Been a bit busy at the ol' dive centre the last few months so haven't had a chance to stop by this site. Here's an update:
DERTWG and DEngr Confs in Oct didn't pan out as well as I had hoped. Certainly, there was moral support, but it pretty well ended there. A bit later D Engr confirmed that "status quo" was where we had to stay, for awhile anyway. So, as a result, we sought out and have been given direction to get as capable as possible in completing our current CFP 361(7) mandated tasks. So, that means additions to our list of eqpt (only to address capability deficiencies to these "blessed" tasks, not developing new tasks) and adding the trg that needs to be done to properly do these tasks. What's that mean? Tell you later in this write up.
Dive crse and Suprs crse wapped up mid-Nov (welcome to the family to all the hard chargers on the last crse. Dive Suprs, keep the standards high.)
ADC sent a rep to the Dive Eqpt Marketers Assoc Conf in Florida - lots of great new ideas for kit and lots of new contacts made.
CF Dive Trg meeting in early Dec in Hfx. Seems there is potential for considerable taking on of new trg responsibilities for the ADC from the Clearance Divers. Diving to 150 fsw is already blessed and will happen next crse. Won't spell out other initiatives here until things get "carved in stone" at the CF Dive Policy Conf in Apr 07, but it is potentially the largest single Army dive trg advancement since the inception of Army diving. More to follow.
Once again, it's that time of the fiscal year where rumours abound that there is the potential for lots of eqpt money to be made aval at the last minute.
Now, you add all of the aforementioned points together and you'll understand that with the "new direction," the new list of eqpt ideas, the potential for a lot of new responsibilities, and the rumours of money, that we pushed a lot of paper and spent considerable time doing the nec planning, staffwork, and liaison to be prepared to acquire new eqpt should funds be made aval. Lists have been submitted to the Training chains of command for eqpt for the ADC to assist in individual trg and collective trg, and have also been submitted to the Army for lots of eqpt for the Army teams. You never know how these things will work out, but we'll keep on top of things.
The ADC found out very recently that Treasury Board reps were doing a review of Port Inspection Diver allowance and that Combat Diver allowance would be reviewed as well if we got our submission in really quick. We scrambled to get the research and the briefing note done and reviewed by OPI Army Diving and was submitted late last week. We asked to have all extra-regimentally employed (ERE) divers recv full allowance as well if they remain current with a unit team. No promises on that. Might hear something of a result by end-March. More to fol.
Also working on trying to grow the ADC. The potential workload and responsibilities that could be here will seriously impact on the small staff we have. More to fol.
We are visiting the US Army Dive Company early next month to talk trg, eqpt, tasks, op lessons learned, and participation in Ex RB 07.
Will also be participating in the Underwater Intervention conference in the US end-Jan. That's heavy on commercial dive trg and eqpt. I think that'll prove the most useful of all the confs.
Speaking of Ex RB 07, looks like Allied particpation will be good, but it's Canadian participation that's not looking good. Anyone on a Regt team out there that can make it? I'm hearing crickets chirping right now due to op tempo.
That's all I've got for now. Lots of irons in the fire. If you've got comments or suggestions, fire away.
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Hopefully, no later than end-Apr we'll be able to make a statement on the way ahead...could be good, could be not so good from our point of view.
