We celebrated our first anniversary as a club with an afternoon pool party at member Jim LaBrie’s home on Saturday, Sept. 13. We had handmade burgers from Jim and tons of potluck dishes from members, a presentation by coral biologist JD Reinbott, and door prizes people were scrambling for, but OMG… the cake! It was a great crowd of 30 divers and bubble watchers who mixed and mingled, and we announced the new Board of Directors for the club.

Our goals for the first year were all met successfully. Before our first year was completed, we had:

• Grown our membership to 50+ people
• Become recognized by the federal and state government as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization as well as incorporated
• Established relationships with professionals in the local diving community
• Publicized the presence of LGBTQIA+ divers as a form of education and awareness in the dive industry
• Practiced marine conservation with every dive we did, and made connections with likeminded conservation organizations in the area
• Positioned the club to be financially secure as it grows into its next year.

Your new Board of Directors! From Left to Right: Russell Hilliard, Matt Constantine, Joe Mankowski, Andre Saade, Tom Shanahan, Christopher Duncan, Jim LaBrie, JD Reinbott, Eric Taylor and Keat Ooi. Unable to attend but also on the board is Ken Gioeli.

One of the first goals of the new board will be to establish the goals for the club in the next year. We hope that diversity will be a big focus as we grow the club next year, and we aim to broaden our reach to all LGBTQIA+ community members. We would love to hear from you if you have any other thoughts on what we need to do, please email us.

We want to thank again Skip VandeLinde and Jeff from AquaLife Divers, as well as Nathalie Martel and Jaan Leemet from DryFob for our two door prizes.