DiveStyle's makeover - 3 months on

It’s been three months since DiveStyle owner JC moved his treasured dive centre to larger, fresher, more exciting premises. With the help of Monty Halls, the opening went swimmingly and the three months since have been pretty peachy. In his own words, here’s JC’s lowdown…

Three months on…

After the last three months I now know that the move was the right thing to do. The doubts I had - and the financial stress suffered - has all proven to be worth it.

The feedback that I have had about the environment that the new dive centre has provided for the students and staff has been fantastic!

Over and over again we have received compliments on the layout, the environment and facilities. The new centre is in a lovely location, has great parking and is a warm and friendly environment for divers of all abilities, regardless of the training organisation.

Couple that with the launch of the new dive club (DiveStyle Pirate Club) we are pretty happy with where we are.

What will the future hold? Who knows! The current economic environment is not such a sunny picture at the moment but we will still strive forward, always trying to provide a great service for the diving community and hope that by doing so the diving community will support us.

The new store is roomy

And here’s how JC felt at the time…

It has been three long hard months of late nights, frustrating setbacks, lots of small triumphs and many sleepless nights, but we have done it! We have opened our new dive centre and it looks fantastic!

It’s always a stressful time moving properties, but imagine moving your business into an almost derelict unit with the recession biting at every opportunity and setting yourself two and a half months to complete it all.

Can still hear the comments ringing in my ears when I announced the big plan. “You’re crazy”, “are you mad?”, “have you been drinking”, “I wondered where all the helium was going, stop sniffing it as it is expensive!”.

My name is John Campbell, I took over DiveStyle on the 17th November 2008, my birthday. I had learned to dive with DiveStyle over 8 years ago and when the opportunity to own the school and retail shop came along I took it.

The centre was located in a small shopping centre in Reading, not in the town centre but close to the motorway and was relatively easy to find. I have to admit that I never really liked the location of the dive centre and vowed that if I had the dive centre I would move as soon as possible, two years later I did just that.

I wanted a dive centre that provided a clam and focused environment for students but was also welcoming. A nice retail area, changing room that was not located in the toilet and a kitchen a breakout area that allowed divers to gather and relax.

Oh and it had to cost less than the existing dive centre, be located in the town centre, be situated next to pub, great restaurants, train station and on the junction of the M4 while be in the country side providing the peace and calm that I was after.

Armed with this list I was soon to find out that it provided a massive amount of moral for the estate agents that I contacted. All but one of the 30 agents I contacted laughed so hard with the list that I gave them I thought they were going to give themselves hernia, the one that did not show signs of giving themselves a hernia actually hyperventilated and collapse, well I assumed they collapsed as the phone went dead.

So with my optimism and enthusiasm in tatters I set out to find a property myself! After all what did these guys know about properties for dive centre’s?

Over the next few weeks I started to think that the agents may have know more than I gave them credit for. I was no closer to finding a proper than when I had started the search and time was starting to run out.

As always the best way to solve a problem is in the pub. In the pub you tell everyone your problem, they in turn tell anyone that will listen and then eventually you get some form of advice, not all of the advice is useful but if you are patient and sift through the advice coming back you will find that golden nugget you have been looking for, and I did!

The answer was right under my nose. Just 2.4 miles away was a 2400 sq ft unit up for lease. It was not in the town centre, it was not next to busy restaurants but it was within easy access of the M4, in the country and a very peaceful place, it was known as Bridge Farm.

I called Mark, arranged a viewing and then celebrated with another beer. There was much to celebrate and as such much beer was consumed to celebrate, the small group of morris dancers I had allowed to move into my head the previous evening next morning reminded me just how much I had celebrated.

Within trepidation I arrived at Bridge Farm to meet Mark for a look around the new unit. The first impressions were good! Nice big unit, outside looked OK, could do with a lick of paint but overall it was good. I then stepped inside.

The friend I had taken with me took one look and then involuntary said out loud “F!$%* Me”. I obviously turned him down and could not see what the fuss was all about! Yes it was an old catering kitchen, yes it had years of grease all over the place, yes the roof was leaking but what I saw was a perfect layout for a great dive centre! Mark was pleased that I was pleased and a gentlemen’s agreement was made to move forward. Then it was back to the pub to see if I could find those morris dancers from the night before……I did, the very next morning.

The response from the dive centre staff and instructors has been amazing!

Andrew Breeze has just about lived at the centre painting everything in sight. Kevin Tanner a professional painter and decorator managed to get an amazing amount done in the few days he could spare. Neil Layton-Smith just so happened to own his own glazing company and turned out to be a bit of a handy man.

Joe Roberts was able to rewire the who unit with the speed that a professional electrician can do. Joe also ran all of the phone and LAN cables. Steve Pryke stepped forward and as a trained chippy whizzed through the unit building things with ease. A new unit here, a stud wall there, new kitchen work surfaces? No problem, done.

Chris Seymor fitted the alarm system and masses of people turned up just to lend a hand anyway they could, even guys that I had served with and that I had not seen for years had answered the cry for help, it was fantastic!

It is now 2 and a half months later and I am sitting in the new dive centre. It is the evening before the opening and I am so nervous my stomach is knotted to the point that my legs are starting to get included in the knot. Very soon I will be just a massive ball of knotted flesh.

I have Monty Halls booked to do the official opening (or Mothy Balls as I had put out in one news letter). For the last two weeks we had phone calls from customers asking if Monty was confirmed for the opening, then the calls changed to asking if Monty would be bringing Ruben to the opening and finally would Ruben be bringing Monty and would Ruben be doing the opening. We also had one confused customer asking why we had a famous gardener opening a dive centre.

The BBQ is set, enough food and drink for 200 people. I have Kelvin Richards, the MD from Oceanic and Tony Backhurst all giving up their weekends to support the launch of the new centre. I am very excited!

Then a thought hits me, what if I do not get 200 people coming to the opening? Have I expected to much? What happens if no one comes? How many burgers and hotdogs can I manage on my own?

I decide that the best thing to do is to go home, have glass of wine and hide under the duvet and get what sleep I can.

I was up bright and early. The staff even earlier. All these weeks I had been wrapped up in my own worries and forgotten completely about how the dive centre staff were feeling. They had poured their heart and sole into the centre and felt the pressure just as I had.

As we sat drinking a cup of tea, ready to run through the centre to give it a final clean it struck me just how peaceful the new centre location was. It was far enough back from the road that we could not hear the traffic, it had a feeling of being in the countryside yet was only 20 minutes from Reading and 5 minutes from the M4. It as spacious, welcoming and when the sun came out was just simply stunning.

A last dash around the centre and we were set to open the doors at 10:00. Just after 10:00 the first customer appeared, compliments on the new centre flowed and myself and the centre staff grew with pride, the day had started well.

The centre stocks plenty of decent kit

By 11:00 all my fears had gone. The centre was buzzing!

One of the highlights of the day for me is when the previous owner, Peter Wright, who was also my mentor and very good friend arrived. I am not sure but I am sure I spotted a small tear in his eye as he absorbed the new centre and just how well it had turned out.

Kelvin was awesome and providing sales support as only Kelvin could do. Tony and Lee from Scuba Travel were fantastic a lending a hand advising on the holidays that could be offered through the centre. It was manic!

As the time slowly crept towards the 12:00 mark, the expected arrival time of Monty Halls the crowds gathered. Monty fever had started to break out (actually I think it was Ruben fever).

Russell Smithers, a fellow ex-soldier that I had met on the last DiveStyle Red Sea holiday popped his head round the corner just in time, I had forgotten all about the BBQ! With a brief exchange of words, grunts and pleas Russ grabbed the BBQ tools and fired up the 6 ft gas BBQ we had hired for the day, it was a man’s, man’s BBQ. With a quick flick, a spark the BBQ was lit and anything flying overhead would have been incinerated.

Like a bride to her wedding Monty was fashionably late. With the arrival of Monty the crowd became even more animated, then almost hysterical as Ruben leapt out of the car.

I showed Monty around the centre, then stopped for a chat. Within a few questions Monty new everything about me, in fact I felt quite violated at the amount of information that he had extracted out of me but at the same time reassured as he obviously new what he was doing.

Briefing a viewing over the time had come for Monty to open the new centre. The call was made and we all made our way outside for the official cutting of the ribbon.

Monty delivered a fantastic speech and reinforced just how important it was to support the local dive centre’s. After all most of us learned to scuba dive through our local dive centre and if you do not continue to support the centre then it will disappear as so many have and that will be a sad day in the sport of diving.

During the speech Monty only forgot my name once which was not too bad, considering I had miss typed his name on various dive forums.

The BBQ went without a hitch, apart from forgetting the vegetarian food, hooray for Tesco’s, the sun was out and the drinks flowed. In fact it went so well we had to do another shopping trip for another 40 burgers!

Monty kindly then held a book signing session after the BBQ and his new (not yet released at the time) book went down a storm.

As the day started to wind down so did we. When we finally closed the doors the last of the stress melted away. The day could not have gone better. We had over 200 people come along to support the opening of the new centre.

Was it down the Monty? Was it down to the fantastic BBQ? It was all of those things and more.

It went to show that local divers still want a dive centre to support their diving needs. No, in the most we cannot compete with the large online shops but we do offer far more than they ever could. We provide a home, a place that fellow divers can come an chew the fat. A place that is there to provide support, friendship and above all great service long after the diver has passed his course or bought his kit.

We have an onsite course director, compressor up to 300 bar and any diving gas mix you could want.

DiveStyle can take you from the start of your diving journey to as far as you want, we have the facilities and abilities to provide Open Water to Instructor to full trimix. An onsite classroom and fantastic break out area/kitchen make learning to dive a DiveStyle as easy and relaxed as you possibly could imagine.

So if you have not yet been to the new dive centre then come along, support your local dive centre and make use our great new facilities.
 

Check out the DiveStyle website here.

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