News
Kate is Leaving
10/04/2017After seven and a half years in post as Admin & Finance Officer and Operations Manager since October 2013, Kate has decided that it is time to move on to other challenges.
In addition to the daily tasks of membership processing, book keeping and all the other tasks which support the Board, the NDC and the members, Kate has been instrumental in many of the innovations in ScotSAC including our branding – the letter heads, standardising the logo and more recently the infographics, giving you information about where your branch sits in the organisation and how we are doing on training and recruiting members.
Kate will be very sorely missed, but we wish her well in her new challenges and hope that her experience with ScotSAC will prove useful to her in the future.
ScotSail Dive Competition 2017
03/03/2017
As the March/April issue of Scottish Diver magazine will have landed through your letterboxes by now, many of you will have seen that ScotSail are running a competition where you could win three places (normally £199pp) on its Dive Specific RYA PowerBoat Level 2 (Coastal/Tidal) Course!
Full details of the competition are on the ScotSail website, with the winning entry being drawn at random on Monday 10th April 2017 and the winner notified by e-mail. The winner can choose who will attend the course.
Wishing all of our Members a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
16/12/2016We'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of our Regional Coaches, Instructors, Branch Committees, and Volunteers for all of your hard work and dedication to the sport over the last year. None of our achievements as an organisation, or as individual branches would be possible without you. Whether it be taking a nervous new diver in for their first experience of the underwater world, keeping branch operations running smoothly, or running or helping out at a national course or event, we couldn't do it without you. Thanks!
ScotSAC HQ will be closed from Monday 19th December 2016 through until 5th January 2017.
Child Protection
07/12/2016In light of recent media attention, we are aware that branches may have increased anxiety about child protection. If this is the case, you can contact ScotSAC's CPLO (Kate Jenkins: 0131 625 4404/childprotection@scotsac.com) or Safeguarding in Sport at 0141 419 1156 for advice, guidance and help.
Our advice to branches with junior members would be to ensure that you have:
- A named contact for the co-ordination of child protection, with a role description, who has attended recommended training.
- A Child Protection Policy which reflects national guidelines, adopted by the Board / Executive / Management Committee.
- A Code of Conduct for working with children and young people.
- A variety of child protection training offered at appropriate levels for those working or volunteering with children and young people in sport.
- A procedure for the recruitment and selection of those who work with children and young people, including access to PVG Scheme Membership checks.
- A procedure for responding to concerns about the welfare or abuse of a child - within or out with sport.
- A disciplinary procedure for managing concerns and allegations of poor practice, misconduct and child abuse and includes provision for referrals to the Children’s List.
- A procedure for reviewing the management of concerns about poor practice, misconduct and / or child abuse.
If somebody raises child protection concerns in relation to an Instructor/volunteer who is currently practising then you should follow your ‘Responding to Concerns’ procedure. If it is a historical allegation then you should follow the same procedure and signpost the individual to Police Scotland on ‘101’. If you have a concern about a child’s immediate safety then this should be passed on to Police or Social Work. All of our Child Protection documents can be found on our website here.
We will shortly be running another Safeguarding and Protecting Children workshop early next year. Attendance at a Safeguarding and Protecting workshop is mandatory for all Group 2 Instructors, BDOs and CPOs, and highly recommended for Group 3 Instructors, BDOs, and CPOs. Further details will be sent out in due course.
AGENCIES AGAINST MANDATORY ANNUAL CYLINDER TESTS
10/11/2016On 23 October 2016 the majority of diver training agencies in the UK, including a representative of the Scottish Sub Aqua Club, held a joint meeting at the NEC to discuss ISO/DIS 18119.2, the draft standard for gas cylinders, seamless steel and seamless aluminium-alloy gas cylinders and tubes periodic inspection and testing.
Our initial objections and concerns were a distinct lack of evidence supporting the proposed change, along with an increase in cost for our members and the wider diving community, and its resulting knock on effect in terms of diving tourism and on diving clubs.
Our representative on the committee has attended the appropriate meetings, and ScotSAC have put our full backing behind opposing the proposed changes. We are working both with BSAC and the other representatives, and independently to represent the best interests of our members in this matter.
Read the full press release here.