Dear OCA Members,
I am humbled to have been selected as your next OCA president at last night’s meeting. The 2026 officers are as follows:
President- Bill Weedon
Vice-President – Jim Brady
Secretary – Marie Drumm
Treasurer – John Packhem
Board of Directors, John Stanford, Marie Drumm, Ian Campbell, Andrei Kurowski
We will be sending out 2026 dues forms and waivers shortly. Our hope is to eventually put that online to make it easier for everyone.
As I mentioned earlier, our initial plan is to hold two meetings a month, one up North at Dive on It, and one South at the Clubhouse. The North meeting will be chaired by VP Jim Brady, and I will chair the South meetings. Jim is going to contact Allison to see which week is best for the North meetings, so stay tuned for that.
We talked over hot dogs and soda about “why people join clubs” (dive clubs, hunting clubs, flying clubs, etc). Basically we join a club in order to participate in a sport or activity with other like-minded individuals so that we don’t have to do it alone. Not just for social events and to “talk about diving”, but to go out and actually dive fairly regularly. And in order to engage new members, we have to be welcoming of members of various skill levels and be willing to “show them the ropes,” even if that means doing a dive that might be less challenging than we would normally do, or showing a new member that “secret spot” where we like to get clams or look for cannonballs.
On the other hand, we recognize that scuba diving can be a dangerous sport for someone diving above their skill level or if their gear is not up to snuff. Diving is not for everyone and does require a certain level of physical skill, common sense, coordination and ability to perform under water and on the surface with dive gear. We are not a dive certification agency, but perhaps there is a middle ground between “same day, same ocean” and “babysitting”. One idea that I thought of last night is something called a “gear check” where a new or even an experience diver can bring their dive gear to a meeting, plop it on the table, and talk about how they configure their setup for a dive such as a night dive or a spearfishing dive. If nothing else, it will stimulate conversation and get us thinking about dragging our own dive gear out of the barn and getting everything checked out, making sure everything is up to snuff. Dive safety will be the number-one priority in all of our activities.
Immediately after the election, we drafted up a preliminary dive schedule including a number of events ranging from flagship events including Salem dives, Spearfishing tournament, kill-and-grill, night dives, co-hog dives, Christmas event, St Patricks “dive”, etc. We also talked about a week-long Florida Keys trip in Nov on the traditional Vets Day weekend. John Packhem took notes and will share the schedule with the club shortly. Every meeting we will be making adjustments to the schedule and fine-tuning it. Now we have something to talk about to try and attract some new members. Separately, Henry took home the “Lane Design” hard drive that has a lot of our printed materials including flyers, business cards, stickers, waivers, etc. in MAC format. If anyone (maybe Rob P?) has updated items including the latest club bylaws in electronic format, please forward them to a club officer or BOD.
Finally, we previously voted to re-incorporate the OCA in Rhode Island as a 501c7 non-profit club. Ian is speargunning that effort. His research found that the club was incorporated in MA in 1974, then in 1986 the MA corporation was involuntarily withdrawn, likely for failing to file annual reports (just a postcard for 501c7’s). While we do have a club EIN, the Social Security Admin has no record of it, and was probably withdrawn as well. So we are going to start fresh, using the clubhouse as the official corporate address.
So welcome, and I look forward to working with everyone to continue the legacy started by our OCA forefathers in 1959, and making it a fun and enjoyable dive year.
Bill Weedon, OCA President, Jan 2026
