PSAI conference
I was fortunate to be invited by Frank to join him at the PSAI conference at the NDC on Friday.
I left home far too early and got to the NDC at 8:00am for a 10:00am start! Mark Powell was the first familiar face to arrive and Phill from Divingkniknaks came a little later. Frank had hit traffic on the M3 and was running behind schedule so rather than walk in to the meeting once it started on my own, I took the cowards way out and stayed outside with Phill until Frank appeared.
It was quite daunting to see several of the well known names in diving gathered together, Jack Ingle, Mark Andrews, Andy Hayhurst, Dave Crockford, John Liddiard, etc.
I enjoyed listening to plans for the Agency and the outlines of future courses. It was fascinating to talk to people over lunch and after the conference to hear different views of diving and how training should be managed. There was a great deal of diversity amongst the instructors present but clearly a common theme of wanting to improve the standard and safety of UK diving.
Phill introduced himself at lunchtime and it was nice to see that there was quite a lot of interest in the kit he sells from the instructors present. He took back the finstraps which I didn’t like and swapped the ballast of my torch for his to see if it made any difference to the poor focusing ability my torch has had since I first got it. The man’s idea of customer service is simply unsurpassed - if he took over our public services we’d all benefit :o)
