Hello,

and welcome everyone to the Austin Scuba E-list. Please take the time to read through this entire message, it should answer many of your questions. 

ORGANIZING DIVES
Diving is a great way to meet some interesting people. However, if you don't all ready know other divers, you will not have any buddies to go diving with! Our goal is to have a large pool of people in order to dive as often as we want. This means a lot of local diving.  Simple, right? The local dive shops and clubs (e.g. UT Scuba Club or Austin Scuba Club) do a great job at organizing more ambitious trips, so we do not plan on competing with that. However, we want to dive more often than once a year at $1500 a pop.

The main reason given by people for not contacting us to go diving is that they didn't think anyone else wanted to dive.  It usually turns out that plenty of people would like to go, but few seem to realize that YOU can make the initial effort to start organizing a dive.  If you have the time to dive, there are usually others willing to go with you.  We just need someone to take the initiative.  We have anywhere from 2-12 people on the dives and go out as often as three times a week. However, one person cannot organize all those dives.

WEBSITE
http://www.scuba-elist.com
Check out the FAQ section for the Frequently Asked Questions. Also, look at the "list-o-names" section and let us know what blanks you would like to fill in.  All of the online info is optional, but can be helpful in making last minute changes to a plan. For example, giving you a call because a dive must be cancelled. Once you have looked those sections over, most of your visits to the website will be checking on the "Trips" sections to see the info on the latest dives. Announcements about dives are sent via e-mail, but the latest information should found on the web page. Use those trip reports to help prepare for upcoming dives as the will try to give the latest lake conditions.  There are also a few links available on the front page that you can access to get the most up-to-date lake conditions yourself.

HOW TO ANNOUNCE A TRIP
Someone announces a dive trip by sending the info to dive(-at-)spaceship.com  (that's right anyone can come up with a site and time, even you). This does not mean you are DIVE LEADER, but an Activity Coordinator.  We are all certified divers so there is no need for us to be led by a certified Dive Master on every dive.  Most of the time we just need a little knowledge of the area and the rest can be handled with careful planning. The biggest part of any dive is planning, and all we need to make this work are a few people willing take some initiative.  That means organize some divers and show up for a dive.  Once the initial plan is sent out to everyone, interested divers contact the Activity Coordinator directly.  PLEASE INCLUDE A PHONE NUMBER.  The e-mail list can also be used to try and get rides to the dive site, help getting gear for the dive, and general help with diving questions to help you plan your dive.

WHO CAN BE A PART OF THIS GROUP?
Anyone, just subscribe. You don't have to be a UT Student, you don't have to own all your own gear or even have a ride to the site. Just don't be afraid to dive in Lake Travis :) This is not a club, a money making venture, or affiliated with a particular shop.  This is a resource for hooking up with potential diving buddies for local diving and possibly some trips beyond that.   Feel free to use this to meet and learn from more experienced divers and find your own group of people to dive with.

GUIDELINES
To keep the traffic to minimum, please refrain from sending mail meant for a specific person to the entire group. We will try and keep the current list of names updated to contact specific individual, so any message that you want to send to everyone should just be sent to dive(-at-)spaceship.com.

Inappropriate messages have been sent out in the past and can be classified as 'SPAM'.  In other words, unsolicited e-mail.  We reserve the right to moderate this at any time to prevent abuse.

Hope to see you in the water.

Paul
List Founder and Moderator
thompson(-at-)scuba-elist.com

If you have comments or suggestions, send e-mail to paul(-at-)lauraandpaul.com