary cost?
Or else, it's a process that's not costly and time consuming, and thus not worth much.
And plus-- it's time consuming. With a very limited number of accreditors, there's not going to be many accreditations granted in a year. Or there's a large number of accreditors, and thus the accreditation loses its value.
I just see it being either something that isn't available, so those seeking instruction have no real struggle with going to a non-accredited instructor, or something that's too available and doesn't mean much, or something that's no different than the evaluation these instructors have already gone through to get their instructor cert in the first place, and in that case they won't be likely to see the point in it.
Maybe there's a way this could be made to work, but it's going to take some political and resource maneuverings that are beyond my feeble imagination.
Actually I've read the MULTIPLE threads where you'all are beating this drum.
I think that you are delusional to believe divers would care about the gold standard you come up with, that instructors would submit to your accreditation , or other agencies would abide by proposed standards. There is no evidence at all you could get any of these groups buy in....but you strongly believe it...it's really not advanced syntax.
Suprabugman I agree is more rash than delusional and skip, well I think he's delusional about most things, however we agreed one time on a thread long ago where he was being logical...
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