Instructor Workshop in Egypt
Two, 2-day Workshops were provided to the nine candidates within one week in April 2007.
The BSAC recognise the expertise of other-agency instructors and do not require them to undertake a series of assessments – they have already been examined by their own agencies. BSAC instructional methodology differs and an intensive Workshop is staged to demonstrate this.
Oonas Dive Club in Sharm El Sheikh hosted the event at the end of March.
Oonas Dive Club was an ideal venue. The BSAC Trainer Team used Oonas’ classroom facilities and dive centre and a suitable sheltered water site for the practical elements of the Workshop was only a few steps away to the beach. The candidates were all experienced instructors accredited with other agencies and employees within existing BSAC Centres.
The Workshop was led by Sophie Rennie, BSAC National Instructor and a leading Instructor Trainer. Mike Clack, BSAC Commercial Coordinator organised the event.
Sophie Rennie said: “I was most impressed with the quality of expertise among all of the candidates. This really helped my job in highlighting differences in instructional methodology with BSAC training”.
The candidates were:
- Nour El Din M. Farid – Easy Divers, Hurghada
- Andreas Dunker, Fantasea, Dahab
- Huw Lovell, Fantasea, Dahab
- Tom Steiner, Fantasea, Dahab
- Seamus Forde, Colona, Sharm El Sheikh
- Nick Brown, Oonas, Sharm El Sheikh
- Wael Mohammed El Shahat, Divers International, Sharm El Sheikh
- Alex Allen, Divers International, Sharm El Sheikh
- The ninth instructor was Chris Martin, Alpha Divers, Cyprus
Sophie Rennie, Instructor Trainer, briefing the group
Practical sessions
Alex Allen, Nick Browne, Tom Steiner, Waul Mohammed El Shahat and Seamus Forde. Sophie is at the back.
Enterprising dive centres in Egypt, like many others worldwide are recognising the commercial advantage of offering multi-agency diver training and providing customers with a choice. The BSAC is the highly credible alternative with a visible brand image. Affiliation maximises customer attraction – especially with the UK market.
There have been great steps taken during the last couple of years to empower BSAC Centres with more support to deliver BSAC training more easily:
- We have a distributor to be able to fulfill orders for training packs to Centres in Egypt
- Distributors are planned for other regions
- The training packs have been redesigned – shortly to be supplied in secure cartons
- An online certification system has been devised – launching during April
- BSAC student training material is competitively priced compared with other agencies
- BSAC Centres get a prominent entry on the BSAC ‘Travel Club’ website – a resource that attracts over 40k visitors every month.
Future expansion plans for BSAC Centres is to develop other popular diving regions worldwide – and the UK, as well as continue to progress the good work achieved in Egypt.
For more information about becoming accredited as a BSAC Centre and Instructor Crossover Workshops, contact Mike Clack at BSAC Headquarters - +44 (0)151 6206. Email: centres@bsac.com
Page last modified: 1st May 2007 - 15:05:19