· Campaigns · 5 min read
iDive Program Cancellation - Averted!
UPDATE: We did it! The programs have been saved! The Vancouver Aquatic Centre management is looking to stop iDive from booking past 7pm on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. This means both the masters diving program and learn to dive program are at risk!
Last Updated: July 28, 2024 at 11:41 pm (PDT)
tl;dr
We did it! The programs are both safe for the upcoming 2024-2025 season. Well done everyone! Extra big thanks to Jeff and Krysta who were critical in making this campaign the success that it was. Thanks to everyone who shared, posted, liked, wrote emails, and chatted in the WhatsApp group to help us refine the campaign messaging. Here’s to another year of learning the fantastic sport of diving right here in Vancouver!
Table of Contents
What’s going on
On July 10, 2024, the management at the Vancouver Aquatic Centre (VAC) notified iDive that their current booking times would be limited on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The end of iDive’s booking time would now be 7pm. This impacts two programs, the Learn To Dive program and the Masters Diving program. Both of these programs are crucial for the health of iDive as a club, one as a feeder program for the competitive team and the other to support the large number of masters divers currently diving at iDive.
On July 12, 2024, the management at VAC offered iDive to extend their hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays to 8.30pm, which would allow for part of the two programs to resume, however only half of the pool would be available (one 1m, one 3m), and the platforms and bubble machines would no longer be available. Given the limited board space, the programs would also not be able to run at their current capacity.
At this time this was a huge problem! Even with the new time slots available, the quality of the program would have suffered and the number of divers who were able to dive over a term would have been significantly reduced.
So we launched our email and social media campaign.
On July 19, 2024, we received an email from Steve Kellock, the Recreation Director at Vancouver Parks and Recreation, informing us that VAC is rolling back it’s scheduling changes and instead advancing a new policy for Pool Allocation. This new policy will be built over the next 12-24 months, and will be built with input from existing pool user groups including iDive.
On July 26, 2024, we received notification from iDive that the Learn to Dive and Masters programs would both continue in their current time slots for the upcoming season, September 2024 - July 2025. Success!!
Well done everyone!
Interesting Statistics
- The iDive masters program is currently home to ~15 of the 58 currently registered masters divers in the province. That’s about 25% of all masters divers in the province!
- This is a guess, I’m still waiting on numbers, but the iDive Masters program probably has 10-15% of all the masters divers in Canada
Here’s the plan
We’re going to start with an email campaign. Right now, email templates are being built to target specific people in the decision-making chain. Once those are ready, we’ll ask everyone to fire off some emails using the templates to get some attention to our cause!
We have also created a petition to present to VAC management. That petition is available here!
More details on the plan are available here: iDive Program Cancellation Advocacy Strategy Document
Things you can do now
- Write an email to someone on the contact list: if you’re ready to go and know what you want to say, please feel free to write an email to someone on the contact list!
- Sign the petition!
- Share the petition with your friends, family, and on social media
- Email Derek your phone number to get added to the CMD: Canadian Masters Diving West Coast Whatsapp group
- Write an email template
Resources
Please take a look at the resources below and help us out with our advocacy!
Contacts
Email Templates
The following email templates are ready to go. Please go ahead and copy them and then customize it as you see fit!
- Email to Steve Kellock, by Derek Moore
- Letter to the City, by Jeff Kulak
- Email to Tony Syskakis, By Derek Moore
Strategy
I’ve written up a strategy document that shows what the plan is and where we are with each step. The document is available at the following link:
iDive Program Cancellation Advocacy Strategy Document
Write an email template
We’re looking for help! Right now we need email templates written. If you would like to write an email template, please do the following:
- Pick a contact from the Park Board Commissioners, Staff and City Councillors
- Write up the template
- Email it to Derek using the link below
After a quick review, your template will be posted here for anybody in the community to use!
Once we have a few templates that are ready to go, we’ll do some coding magic on this end! The code will allow each email template to be quickly customized for each person who’s doing the sending, so that all someone has to do is fill out a form, pick a person, and then tweak the complete email it writes for them in any way they see fit. I can get that part done in a day or so, we just need more of these templates to be written!
Some things to remember if you’re writing a template:
- Learn To Dive: We are also trying to save part of the learn to dive program. Make sure to include that in your email!
- Inclusion: We are looking to include all members of our community in this campaign. When you’re writing your template, do your best to make it generic enough for it to be used by the following members of our community. It’s ok if your template ends up being too specific though, just let Derek know and he’ll make sure it’s marked as specific for a certain group.
- Learn to Dive Divers
- Parents of LTD Divers
- Masters Divers
- Coaches
- Administrators at BC Diving and Diving Plongeon Canada
Summary
We did it! Thanks to everyone who helped make this campaign a huge success. Here’s to another year of diving together here in Vancouver!
