We were blessed with spectacular dive conditions over the last month. I’m convinced that the experience we recently had at Magic Point with Janet, Michael, Charlie, Erik and John Swift was one of the best I’ve had in Sydney.
This month we recommenced our general meetings at the Oaks Hotel after a long period of being unable to gather in groups. Please note that if all goes to plan we’ll be having these every second month and have fixed the following dates for the rest of the year: 6th July, 7th Sept, 9th Nov.
John and the RLS team have been busy with surveying multiple sites on the east coast. You can read all about it in the May bulletin.
Pablo and Greer have been proactively building a public profile for URG’s by partnering with big names such as Tangaroa Blue, Take 3 For The Sea and Friends of Chowder Bay and getting club members involved in beach cleans and diving against debris. I had the pleasure of attending the most recent event which was a CEO beach clean up at Manly Cove. There were some interesting people there
including Valerie Taylor, Zali Stegall - MP for Warringah and James Griffin - MP for Manly.
Here are some of the results from this amazing initiative:
27,603 Rubbish items were taken off the beach including 20,000+ small pieces of plastic, plastic film and polystyrene
87 Kilos of Rubbish removed
Heaviest item - A 2P Parking sign
Strangest item - A tennis ball with barnacles growing out of it
55 - CEO and business leader participants
Over $31,000 has been raised as of this morning.
Pablo also informed me that URG is now listed as a recipient on the list of not-for-profits that people can select in the Return and Earn scheme across NSW. This is a fantastic result as it is not easy to get on the list. If you are taking any items to recycling you can now opt to donate the money to URG. Read more about this here: https://www.mytomra.com.au/home/nsw-return-and-earn/
Thank you so much Pablo for the work and effort you are putting into all these initiatives. It is much appreciated by all of us.
Our URG dive trip is planned for September and it is a liveaboard pontoon on the southern barrier reef off Lady Musgrave and the surrounding reefs. Please contact Denise if you want further details.
Michael and Janet have a trip booked to South West Rocks from 28th October to 5th November which includes 8 nights accommodation and double dives everyday with SWR Dive Centre. They are eager to extend the invite to all members, so call Lily at SWR to book if you are interested in joining them for all or part of this trip.
Lastly our club boat will be out of action for a few weeks while we service the motors. Please keep an eye on your emails and/or the Facebook group as we will let you know when the boat is back in the water.
Happy diving.
Duncan Heuer