Richmond Sub Aqua Club

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Richmond Sub-Aqua Club
RSAC 1489

BSAC has over 45,000 members world wide and is the biggest and the most widely recognised amateur diving organisation. BSAC’s teaching and safety standards are second to none and are used as a benchmark by other diving organisations. BSAC’s primary strength lies in its club system.As a member of BSAC you will be trained by BSAC instructors up to advanced diver level with only a token incremental cost between courses. BSAC qualifications are respected and accepted throughout the world. Indeed while abroad you may find others clamouring to be your Buddy!

Richmond Sub Aqua Club has around 80 members including six nationally qualified instructors with a good sprinkling of assistant instructors and dive leaders. Our instructor team are keen to teach and help you in all aspects of diving and diving equipment.

The club is administered by a committee elected by our members at the Annual General Meeting. Everyone on the committee is there to help and listen.

Dives are organised throughout the year both for training and for experienced divers. We have our own Rigid Inflatable Boat (RIB) normally moored at Littleton Lake but many dives are organised using larger boats. Every year longer trips are organised to places like the Red Sea, Cyprus and Scotland.

RSAC is a particularly sociable club holding well attended events such as barbecues, bowling, paint balling and restaurant visits. After our pool sessions on Monday nights a visit to the Sun Inn for a drink and an opportunity to discuss your latest diving exploits is pretty much a must!

We pride ourselves in being a friendly, relaxed and safe club. We hope you will participate in the diving, and social events. We welcome others to help organise such events. We are keen to see a wide variety of dives being organised by a wide variety of people. Anyone can organise a dive and all the experienced members of the club will be happy to help newcomers.

Club Night

All members are encouraged to attend our Monday club nights to maintain and improve their skills and kit familiarity. Club night is the time when training, diving and social events are discussed and organised. The notice boards are the primary source of what diving and other events are planned. If you wish to participate in any of the events or dives put your name down on the appropriate list on the notice board. We are privileged to be able to use a superb swimming pool to meet, learn and practise our diving skills. RSAC have always had a good rapport with the pool management.

Club night is every Monday night except on Bank Holiday weekends when we expect to be diving!

RSAC History

Well it was around the latter half of 1986, when a small group of people decided to form their own branch of the British Sub-Aqua Club, which was located in the Dormers Wells swimming pool near Southall. This very small club remained in Dormers for about 3 months before moving to Isleworth Swimming Baths, where the name was registered as Isleworth (T) Sub-Aqua Club. But why the ‘(T)’, in the title, well this was due to one of the first officers of the club working for British Telecom. The idea was, if the (T) appeared in the title the club could get backing from BT and help with equipment etc, unfortunately this never happened but the (T) remained for some time.

This group of people who formed the backbone of the club, consisted of the following, some of which you may recognize: Andy Papacosta, (Chairman), John Langford,(Diving Officer), Dave Wright,(Equipment Officer), Janet Wedler,(Secretary),Tony Wedler,(Training Officer), Vic Robinson,(Treasurer), and Benny & Nikki Sutton, Martin Wynn Jones,(Instructors). Most general members in that first six months have long since left the club, but some remain, look out for: Roy Anderson and Pete Tyler.

The club itself went through some good and bad times in its development, including numerous pool relocations. When Isleworth pool closed for major repairs, we found ourselves using, Brentford-Feltham-Teddington-Hampton and Richmond pools, until we managed to settle where we are today, and all this in an 18 month period.

Shortly after settling in Richmond we changed our name to our current title and the hard work began. All training was carried out using our own equipment and our first priority was to gain enough membership subs to purchase club kit, which we were very successful at. This should not be a surprise as the membership level at one point was close to 180 members. This high number of members also allowed us to fundraise for the purchase of a club boat, which remains today, and due to our size people began to notice us.

The club was invited to open the “Richmond Festival of Sport” and standing alongside us was Duncan Goodhew and yes he had a go in the pool! Matthew Corbett along with ‘Sooty and Sweep” came along for an evening for a publicity drive and soon after we were asked if we were interested in taking part in a huge televised fundraising event. This event turned out to be ‘Comic Relief” or ‘Red Nose Day’. We held an underwater dinner party in a very exclusive club in London and with us taking part were Jimmy Nail, and John Leslie working as waiters, there were also a lot of celebrities present at the event and they held an auction of their own property in the bar area.

This one private event holds the record for the most amount of money raised in the least amount of time, fifty seven thousand pounds in one hour! Beat that. Because of the success of this event, we were asked to repeat the same thing at Crystal Palace, this was to a very picky audience. The venue was for the ‘Dive Show”, which was its normal location back then, but it was four times the size of what it is today and they wanted to televise it again. The club has even exhibited at the Dive Show, with a nice display of ‘Brassware’ and ‘photographs’ for all to see.

This is where we are today, Richmond Sub Aqua Club – 1489, a little smaller maybe, but just as enthusiastic as the day it was formed.