Project Aware Thanks Us!

Please see the nice thank you letter from Project Aware. Thanks to all our members who donated their refunded dues to Project Aware! Here’s the email from Project Aware:

Thank you: Project Aware donation $$$

So many things have been disrupted this year and the dive club events certainly took a hit as well. Since most of the dive club dues paid by our members go to support events we hold throughout the year, it wasn’t right to keep all those dues and have none of the events. So, we looked at the dive club account and decided that we should just refund two thirds of each person’s dues to them.

When we sent the offer to refund dues, we also offered instead to keep the refund and make a collective donation to the PADI Project Aware to help ocean conservation for those that didn’t want the money back.

We’re very happy to report that 27 of our members elected to donate their refunded dues to Project Aware and this week, we’re sending a donation of $840 to Project Aware. The donation also includes a list of names so they will know who helped contribute. Charities and groups like Project Aware have also suffered in the last many months, so we’re especially thankful to be able to support their efforts and thanks to our members for supporting this great cause!

Club meeting notes 6-Dec-2019

Thanks to Jay Virzi for handling the club meeting on 6-Dec and providing the presentation content too! All reports were that it was a great meeting, so sorry we (Dan & Anne) missed it! Here are the slides from that meeting:

Club meeting notes 11-Oct-2019

We had a meeting combined with a pizza party at our house on Friday 11-Oct and a nice turnout. Thanks to all who could attend and help with some lively discussion! Here are the notes we presented at the meeting.

Club meeting notes, 7-Jun-2019

Here are the meeting notes from our 7-Jun meeting in case you missed it. We had a lively discussion and welcomed new member Rick too!

Our next meeting is August 2, so we will skip the July meeting. Looking forward to seeing many members on our trip to dive in the Florida Keys in a couple weeks!

Club meeting notes, 5-Apr-2019

Thanks to all those that were able to attend our meeting last night. It was a great discussion and glad everyone was able to come and share some thoughts with all of us! You can find the slides below.

March 2019 club meeting notes

We had a good sized group join us for the March meeting at our house. We had a fast-paced presentation about Coral Identification and a few issues that coral reefs are facing.

The presentation ended right as the pizza arrived for the pizza party. After pizza and some visiting, some gear was exchanged at the gear sale. A few people left with some great deals and everyone was happy to move gear from one house to another!

Here are the notes that we covered in a hurry so we could all enjoy warm pizza (instead of cold!).

March meeting

Our March meeting will be on March 1st at 6:30pm at Dan & Anne’s house. This will be a pizza party and also used gear sale. Feel free to bring any gear you want to sell or if you need something you will probably find it here. Anyone interested in joining club feel free to attend. Email us at info@bottombreathers.org for information. Please rsvp to club email if you will be attending so we order enough pizza.

Florida Keys trip

We are diving for 4 days.  We will arrive on the 20th, dive the 21-24 and then leave on the 25th.  Dan and I will plan on hopefully going to dive the Blue Heron bridge on the 25th and then go spend some time with one of my sisters.  Anyone who wants can join us at the Blue Heron bridge. We will have to research times for diving there.  I’m told by one of my buddies in the Keys that there still is marine life there.
We will be doing 2 wreck dives in the morning and 2 reef dives in the afternoon.  You must be advanced certified to do wreck dives.  You don’t have to do wreck dives, you can do just reef dives.  Reef dives are 20-30ft and wrecks are 80-100ft. We recommend nitrox for wreck dives, but it is not required.
CostsAll dives, nitrox, room: $1022All dives, no nitrox, room $958Reef dives only, room : $630Non diver $335 for lodgingIf you need a bigger tank let us know and we will get pricing for that to you.Nitrox is for wrecks only, not reef dives.
We need a $200 deposit.  We had to put money down on condos.  We have 3 condos reserved.   Cost is based on 4 people per condo.  Each condo has 2 bedrooms.  1 king bed, 2 twins, 2 bathrooms and kitchen.  Ocean pointe has a great pool. We can add more condos if we need them.  Please let us know if you have requests of who you would like to room with.
Cost is based on 4 people per condo and more than 7 divers.  Cost is subject to change if we don’t have enough people going.
We are diving with Florida Keys dive center: www.floridakeysdivectr.com
We  are staying at Ocean pointe Condos: www.providentresorts.com
Everyone is responsible for their own flights.  You can fly in to Miami or Ft lauderdale.  We will send our flight info out soon.  We are staying longer to visit sister.
We try to have everyone who is on same flights book cars together to save cost.  Once we know who is coming we will send that out so people can arrange car rentals.
Any questions feel free to call or emailAnne 630-927-2663info@bottombreathers.org
Payment. Deposit of $200 due on sign up.  Remainder of payment due by April 20th.  Cancellation by April 20th for full refund.
Payment options
We can  accept electronic bank payments (to dannorris@dannorris.com or 630.723.4212) or some members use their electronic bill pay to send us a “bill payment” as well. All forms accepted–whatever is easiest for you. Most banks I think allow setting up an individual payee as a bill payee, so it should work.   For anyone  who wants to use Paypal as form of payment  use.  dannorris@dannorris.com.  Payment by check or cash acceptable.  Make checks out to Anne Poirier.
Hope we have another big group this year, lots of fun on this trip.  We usually eat breakfast in condo before diving and pack a lunch.  If you are doing all dives there usually is not a lot of time between getting back from wreck dives and going out afternoon reef dives.  We pack a lunch and eat at the picnic tables at the dive shop.  We go out for dinners.  Lots of good places to eat.
Please respond to email or call if you will be joining trip.  
Going to be a great trip,
             Anne & Dan

Meeting notes 14-Dec-2018

Overview and events slides from the dive club:

Questions about events or any upcoming trips, please contact info@bottombreathers.org

Links to programs and websites relevant to the discussions:

https://reefci.com/our-programs/

https://www.volunteerworld.com/en/volunteer-abroad/coral-reef

Presentation from Prof Cheryl Heeneman: