Underwater Speleology (UWS)

[Sludge]

We're talking about recruiting new members from those taking cave diving classes, not from the general public.

[Half-Fast]

Yes, I understand, but giving the instructors a quota as a number, rather than as a % of students they happen to teach, may force them to teach more and more students to have enough of a pool to meet their "new CDS members" quota.

Which will lead to active recruiting. Bad idea.

[Sludge]

Which will lead to active recruiting. Bad idea.

I'm with you on recruiting - which is why I don't like to see it when instructors depend on teaching to pay the bills.

But I don't think this should be "you need to sign up this many new CDS members." More like "Don't forget to encourage ALL of your students to join the CDS."

[Jim Wyatt]

Jim W,


Since everyone says the CDS is all about the instructors, have them required to meet a quota of new members or renews per year to keep their instructor status-
Eric Deister

I think most instructors encourage students to join the CDS. I encourage mine to join. Having a quota would require someone to track it...

[d_berman]

I was a dry caver prior to relatively recently diving and becoming a CDS member. Planning to continue both realms of membership knees and pocket book withstanding.

I too love the special glossy magazine but can easily understand it as being a potential burden.

Would there be an opportunity to "merge" publications with the monthly NSS magazine and then do less frequently published special CDS special ? All said- - Kudos to those dedicating their time and effort !

Dave

[Half-Fast]

More like "Don't forget to encourage ALL of your students to join the CDS."

No problem at all with that. What Eric suggested, though, and what I was responding to, was a hard quota, such as requiring each instructor to sign up 12 new members per year to keep their instructor status.

Y'know, the more I think about it, the more I think all this would do is lead to instructors switching agencies. Net result would be a loss of members, not a gain.

OTOH, consider this: Suppose instructors charged, say, $15 more per student and used the money to pay for a "free" (HA!) 6 month trial CDS membership for the student (shhhhh! We don't have to tell the students they're really paying for it). After being a member for 6 months and receiving a couple of copies of UWS, they get a renewal notice for the next year. I'd bet quite a few would renew.

[Shadowjack]

Please reread my post----- That would be 1 new or 1 renew per month.

I can't tell you how many people I've talked to who CURRENTLY CAVE DIVE and have said they're not members or just haven't renewed. As for getting new members to SUPPORT caves would it be bad to have someone who doesn't dive a member? "Sorry Uncle Dan, you can't join and support caving diving since you don't dive" ??

Question: do you have to be a member of the NSS/CDS to take a class and get the card?

I have another idea for NACD/GUE/CDS/NFSA. With the long weekend coming up how about some head counts / pole at the popular dive spots: What is your dive level? what organizations do you belong to? how much diving to you do, what would you like see happen with..... blah blah.

Post that data for everyone to see: So instructors can see there's a training gap between xxxx, Org X can see it's missing alot of members here, all can see that people want more free refresher classes....blah blah.....

Eric Deister

Ok, that's 2 post in 1 day... I'm done for the next 2 months.