News / Articles

Minutes

Aqua Tutus Diving Club Meeting

August 4, 2022

Meeting called to order by President Neil Benjamin at 7:11 pm PDT. (Delayed start was due to a technical problems—Neil was late.) This is a hybrid meeting with 6 face-to-face attendees at Roundtable Pizza in Castro Valley and 12 others attending via Zoom.

Entertainment:

Tonight’s presenter is Carol Rose, who spoke (via Zoom) about CenCal. She covered CenCal history, what it has done for the diving community since its inception as well as what it is doing at present. It was a quite informative session. She emphasized that CenCal currently has three priorities: Access, legislation, and underwater sports.

• Director Reports:
  • Arnie (Secretary): Minutes of the July 2022 Membership Meeting, as published on Club Express (CE), were approved. Minutes of the July 21, 2022 Board of Directors meeting, which were recorded by Derek S., were also posted on CE.
  • Helga (Treasurer) reported that at the end of July, the club has $2,778.21 in the Training Fund, $4,930.22 in the General Fund, for a total of $7,708.43.
  • Dennis (Training). On August 13 (2:00-5:00 pm) he will host a training session at his home. The topic is Equipment. No sign-ups yet. Dennis is planning another meeting on September 17; the topic has not yet been selected.
  • Debbie (Membership) reported (via email) that we have: 8 Life members, 10 Associate members, 0 Student members, and 63 Regular members, for a total club membership of 81.
  • Neil (for Entertainment): Next month our speaker is Jim Larson, who will speak on NAUI (past, present, and future) and a bit about diving in the Pacific Northwest. For October, Larry M. is planning to assemble one of his dive videos.
  • Oliver (for Newsletter) reported that the newsletter has been published
  • Derek (Communications): No report.

   

• Old Business:

  Jane raised the question about how and where to donate unneeded dive gear. The suggestion was to get gear to Dennis who can make a technical assessment of the utility of said gear.

   

• New Business: None raised.

   

• Dive Reports
  • July 16 club dive at South Monastery; two tanks. Oliver was POC for these two dives. Six members participated. On the first dive, one of the divers ran low on air and was experiencing difficulty due to very cold hands so he jettisoned his 26-pound weight belt; Neil retrieved it on the second dive. Oliver reported that the visibility as so-so primarily due to a strong surge.
  • The club trip to Indonesia (Komodo and Bali) was a success, despite being marred by several in the group contracting COVID on the Blue Manta. (Upon returning home, Arnie and Bill reported testing positive.) Dennis really hit his stride diving completing the maximal daily number of dives while at the Liberty Dive Resort in Bali.

   

   

• Bone Award: Dennis nominated Arnie for getting onto the launch without his weight belt. After a vigorous defense, he was awarded the August Bone Award.

• Upcoming Activities
  • August 7 Oliver plans to dive at North Monastery and he invited interested divers to join him. Contact Oliver for details.
  • August 18. Board of Directors meeting (via Zoom) will begin at 7:00 pm PDT. All members are encouraged to attend.
  • August 20 club dive at Otter Cove. Meet time is 8:30 am. Debbie is the POC and she requests that members planning to attend respond on the CE website. Debbie D. noted that after the dive there will be a birthday celebration for Larry M. at Gianni’s; he turns 90 this month. Debbie will be getting a cake so RSVPs to her would be appreciated!
  • September 1. General membership meeting. Hybrid meeting at Roundtable Pizza and via Zoom beginning at 7:00 pm PDT.The scheduled speaker will talk about NAUI past, present and future.
  • Dec-Jan, annual drop-in dive trip to Cozumel. is coming up. Dennis and Patti will be there roughly from the week before Christmas through the week after New Year's Day.Patti S-H said that people interested in joining should (1) arrange their own hotel accommodations and let her know. It is not yet clear who will be the dive providers this year. Probably a combination of outfits.

• There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 8:42 pm PDT.

Faithfully submitted:

            Arnie Warshawsky, Secretary