Dear AllFurther to the recent correspondence regarding political items being posted onto the website, I am keen to bring together the GLUG Committee to discuss the clubs stance on this and other website and diving issues.I would like this meeting to be conducted before the end of April 2008, after which items discussed and the proposed route forward will be communicated to all members.Unfortunately, I am unable to chair tomorrow nights meeting, Brian will be looking after this tomorrow night.Many thanks, Chris 

Hi Everyone

I hope to go to Thailand next February, to do my Dive Master qualification, on Ko Samui. I have also been discussing doing a trip with Adam at Rainbow Scuba

He has suggested that we might want to try and fill a liveaboard with both, GLUGies and others, from his rainbow network. We are looking at two specific charters namely:

http://www.moby-dick-adventures.com/m-v-nautica.htm

http://www.diving-thailand-phuket.com/diving_thailand_liveaboard/colona_liveaboard_introduction.htm

As well as this 4/6 day live aboard, Adam can also organise land based trips on this fabulous island-check out his web wite. As a lot of you know, Fred Wyn has just left Thailand after an amazing and successful time and spoke highly of his time with Adam and Rainbow-scuba.

At this stage, I would like to gauge your interest, in this idea and then, with enough interest, Adam can put the trip together for us.

On a different note, The Red Sea September trip has now been opened up to some other G & L dive clubs who are showing keen interest. You may want to have a think about booking shortly if you are interested.

See you on Tuesday (4th) committee meeting and social or at LIDS

Charlie

Could this be you?

At the club AGM, we failed to fill the position of Publicity Officer for 2008. Kirk, who has done a great job of organising the GLUG Pride stall for the last 2 years (maybe 3? I can’t remember!), has had to step down, due to other (very worthwhile!) commitments.

If there are any GLUG members who would like to volunteer for the post for 2008, please let myself or Chris know.

What does it involve?
The main task for the Publicity officer is organising the GLUG Stall for the Pride Events. Although as yet we haven’t agreed which Pride events we’ll be going to this year, we regularly go to London Pride and Brighton Pride, and have been to Cardiff Pride in the past. Your task will be to liaise with the Pride organisers (Wilde Ones for London and Brighton Prides), to reserve a stall; and to organise club volunteers to man the stall on the day. It’s not a huge amount of work, but it can be frustrating at times, since the Pride Committees rarely agree on what their fees will be for community groups until a few weeks before the event.

The second task is to handle any email queries which we receive through the website form titled “Press/Advertising enquiry”. We occasionally get emails from organisations such as the Pink Paper, Attitude, GaydarRadio etc. It’ll be your job to respond to these, or bring them to the committee’s attention as appropriate.

Finally, if you want to be a little more proactive, then you could think up ideas which would help publicise the club and increase our membership - e.g emailing Gay or Dive publications to promote GLUG events.

As part of the change to Standing Order subscriptions, and ongoing website improvements, all GLUG members who renew their subscription this year will be required to re-register on the GLUG website, with a new Username (different from the one you currently use).

When we get your completed Membership Form and Standing Order Mandate, we’ll send you an email containg a link to a Registration Page, and a password, which you will need in order to complete the registration. The registration page will allow you to choose your own Username, and will ask for some mandatory information (including Dive Qualification, Contact Phone number, and Next of Kin details), as well as some optional information (alternative contact number, Number of Dives, and a Picture). Once you have successfully registered, you’ll receive another email, containing your password. This can be changed from your Profile page (as can all the other information), once you log into your account.

Note that by default, the Username you choose will be displayed on any posts you make on the Public website (but again, you can change this on your Profile page).

The personal information collected will only be available to Committee members, and will never be given to Third Parties without your permission, but it will allow Committee members to contact you, should the need arise, without having to first go through the Membership Secretary.

Because we’re a non-profit organisation, and we only use your personal information for club-related activities, we are not required to Register with the Data Protection Registrar. However, we do take the security of the website, and the protection of your details seriously.

Any members who have already paid for their 2008 membership (whether or not by Standing Order) should receive an email within the next week or so, giving the Registration Link and password.

It was agreed at the club meeting last night, that all old accounts on the website will be deleted at the end of March this year - so if you haven’t renewed your membership by then, you will lose access to the Members area of the website.

Happy New Year!

Neil.

Fellow divers,
I couldn’t be at the AGM - again - due to work commitments. I understand that we have lost member(s) because of an argument about whether or not there should be information about carbon offsets on the GLUG website.

We are NOT a political organisation - it is foolish in the extreme to lose members over such an issue.

I thought we had a process that says that any links to other organisations from the GLUG website would be posted only if those organisations gave some form of support or benefit to GLUG.

I was unaware that this issue was to be raised at the AGM - I didn’t receive an agenda for the meeting, but I would like to make it clear to all members that as a Committee member I would have voted against the inclusion of such links and editorial on the GLUG website.

I would urge anyone who feels it necessary to leave GLUG to reconsider their decision - please stay and lets have a full discussion on this issue. I’d move for a postal ballot of all members on this issue - we have many members who could not get to the AGM to have their votes counted.

You may have noticed that the GLUG website has been offline for the last day or so.  Following a series of hacking incidents, and the refusal of our old web host providers, Hostroute, to provide even basic security measures on our old server, I’ve moved everything to a new webhost provider: Hostgator, who offer a much more secure site, that should be a lot harder for the hackers to compromise (I do hope that no-one’s going to see that as a challenge!).

Hopefully, the change will be completely transparent to the almost everyone.  There are one or two committee members who have GLUG email accounts, and they will need to reconfigure their mail programs (I’ve emailed them to tell them how), but hopefully everything else should be working as before (just a lot more securely).

However, if you do have any problems, please email me using the Contact Form.

Neil.

Dear GLUG members

Just a quick post to say hello to all our members. I’m Chris Lee and am delighted to take the role of chair for 2007.

I would also like to welcome our new committee members and a hello to those remaining in post, I look forward to working with you all over the next year (please treat me gently ;-)).

I’ve been a GLUG member over the past couple of years and have enjoyed being involved in UK and European Dive Trips as well as training to bring me up to BSAC Sports Diver.

Please feel free to contact me should you have any queries and I shall do my best to help out or connect you with someone who can.

Happy 2007 diving everyone and hope to meet most of you at some point!

Chris Lee

Please note that the GLUG Xmas meal (see previous post) will be preceded by the GLUG AGM.

The AGM is your opportunity to tell the committee what you want from the club - and to vote them out if you think they’re not doing a good enough job!  We therefore encourage as many members as possible to attend the AGM - even if they don’t come to the meal.

So, if you plan to come to the AGM, but not the meal, please vote for the date and time you would prefer the AGM on.

(If you can’t make the AGM, you can email any comments/concerns etc. to the committee in advance, and we’ll make sure they’re heard).

Dear friends,
You may have heard that Yuk-King Wong (Yo or King) was injured on Friday when she was knocked off her motor cycle by a car. She has a broken ankle and a very broken arm.
She’s in Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Woolwich (Ward 16) - visiting hours are 3pm-8pm - NO FLOWERS please as the hopsital deosn’t allow them due to fear of bacterialogical contamination.
I’m sure you’ll all join myself and the rest of the Committee in wishing her a speedy and full recovery

Neil opened the meeting by welcoming two new members, Trevor and Jason.

Apologies: Debbie, Fiona, Alan L.

Matters arising: Neil apologised for not bringing last month’s minutes - BT phone problems meant he had no Internet access. Corinne reported that last month’s minutes suggested that there were still some items of equipment to be bought, but that this was not the case.

Officers reports:

Hi everyone,

Fiona and I would like to remind everyone who hasn’t yet paid their renewal subscription, that you will lose your access to the members area of the website if we haven’t received your membership form and payment (£10) by the end of this month, you will lose your access to the members area of the website.
Please make sure that you fill in the membership form in full, even for renewals - many people change emails, home addresses, phone numbers, etc. in the course of a year, and this ensures that we have up-to-date contact details.

I thought it would also be a good opportunity to remind people of a few website tips - click on the link below to read more.

Hi everyone,

With the AGM fast approaching, it’s time to think about the GLUG Committee posts, and whether you’d be interested in playing a more active role in the club, by volunteering for one of them.

The committee posts for 2006 will be:

London Frontrunners are pleased to announce that registration is now open for the 2nd London Pride Run on 25th June 2005 in Brockwell Park at 11:00 in the morning.

The first ever London Pride Run last at year in Victoria Park was extremely successful with over 430 registrations. We were able to raise £1,500 for Crusaid, which will again be our nominated charity, looking after people with HIV/AIDS.

“This year’s 10k run will be even Bigger and Better” says Niv Ben-Yahuda, Chairman of the Pride Run’s organization committee. “London Pride Run will be one of the highlights of the 2005 fortnightly Gay Pride activities across London”.

The 2nd London Pride Run also coincides with the 10th anniversary of London Frontrunners, the UK only gay and lesbian running club and we will celebrate this event with a party at Heaven on Saturday night, with a fantastic show by the cabaret duo Topping & Butch.

On-line registration is now open. Visit www.londonpriderun.com for details on how to register online

Just a quick message of thanks from the South Wales members of GLUG to the committee members who have recently stepped down from leading the group. All of your hard work inthe past year(s) has been greatly appreciated. Good luck to the new committee for the coming year.

Neil & I will look forward to seeing you all on trips.

Rob

The GLUG AGM and Xmas meal went very well on Saturday. A full set of minutes will be published in due course, but in the meantime, for those who were unable to attend, here’s a quick summary:

• Membership Fee remains at £10 for 2005
• The new GLUG committee is:

• Chair: Debbie Pippard
• Vice-chair: Ben Ko
• UK Dives Coordinator: Corinne Sarjeant
• Overseas Dives Coordinator: Craig Copland
• Treasurer: Alan Larsen
• Membership Secretary: Gary Pentland
• Publicity Officer: Kirk Wylie
• Equipment Officer: Steph Butcher
• Webmaster: Neil Stead