Devastating fiscal blow to Blackwater Sub Aqua Search and Recovery Unit
The past 3 years have been difficult ones for the club; we had been unable to run courses for novice divers to gain new membership; had to suspend a huge amount of club activity due to the pandemic and public fundraising had been fairly decimated. Juxtaposing this the volume of search operations the unit was involved in more than doubled in the same period.
All the above resulted in very depleted funds and were it not for the fact that the search divers pay for all their own dive insurance, club fees, medical and all their search equipment themselves and that club fundraising officer Noel Hayes organized an online fundraiser; then the unit probably would not have survived.
In over 30 years of diving none of the search divers had completed as much search diving as in 2021 and despite all the obstacles the unit emerged into 2022 with a sense of confidence that we were emerging from the pandemic and could hopefully start fundraising again.
In the past few weeks two groups (Araglin community and Fermoy soccer club in conjunction with Charles McCarthy) had offered to do fundraisers for the search unit and things were starting to look up.
Like all other aspects of life things often take a twist that you never anticipate and when you least expect it and this is what happened in the past two weeks when the units main compressed air compressor broke down and unfortunately it is beyond repair. The unit’s current compressor is 16 years old this year and gave great service; to lose such an important piece of equipment is a devastating blow just as the unit was getting back on its feet.
Over the forty years of the unit’s history, it has overcome many challenges and am sure we will overcome this also; in the interim a big thanks to the club members who all agreed to increase club fees just 2 months after the AGM in order to generate some more money to keep the unit solvent.
While this is a disappointing blow, the unit does have a small backup compressor so the unit can stay fully functional but the compressor would be very undersized and is not a sustainable solution so will have to be replaced.
TRAINEE COURSE
On a positive note, there has been a big interest level in the club’s new trainee diver course with ten new prospective divers attending the first week of lectures last week; there is still time for people to sign up and the club is also taking crossover members also from other dive agencies; so, if interested please contact the club via the club’s online page.