Is the Spare Boat Places forum being used to its full potential?

[Ian@1904]

I tend to sort my dive plans out over the winter. I have a network of dive buddies to draw upon and usually offer spaces there first. For various reasons I have only arranged one weekend this year-filled within days. I then rely on buddies to invite me back on their trips so that the organising load is spread around.

I tend not to be available for last minute bookings, due to family committments, but have managed a couple of dives this year at Swanage & Littlehampton through YD on this basis.

I have never tried to organise a YD trip as such, partly due to the poor response with a trip I placed last year on YD. Also I have a certain reluctance to accept people on a dive trip that I am organising that I have never dived with. I had issues about experience and qualifications last year with a couple of divers off YD.

Organising trips is fairly straightforward. A glance down the phone list on my mobile alludes to this :omg for skippers and B&B. However collecting dosh for a deposit can be interesting at times. Those people that know me are generally happy to leave deposits with me (professional beancounter, club treasurer etc), but usually I have to place a deposit with a skipper and be out of pocket for a while.

There would appear to plenty of divers happy to dive, but reluctant to get off their @rses and actually do some organising. This is certainly true in my BSAC dive club where two of us are left to organise trips. Members then complain about the lack of trips being offered, WTF.

Ian

[Ian@1904]

Originally Posted by resting rifleman

i post space availability but must admit to a certain reluctance about it,.

Punt away. Its only a three hour drive to Swanage...... I have done this as a day trip three times this year all with YD divers. Just leave me a space on the pier and plenty of time for a nitrox fill

I have been using Martins boat, but as a dive tart I can easily be talked on to other boats.

[Scuby]

It'd definitely be good to have spare boat spaces advertised all over the country every weekend, and like others have said those places probably do exist. Its just knowing where to look. I was looking for something for this Sunday, Porg got in touch, talked to the skippers she knew and resulted in Sunday's St. Abbs trip. Think i'll be pinching all the numbers of these boats...

On organising trips, i've done it in the past in my club and got demoralised with it all - so much hassle with trying to get people to go, then people dropping out, not paying deposits quickly, all that kind of thing. I've not tried organising a YD gig yet, just advertising spaces, but it might be easier with so many people on here.

My biggest problem at the minute is that I can't plan anything in advance! For this summer I will get to know when i'm free from Monday-Sunday on the Sunday before - bloody jobs. Once i'm back at Uni I don't know my workload, don't know when I have exams, so that stops me booking anything after the end of September. And after I finish uni i've got my job sorted, but don't know enough about how that works with working hours etc yet. After that though, i'm sorted!!! Be living near the south coast with a regular work schedule, known long in advance, and have a car, so be able to get out diving properly! Yey!

So, after that little bit of rambling, more advertised spaces = good! :O)

David

[Adrian Kelland]

I think some of the problem here is perhaps assuming that we are all a loose collecting of single(ish) divers, who might be up for any space that comes up.

Some are, some are not. Some of us are members of diving clubs, organising their own dive from their own boats, often RIBS, somestimes booked hardboats. So you might see a few spaces come from us if a HB can't be filled. Timing is usually an issue here. Most clubs (member or shop) probably leave it to the last minute in advertising to allow their members the chance to fill the space, then advertise a few days before the dive. A few weeks would let everyone know where they stand. If we have a space on our RIB going, then we don't care, more space for us and you aren't going to know about it. And most of you probably don't want to know about helping with getting the RIB ready, launching, operating, recovery and washing down. Bet you're in the pub already

So that then leaves boats booked specifically by YD members for YD members. Now probably down to a hard core 10-20 organisers if that, with perhaps 200-500 who are active on YD. You probably recognise most of the names. But of that few hundred, there will be those who don't want to travel so far, have done it before, it's too deep, too shallow, dive already organised etc. As I said, some of us blong to other clubs, which is why I am rarely on YD trips.

Neither is YD the only place to advertise dive spaces, Divernet has a section for skippers only to put up spaces. Although they may not know that spaces are available as clubs book the whole boat. See last minute above.

So, apart from my last statement, perhaps the YD dive spaces is being used to the limits within the ranges of the divers using it. Anyone who gripes that they have spaces unfilled should think themselves lucky. It used to be far worse when there were fewer hardboats to fill, but no internet to help you. (Cardboard box/middle of road anyone? )

Adrian

[oldeseadog]

We did say we would regularly advertise our boat spaces but to be honest we felt a bit uncomfortable but now you have made it really clear we will advertise frequently.

So take a look at 'SPARE BOAT PLACES' and you will see us there, hopefully on a more frequent basis, (anything to keep you happy!!).

[Mr T.]

Originally Posted by resting rifleman

i post space availability but must admit to a certain reluctance about it, this forum is a place that i have come to treat as almost having a bunch of friends in the living room, and it feels a bit "offish" to keep on "punting my wares" to my mates!

And this is mostly why I posted my 'Notice to All Skippers' in this very forum.

Any and all Skippers (and also those whom they know on YD who might attempt to represent them if they are not members themselves) must feel that they have full freedom to post their available spaces here - boat spaces are the very raw clay from which we divers fashion a dive; in a lot of cases, a pre-requisite for us to dive; so frankly, the more the merrier.

[StuBubbles]

Originally Posted by Mr T.

...so frankly, the more the merrier.

Does this go for use of the calendar as well - it's the 1st place I look when I have a date available for diving but nothing booked up. Should it be reserved for Planned trips or are people with spaces welcome to place an entry there?

[MATTBIN]

I suppose unlike most on here (?) I dont book up next years trips this year, I'm not that organised usually (Scapa being an exception). So last minute spaces (if you can call 3/4 weeks away last minute) are of interest to me and I would be more than happy to see skippers posting availability etc anywhere.
I also tend to dive one day at the weekend as well, instead of the more usual 2, so club diving doesnt really interest me as I have found it to be both days normally.
As for orgianising a gig, as I have said I'm not usually orgainsed enough to know what trips I'll want to do months in advance, I'd suggest also that some of us who although having dived a bit dont as yet have a favourites list and therefore if a skipper punts availability we wouldnt be comfortable suggesting it as a YD gig in case the dive site was pants, or indeed arranging a trip from ground up. Maybe its lazy/selfish letting others orgainse YD gigs but those that have sorted it have done a great job and would appear to have been happy doing so, is that not now the case.

So I suppose Howards statement falls in the crack of those divers that are booked up well in advance and not having enough notice for those of us that are a bit casual in our bookings but usually have next month sorted and cant just drop another one into the schedule due to family/cost/work commitments.
For instance I'm looking at booking up Oct at the moment (Sept is out) so if something last minute(?) crops up for Oct I'd give it serious consideration right now but by end of Aug I'll be sorted (hopefully). However if something was scheduled between now and end of Sept I couldnt do it, I dont consider I'm an armchair diver or overly fond of quarries in the Summer, am I typical of a lot on here?

Matt

[nickb]

Whilst posts advertising trips that have long since been and gone will naturally migrate down the list order, this forum does get cluttered up with out-of-date stuff that makes it difficult to browse - at least for someone rapidly losing their faculties like me.

Is it possible to archive out these posts, or to add a mandatory ‘validity date’ after which the post will be moved to an archive area?

If this can’t be done automatically by the forum software, I appreciate that manually moving the posts would be a chore for the admins but if the original poster had the ability to tidy up their own posts that would help.

Just a thought…..