View Full Version : Scottish Sub Aqua COMPANY!
Just received a letter from SSAC proposing a change of status from a club to a "company limited by guarantee". I wasn't aware that this was in the air and would like to know the reasons behind it. Call me a cynic, but I've always associated a CLUB as being run by members for the benefit of members and a COMPANY as being run by directors for the benefit of directors. My first read thru of the Memorandun and Articles of Association suggests that volunteer committee members will become paid directors complete with pensions etc.
Why?
Hi Eddie, some members I have spoken to in the last year, believed that the change would mean jobs for the boy's, though I don't think the members would allow this somehow. However, the way I hear it is that part of the change over is supposed to protect the membership in the event of litigation, whereby the members would be limited to pay £1 towards any sum of money awarded to another party instead of having to sell our houses;) I am not sure myself if this change over would be a good idea, though being titled as a director certainly sounds grandiose :D
dive granny
23-07-06, 21:02
I am going to write to Jack Morrison about the definition of 'abuse'. I leraned from Urchin some ridiculous points being defined as abuse. eg swearing in fromt of a trainee! Some people we know! use the F.. word like an adjective, eg.that was f...ing brilliant, well done". while someone else could not swear at you but still be abusive eg. "you are so hopeless why are you wasting everyones time?" Which is more abusive.
Also as some one who is a regular member of my church (when I'm not diving,mmm!) and a middle aged granny to boot. It does not offend me nor do I feel 'abused' if someone asks me 'if i'm cold' if my T-shirt is a bit tight! I could go on. After all we trust each other with our lives, so if you can't take a bit of fun then do something else.
I can't believe it is the B.I.s resposibility to make sure a trainee crosses the road safely at a dive site.they are adults for heaven's sake. Grrrr...:mad: :mad:
with regards to forms of abuse, these are not imposed by SSAC but by 'Disclosere Scotland' for the protection of children & vulnerable adults.
anyone under any form of training is considered vulnerable, perhaps even more so if it's underwater.
teachers, firemen, scout leaders, nurses etc. all participate on the same disclosure basis.
being a trainee BI myself, i have undergone the screening process & sat through the rather longer than expected lecture on the subject.
i do agree most of it is overkill, as you suggest.
crossing the road, swearing.. even if they are hungry or cold all constitute as abuse.
however as we live in such a sad world where people often do take advantage of thier position, then we are where we are.
training with witnesses present is the best method of self protection as a trainee could shout 'abuse' at the drop of a hat, or am i just thinking about Americans while i write this?
at the end of the day, the trainee looks upon the club & respected members alike as role models for their future.
dive granny
23-07-06, 23:10
I'm glad I did my nurse training years ago, before all this nonsence and political correctness - gone mad carry on!!:mad:
bubblemaker
23-07-06, 23:45
So, DG... who are the people who swear regularly??? :D
on a more serious note.. this whole hoohah is making me seriously reconsider whether i actually want to be a BI any more. I initially wanted to be one, to put back into the club what i had received when i was a squeeb (sorry is that abuse?!!?) but now it has seemingly got to the stage where it's just bloody ridiculous. when people are training to dive, they are preparing themselves for what ultimately is a potentially very dangerous sport. All this molly coddling, and over protection scares me... if people go through training in the safest easiest possible environment, (will it get to the stage where we can't fail people on assessments in case we hurt their feelings?!) what happens when they actually qualify and suddenly have to take responsibility for themselves?? personally i don't reckon I'd be overly happy diving with someone who had 'easy' training... a long time ago i learnt a theory... "train easy fight hard... train hard fight easy"... the other take on that is "train hard.. live a little longer, train easy...die"
it was a theory that served me well back then, and still does today... training should be IMHO as realistic as possible, whilst maintaining a safe dive practice... i would never advocate dangerous diving. In my opinion..the 'safest' way to train people, is to actually prepare them for hazards they may face when diving, in a realistic, but controlled manner. that way when the proverbial **** hits the fan, they will have an idea of what it's like and be in a better position to help themselves, rather than panic when they suddenly realise what reality feels like.
My other bug bear with this is that I'm not keep on pandering to the whims of a bunch of left wing tossers in suits, sitting in an office making rules for the sake of it, when they have no idea whatsoever of what the consequences will be!!! but that might be getting slightly petty!!!!
just remember folks... diving is fun...apparently!
Just received a letter from SSAC proposing a change of status from a club to a "company limited by guarantee". I wasn't aware that this was in the air and would like to know the reasons behind it. Call me a cynic, but I've always associated a CLUB as being run by members for the benefit of members and a COMPANY as being run by directors for the benefit of directors. My first read thru of the Memorandun and Articles of Association suggests that volunteer committee members will become paid directors complete with pensions etc.
Why?
Eddie - this isn't a new thing that's just come up out of the blue. The whole process has been moving slowly forward for a number of years. The previous GC did a huge amount of work preparing for the transformation and it was mentioned at some length in the GC minutes for Nov 2004 (http://scotsac.com/downloads/GC%20minutes/GCNDC_Minutes_Nov04_final.pdf). The process was well on the way when this article (http://www.scotsac.com/Scottish_Diver/SD_0508/0508_branchlines.pdf) was printed in Scottish Diver Aug/Sept 2005. The subject was also covered at the 2005 and 2006 AGMs.
As to the why - As governing body of the sport in Scotland, SSAC were advised by SportScotland to take this route to protect the membership, as Billy has already said - all other sport governing bodies in Scotland have already made the move to a company limited by guarantee or are in the process. BSAC have been a company for many years, for the same reasons - protecting the membership.
Although the Memorandum and Articles of Association refer to "directors" the posts will continue to be entirely voluntary - although there will be "job descriptions" for the GC and NDC roles, no payment is involved. The name of the Club will still be the same as will the branch system etc.
No-one is doing this for fun - the changes are being driven from outside the Club, in the same way that the definitions of abuse that Dive Granny dislikes are driven by legislation. If you have questions about the Memorandum and Articles of Association there will be an open forum meeting (http://www.scotsac.com/news.htm#CLBG) at Stirling University on August 19th - why not come along and get SSAC's legal advisor to answer your queries?
HTH
@lison
(will it get to the stage where we can't fail people on assessments in case we hurt their feelings?!)
Well, one of the things they said more than once at the BI course last week is that 'goals(or assessments, cant remember) should not be made unatainable'
But what if the person is (lets just say it harshly) crap at diving and is never going to be a safe diver? Yet we have to keep them going, and effectivley lower the standard that we (as divers and BI's) would expect. Thats the way that it looks i think. And... when i finish my BI assessments, i will be expecting things to be carried out properly! I aint sending someone in to the water with a skill that they did not fully master. Think about how it would sit on your concience if something (god forbid) happened in the future as a result of that skill not being able to be carried out effectivley. worst case senario i know, but all in the realms of possibility i suppose.
My other bug bear with this is that I'm not keep on pandering to the whims of a bunch of left wing tossers in suits
me thinks that 'tossers' may just be an abusive word. And im a sensitive (vulnerable?) wee soul..... ;)
dive granny
24-07-06, 20:07
[QUOTE=Urchin']Well, one of the things they said more than once at the BI course last week is that 'goals(or assessments, cant remember) should not be made unatainable'
That sounds like the P.C.ness used in schools in that no one is a failure, which is why people can now boast standard and higher grades at D and E level!!! So they failed. Life in the big outside world is tough and the sooner people realise it the better.
Lowering standards is never a good idea. It has been tried in too many jobs already!!
I have been training divers for 30 years (20 odd with ScotSAC) and in that time I have came across many trainees who should not be divers. I am not PC and at times not very diplomatic, however I have been diplomatic in the past by saying that perhaps diving was not for them.
I too believe that if this stance on political correctness continues, the standards of divers will continue to drop. Furthermore, I work in education and recently heard a rumour that a student from a well known college kicked up a stink, because the criteria for passing the assessment was not met, i.e the student failed..However, the lecturer was made to re-assess that student's work.
dive granny
24-07-06, 23:20
You sound like a man after my own heart. I don't do PC and can be diplomatic if required!:D
bubblemaker
25-07-06, 00:13
found this online.. thought it seemed relevant, with regard to the comments about dumbing down the criteria for 'passing assessments'!!!
13 rules that students do not learn in high school or college. Our feel-good, politically-correct teachings have created a generation of kids with no concept of reality who are set up for failure in the real world.
(1) Life is not fair. Get used to it.
(2) The world won't care about your self-esteem as much as your school does. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.
(3) You will NOT make £40,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice president with a car phone until you earn both.
(4) If you think your teacher is rough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure.
(5) Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger-flipping. They called it "opportunity."
(6) If you screw up, it's not your parents' fault. So don't whine about your mistakes; learn from them.
(7) Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning your room and listening to you tell how idealistic you are. So before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
(8) Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life hasn't. In some schools, they've abolished failing grades. They'll give you as many times as you want for the right answer. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life.
(9) Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off. And very few employers are interested in helping you "find yourself"; do that on your own time.
(10) Television is not real life. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
(11) Be nice to nerds; chances are you'll end up working for nerds.
(12) Smoking does not make you look "cool"; it makes you look moronic. Ditto for designer labels.
(13) Living fast and dying young is romantic --- only until you see one of your peers at room temperature.
Charles Sykes
"Dumbing Down Our Kids"
alexmaclennan
25-07-06, 15:10
Bubblemaker,
Well done. Reading this thread, I thought of adding exactly the same 'wise words'. The 13 points were recently on the YD forum and I think came from someone who works in senior management with Bill Gates at Microsoft, or should it be Microserf? Beaten to it again.................
Alex
tuppenyworth? I like the idea of limiting liability. My (not necessarily hugely informed, i admit) understanding was that teh previous structure was more like a large partnership. A good way to get screwed in business is to be in a partnership rather than a limited company. If your partner gets sued, you get sued. Are you sure you really trust that person not to be an ejit at least once in his / her life?
There are less than 1800 members of Scotsac, i believe. Say a widow/er sues Scotsac for a spouse who died in training and the fiscals office finds fault with scotsac (for example, allowing a numpty to be a BI / no risk assessment / any sort of poor judgement or failure to implement h&s guidelines). What's the damages divided by 1800. That's one bill i don't want in the post, thanks all the same.
Could it be argued in court that if "I am not there, how can I be held liable"?
dive granny
01-08-06, 20:21
tuppenyworth? I like the idea of limiting liability. My (not necessarily hugely informed, i admit) understanding was that teh previous structure was more like a large partnership. A good way to get screwed in business is to be in a partnership rather than a limited company. If your partner gets sued, you get sued. Are you sure you really trust that person not to be an ejit at least once in his / her life?
There are less than 1800 members of Scotsac, i believe. Say a widow/er sues Scotsac for a spouse who died in training and the fiscals office finds fault with scotsac (for example, allowing a numpty to be a BI / no risk assessment / any sort of poor judgement or failure to implement h&s guidelines). What's the damages divided by 1800. That's one bill i don't want in the post, thanks all the same.
I still think we are fast becoming a nanny state. What happened to taking resposibility for your own actions? It's all you hear these days, everyone has 'rights' but wont take responsibility for anything. Different when you are actually in the water training.:mad:
This country is riddled with PC, with some of the rules and regulations we must abide by are ludicrous to say the least. I would enjoy meeting the numpties who come up with these rules. Oh what sport I would have:D :D
Could it be argued in court that if "I am not there, how can I be held liable"?
Dunno. As i said, I'm uninformed ;)
However, if someone sues an organisation, and that organisation is a partnernship, or does not have "limited liability" for it's members (be they shareholders, members of a voluntary organisation, or whatever), then the liability stops with those members I suspect.
Anyway, bottom line? Just give me comfort that I can't be penalised for the actions of someone I don't know or have no influence over. I feel comforted :) that the the limited liability status of the club now protects me from that.
Increasingly in the UK you can see the "Ambulance Chasers Direct" mentality. You only need to switch on daytime TV for 10 minutes to see an add for, "Have you suffered an injury? Was it some other sucker's fault? Could we fit them up? Then let us sue their ass on a no win no fee basis! If we win our fee is all the money. Terms and conditions apply. Your home is at risk if we find out your address" etc
dive granny
02-08-06, 22:09
I think pc ness snowballed from the bra burning womens libbers (of which I am definately not one) who wanted to be the same as men and took umbridge at such things as the words 'his' and 'he' (why not her) 'who said God was a man'. wanted to do 'men's jobs' (and I think there still should be) and be 'as good as men. Then all these stupid job descriptions crept in like firefighter, not firemen etc. :mad:
I'm generally infavour of SSAC going Ltd but:
GC meetings will be closed.
Members cannot see details of the accounts.
It is difficult to get rid of incompitent board members.
It would be very easy to change the bye-laws to the disadvantage of the members.