Hi GLUGgers,

Just a quick reminder that the next (and last) Monthly Meeting of 2010 will be on Tuesday November 2 at the Phoenix Artist’s Bar!

The December meeting will be the AGM on Saturday December 4, followed by the GLUG Annual Christmas Dinner!

Hope to see you there!

Doug

Hi girls! (Sorry boys, this one is just for the girls)

Anyone fancy coming along to Minories (nr Tower Hill) this Saturday (30th October) for a bit of clubbing? I haven’t been there in ages, but when I last went it was a great night out. good music and comfy sofas! If you fancy coming along, leave a comment below.

Cheers!

Fi

Hello all,

This post is quite off-topic so I’ll slip it in before Mark censors it ;-)

Having spoken to a number of you about organising or joining a Ski trip to one of the European resorts this upcoming season, I got the impression quite a few seem to be interested.
Please find a short list of commercial LGBT ski trips in 2011 below – several more are listed at this site.

Let me know if you’d like to join one of the trips listed, then we can organise transport etc. I will book the Arosa/Switzerland trip myself as well as one of the Austrian Skiweeks; both Saalbach and Sölden are fantastic resorts. Alternatively, I’d be happy to organise a custom trip in the February/March time frame if enough people are interested.

All trips are suitable for beginners as Ski + Snowboard training is available at affordable rates.

Prices are for event pass + ski pass only, except Alpe d’Huez which includes hotel (no further info on the website yet, so don’t know if there’s a catch…). There are discounted packages including accommodation available for all events.

Arosa/Switzerland 09.01.2011 – 14.01.2011      £240 – £320
Grindelwald/Switzerland 16.01.2011 – 23.01.2011       £222 – £417
Saalbach-Hinterglemm/Austria 06.03.2011 – 11.03.2011
Sölden/Austria 26.03.2011 – 02.04.2011       £237
Alpe d’Huez/France 26.03.2011 – 02.04.2011      £285 (special offer incl. hotel)

Cheers,
Gerald

Hello all,

Welcome to the GLUG training bulletin for October 2010

Just wanted to update you all with what’s going on training wise!!!

After the massive success of the training trip in Malta, we shall be going back! Initial dates are 21st – 26th April 2011, this trip is open to anyone, but will be aimed at the more experienced diver, exploring the WW1 and WW2 wrecks that Malta is famous for. I will be teaching you how to enter and exit these wrecks safely. Other hilights on this trip will be deep diving, cavern diving, twinsets and night diving! More details to follow. Martin will also be running some courses to help build your experience and confidence, so don’t be put off, come to Malta! ;)

Let me know if any of this interests you.

Some other hilights will include:

Try Dive and Social (November 13th 2010)

Martin will also be running the following:

Open Water Part Two (October 30th/31st 2010)

I will be organising the following:

Advanced Open Water (October 30th/31st  2010)

Dry Suit Diver (October 30th/31st  2010)

Deep Diver (October 30th/31st  2010)

Nitrox (EANx) Diver (monthly throughout 2011)

Rescue Diver (2011)

Wreck Diver (2011)

————————————————————————————————————————————————-

If you or anyone you know is interested in any training from absolute beginner to instructor, or interested in technical diving including rebreathers, we can get you trained and diving!!!

All courses can be arranged, if you are unable to make a date, or I haven’t mentioned a course, then please get in touch and we can arrange one. Training can be arranged in the UK or abroad.

http://www.glug.co.uk/training/padi

Don’t forget club night, 1st Tuesday of every month at the Phoenix Club on Charing Cross Road.

Please contact me on: 

or

Thanks very much,

Ian

GLUG Training Coordinator

www.pathfinderdiving.co.uk

I am quite surprised that there has been no response whatsoever to my post re: Diving Tenerife. I do not believe that there is nobody in Glug who may be interested in this trip.

OK, may be the dates are not convenient as the Nemo33 takes place just a week before and now the AGM and Christmas dinner have been arranged for the 4th of December? May be it is also too short notice?

Therefore, I am going to put it on hold at the moment and wait for suggestions regarding the most suitable time. Diving in Tenerife takes place all year round, so when it will be freezing here in January/February, Tenerife will be like British summer.

Please let me know your preferences and I will try to arrange the trip at the time that will be suitable for most of you.

So, who’s going to Dive 2010 at the Birmingham NEC?

Leave a reply below saying which day you’re going – maybe some of us could meet up for lunch?

Neil.

Dear All,

There are still a couple of spaces available for the NEMO 33 trip, so get clicking!  If you want to come, there is still time, but I need numbers by Friday as this is the deadline for booking Eurostar tickets.  Could all those who have booked therefore please make their payments today, so the money has time to clear to the GLUG account before our cheque goes through.  I’m really excited about this trip, it should be huge fun.  16 GLUGers in a Eurostar carriage….. ;-) The cost includes all kit hire, except dive computers, everything is provided by the centre, as well as a meal and your accommodation overnight.  BARGAIN!

Any issues, feel free to give me a call or drop me an email.

All the best

Martin Sigston

GLUG Assistant Training Co-ordinator.

Yes… that time of year is fast approaching and it is time to start looking forward to this years Christmas meal.

As announced on Tuesday, the AGM takes place on the afternoon of Saturday 4thDecember at the Phoenix, with the Christmas meal following shortly thereafter. Exact times to be advised closer to the date.

The venue for the meal is The Adam and Eve:

The Adam & Eve
77a Wells Street
London
W1T 3QQ

On a map that’s here. Their website is a bit more detailed on location.

You can register interest and book using the Event System:

The booking form has space for the meal choices for yourself and +1s and provision for +2s and so on. And of course dietary requirements etc. The menu is available on the Events System in the description field.

This year we are asking for FULL payment at the time of booking to avoid having to sort out money or do any sort of mathematical calculation on the night. Booking closes 2 weeks before the event so DON’T leave it until the last minute!

Please Note: Anyone who has not paid (and been confirmed as such) 1 week before the event will NOT be attending. I don’t mean to sound harsh but previous experience teaches me that some people might be tempted to pay at the very last minute which then means I end up visiting NatWest daily to check the account and that’s really not on.

When you confirm your booking in the Events System, a new window will open at a private page on the GLUG site, the 3 payment options are explained in detail there. If you have any difficulties (e.g. pop up blockers etc) the page is available when you are logged in: Christmas Meal Payment Page

Briefly, the options are bank transfer (preferred) and PayPal. Just like last year, there are two options for PayPal, the ‘I don’t care’ method where you pay slightly more to cover the fees and the slightly more involved fees avoidance method BUT you MUST follow the steps carefully to avoid fees. If you incur fees using this method you’ll need to make up the difference… sorry but GLUG has swallowed a few shortfalls already this year…

Any problems please do drop me a line and I’ll assist. I look forward to seeing many of you on 4th. Let the bookings commence!

Mark

I am (hopefully) going to St Lucia for 2 weeks in early December. Looks like there are loads of dive centre and sites.

Does anyone have recomendations for which dive centres to use/avoid? I know all PADI centres should be up to scratch but even in my first 6 months I have learnt that isnt true.

And which sites to try and do? – i am AOW, night, (drysuit!) and nitrox qualified, with just 30 dives logged. I want to do boat ASAP and want to try and dive alternate days.

Many thanks for any advice and pointers.

Sue

Hi,  is anyone free tomorrow or Monday to head to Wraysbury or Leybourne lakes (Dartford) for a dip.  I have some kit donated to GLUG that I want to test out before we lend it out to people and also to test the seal on my own dry suit.  For those who don’t know Leybourne it’s pretty shallow (10m)  and easy diving, but not quite as well set up as wraysbury.  It has a number of wrecks and a fair few fish and as it’s less busy than Wraysbury, probably better viz.  That said, Wraysbury has sausage sarni’s and coffee on demand.  Happy to go with Open Water upwards.  Reply on here or drop me an email… I think you all know it by now!

Cheers

Martin

Firstly, apologies to anyone trying to book on trips or events over the past few days, there have been one or two issues introduced by the work I’ve been doing recently – its what one should expect from a global find and replace at 2am I guess!

Anyhow, I believe the big problems are now addressed.

I’d like to thank those people who reported issues on Tuesday evening as well as those via email. Some of the issues reported are decidedly odd to say the least and they will require some effort to sort out so I can’t promise quick solutions. The descriptions were very detailed and although I remain puzzled on the causes, I have a clear understanding of the problems.

It became apparent though that not everyone is aware of how to capture a screen shot so I thought I’d run through the method quickly. Screen shots are immensely helpful to me because firstly I can see the problem even if I can’t make it happen on my computer and secondly because I can glean information which is useful to me but probably wouldn’t seem important to pass on when reporting an issue.

It’s very easy:

1. Press ‘Print Screen’ on your keyboard – on PC its at the top of the section between the main keyboard and the numeric keypad, for Mac its top right I believe.
2. Open Paint or an equivalent basic graphics program and paste
3. If appropriate draw on an arrow or two to highlight things – don’t over do it or you’ll obliterate things I need to see!
4. Save as a jpg image
5. Attach to an email with a note of the problem and send to

If at all possible a ‘before’ and ‘after’ shot would be very useful and certainly a shot showing any error messages.

There are a few key bits of information that I need too:

1. Where you were on the site – in the events system it helps to know precisely which page/stage.
2. What you were attempting to do
3. Exactly what you clicked immediately before things went off the rails
4. Exactly what happened when you did that
5. What operating system you were using, which browser and if possible version number.

In short, the more detail you can give the easier it is for me to work out what’s going on. And if the same thing happens a second time after you’ve logged out, restarted your browser and tried again that info is helpful at separating glitches from bugs.

Cheers

Mark

I am going to organise a diving trip to Tenerife again and I would like to gauge how many people would be interested before putting it on the events’ page.

As many of you already know, the GLUG members have been diving in Tenerife with www.tenerifedive.com, owned and actively run by a professional and friendly British couple David and Yvonne Taylors, for a number of years now. I have organised three trips myself, taking over from Corinne, who used to run them every June. The last one was organised by Martin J. in April last year.

All the trips have been very successful from both recreational and educational point of view and generated new divers (PADI OWD) as well as upgraded the OWDs to AOWDs. Many divers also earned their PADI Specialties. As the centre offers a full range of diving courses from OWD to the highest IDC level, there is an opportunity for everyone to further their diving education.

The winter Tenerife diving is really suitable for both UK and overseas divers. The water temperatures in December are in a range of 19-21 degrees Celsius, which is just above top summer UK diving. However, the visibility is much better than in the UK. The worst I have ever seen was about 7m but usually is at least 10m +.  For the warm water divers it is just a question of wearing a thicker protection. I wear a 5mm wet suit with hood + 3 mm waist coat underneath in winter but some people wear a semi dry or even dry suit.  In terms of marine life you can see Common Stingrays, Trumpetfish, Parrotfish, Grunts, Ornate Wrasses, Morays (these all are guaranteed) Also frequently seen Atlantic Stingrays, Octopus, Turtle, Barracudas, Jacks, Groupers, Fireworms, etc.

I am considering either a week or a long weekend (four nights + three days diving). It can be arranged both, provided that we have at least 3 people for each option.

 The flights are plentiful and sell at about £100 from Saturday to Saturday. The untypical arrangement: Thursday to Monday or Friday to Tuesday or Wednesday to Sunday may be a bit more expensive as sometimes you cannot fly there and back with the same airline.

 For a week trip we agreed the date 4th-11th of December 2010, as in the second half of November they run the IDC and on the 12-14 December they need to be elsewhere.

 I look forward to diving Tenerife again.

Dear all and sundry,

Muggins here has ended up with all your t-shirts.  Now the box is almost big enough to put my SMART car in, so, please can you give me some idea of those who have ordered and who intend to be at the meeting on Tuesday.  I can bring some in with me in a wheelie suitcase, but naturally I don’t want to be lugging around more than I need.  If you are DEFINITELY coming on Tuesday night, or have a mate who is, then please either reply here or send me an email and confirm what you ordered.

If you want them posted out, then you will need to send me an A4 stamped addressed envelope.  Email me direct and I shall give you my address and the cost of packaging.

Many thanks

Martin

Assistant Training Co-ordinator and newly elected Dresser of GLUG

The British Society of Underwater Photographers (BSoUP) and Ocean Geographic Society (OGS) are co-hosting this special event on the evening of Monday 25 October 2010 at the Zoological Society at London Zoo. 

David Doubilet is an iconic underwater photographer who started in 1958 at the age 12 by putting a Brownie camera into a plastic bag and taking it below the waters off the off the New Jersey coast. Over the next 40+ years he pioneered many of the techniques and skills that we now take for granted in underwater photography. 

David will share his latest inspirations with some of his best work to date, Supporting him will be Leandro Blanco, who is internationally renowned for his highly creative and amusing underwater films and videos together with Michael Aw, multi-award winning underwater photographer and founder of the Ocean Geographic Society.

This is a rare opportunity to see David Doubilet in the UK.  Tickets cost £25 and can be booked at  http://ogevent.eventbrite.com/. All profits will go to the OGS ‘Save Our Seas’ fund which supports marine conservation and research internationally. Don’t delay as places are strictly limited and there are only a few remaining.

Let me know if you book a ticket; I’ll see you there.

Alan