Dive 2000 Dive Club - Sydney :: Dive Club Special Guest Speaker Evening with Neville Coleman May 2008

What a fantastic night, the best one ever was a comment frequently heard among the group that attended yet another entertaining evening at the Mosman Club with Dive 2000. The evening kicked off with an excellent presentation by Josie Ruth, Dive 2000 Shop Manager & Instructor. Josie showed an amazing portfolio of images that revealed her talent and passion for both above water landscapes, wildlife, underwater seascapes and marine life.

Our special guest speaker, Neville Coleman, delighted the audience with his images and stories of diving & marine research from the early days in the 1960’s through to the present day. He also revealed many of the unique and amazing species of marine life he has discovered in the past 40 years including a beautiful pygmy seahorse which, like many other species discovered by Neville, has been named after him. After the evening with Neville it became clear to everyone that we swim past hundreds of rare species we do not see and everyone was inspired to explore the marine environment with new eyes.

After Neville’s presentation he was kept busy signing copies of his spectacular Nudibranchs Encylopedia, which was a popular purchase on the night, if you don’t yet have a copy we now have them in stock at the shop.

During these evenings there are always special prizes and awards. Tonight was very special! Chris Jefferd was honoured with a Lifetime VIP Dive 2000 Club Membership in recognition of his many years of support; he was also honoured with the Dive 2000 Master Diver Jacket in recognition of achieving PADI Master Diver qualification. (read more on Chris' diving and thoughts on the Master Diver award Click Here)

Club member Monica Berglund also won a silver nudibranch pendant. Non-member Dave Hannan won a copy of Neville Coleman’s latest Nudibranch book and the real surprise award of the evening was truly stunning. VIP Dive 2000 Club Member Fenella Cochrane turned out to be the lucky winner of the $6000 Scubapro Competition.

This extremely valuable prize was co sponsored by our diving equipment supplier Scubapro/Uwatec providing a set of equipment, our dive travel agency Dive Adventures and Lissenung Island Resort providing a complete dive holiday to Papua New Guinea with Performance Sports Scuba, our supplier of Olympus cameras, providing a digital underwater camera system. The Dive 2000 team were also acknowledged for their efforts in ensuring that every client and club member purchasing Scubapro equipment over the last 6 months went into the prize draw.

The evening was complimented by fine food and the opportunity to catch up with fellow buddies, meet new ones and enjoy a social drink or two.

Now we are really looking forward to our next Special Guest Speaker 24 September with Dave Harasti (checkout his website at www.daveharasti.com) and Support Speaker, Allan Saben.

Allan is a very keen local underwater photography enthusiast who has been achieving excellent images with his Nikon D70, Seacam Housing system. We are certain Allan’s enthusiasm and images will inspire you.