We decided on a slightly different format to last year in that rather than have a traditional heavy drinking Christmas party we would have an end of season party and include different forms of entertainment. It seems to have worked very well.
The venue was the same as last year - Redz bar at Crawley Town football club as this seems a fairly central location. As well as a few quizzes which, quite remarkably, were both won by the Wilson family, the main attraction seems to have been the 10 pin Bowling competition using the new Wii games console. For the people who don't know what this is, it is a games console that uses a sort of stick/wand that understands your arm movements. (Actually I am not convinced and I really got David annoyed as I managed to score a strike by throwing the ball in completely the wrong direction. Please do not mention this to David as he gets very upset that I wrecked his game!!) So (supposedly) to play 10 pin bowling you really have to swing your arm and release a button instead of a ball as you would in a real game. We also had a good projector which meant that the action was displayed on a very large screen. This game was won By Russell Braithwaite with a score of around 159. Is that good???
The room had been decorated with a few boards containing pictures of some of the trips that had taken place over the year. This was a great opportunity for people to re acquaint themselves with old friends and people they had done course with, as well as an opportunity to show family and friends what they get up to at the weekend. As with all divers it gave a good opportunity to re tell some fishy tales !!!
Some of you may know that Gary Wilson and Kevin Charman had finally completed their Divemaster course just a week or so earlier. All year they had been the only members of our team who did not have a staff shirt as this is only given to members of staff and as trainee Divemasters they are still students and not entitled to be called "staff". This has resulted in much banter and cruel comments as to their status in life. The joke has run and run, and at one stage they both bought and came dressed in pale blue T shirts to try to fit in. I think getting this shirt was more important than getting the Divemaster card from PADI. Anyway we decided to put them out of their misery and they were awarded their staff T shirts. Well done Gary and Kevin and welcome to the team at Sussex Scuba.
Thanks once again to Andrea, David, and Vikki for organising the food and John Greenyer for providing the music
Just a few pictures this time as there weren't many photographers around
