REPORT OF THE DEO
District Council Meeting of
3 October 2009
On Friday, 11 September 2009 in Kansas City the DEO's met in a five hour session with the National and Assistant National Education Officers. Highlights of the meeting follow.
Squadrons are the "delivery system" of USPS education and are encouraged to be pro-active in presenting the ABC 3rd Edition course to the general public. An errata sheet for ABC will be printed in January 2010. Coastal Explorer will replace MapTech when the course is reprinted in early 2010. The number of public boating course registrations for the Education year ending June 30, 2009 is down from the previous year. We are all urged to increase the number this year. For those teaching ABC it was noted that the most frequently missed questions on the NASBLA examination were from Chapter 2 relating to the Exclusion regulatory marker and the Alpha flag on a vessel restricted in its ability to maneuver because of involvement in diving activity.
There was discussion of the Seminar series growing out of USPS University. Districts and Squadrons are being encouraged to develop a "store front" approach to offering courses and seminars. The "store front" concept simply means that courses and seminars are to be offered on a regular basis at a regular site. Two Squadrons in District 14 are using this concept. The Buzzards Bay squadron offers Seminars at a MBL center in Woods Hole on the same day and time of the month for a series of 6 to 8 different seminars. Taunton River and Mattapoisett are doing a similar thing at Bristol Community College in Fall River for a period from October through next June. In offering seminars it is important to appeal to the recreational boater who may not have time for longer courses but can be attracted to a specific learning experience that the 2-hour seminar offers. USPS now has 18 seminars available with several more in the works. All Seminars are on the National Education website.
The PRO-LOG website from National has extensive resources for publicity and public relations relating to courses and seminars. There are a number of attractive downloadable products to help Squadrons get the word out. Please use them to assist in reaching the recreational boating public.
Districts were encouraged to serve to help Squadrons manage their education programs. Some ideas as to how this might be done include encouraging Squadrons to work together in planning and conducting Courses and Seminars; in developing a roster of squadron members expert in teaching specific seminars so that Squadrons without such talent could borrow an instructor for a specific event; help with publicity in regional media; order and stock course materials and seminars for use by Squadrons or combinations of Squadrons; work with the Marine Trades and Retail outlets to encourage seminars at their locations. I urge all SEO's to contact me with ideas as to how the District could better serve them in the delivery of USPS education.
The Cooperative Advertising program will undergo significant changes in 2010. Instead of Districts getting an allocation based on the number of members in the District. The focus will shift to reward Squadrons based on the amount of sales they generate for education materials. The current thinking is that this will be 10% of the net purchase for the previous year. More information on this will be forthcoming.
The NEO and ANEO are asking that instructors be on the lookout for errors or lack of clarity in any of the USPS course material and report it to the relevant National course committee. Your DEO or ADEO will be happy to transmit any such suggestions to National
for you. If you transmit directly keep us in the loop with a copy of your transmission.
It is requested that all Squadrons participate by donating $1.00 per member on an annual basis to the Education Fund. Charlie Perkins is our point person for the Fund. It is the Education Fund, which has underwritten the cost of all our recent course revisions and seminar development.
The new emphasis of USPS education is to make it more "hands on" and get it on the water. With our new liability insurance program in place we are covered for on water training. In the on water experience the focus of instruction shifts from "teacher" to "coach". The USPS Instructor Development course is currently being rewritten to complement this concept.
Some course specific observations were made:
The Advanced Boat Handling seminar needs to be tailored to local waters and combine classroom and on water portions.
Marine Electrical - The new Marine Electrical Systems course is now available. The Marine Communications Systems course is in beta testing. The Marine Navigation Systems is still in planning. When all three of these are available it will require completion of two of the three to earn the ME completion. As of now the old ME 101, 102 and 103 will remain in place until all three of the new courses are complete and on the shelf.
Engine Maintenance 2007 is in place and available.
The Marine Environment Committee has produced an excellent new Weather course and Seminar. Use of the course has been down because of difficulty getting instructors at the Squadron level.
The Committee is seeking local input into how the Cruise Planning Course might be revised. Anyone with ideas is invited to contact Ron Kessel or Joan Croft of the Cape Cod Squadron.
Piloting and Advanced Piloting report that the quality of plotting skills has been poor. There is a need to improve plotting skills in both of these courses. P and AP are good courses for "on the water" training.
The new JN course has been very popular and has achieved good results. It is expected that the new N course will show similar results.
It looks like there might be a vote at the Annual Meeting in February of 2010 to lift the restriction of teaching our Advanced Grades and Electives to USPS members only and open them to the boating public. It is felt that if recreational
boaters take our courses there is a good likelihood they will join the Squadron.
There was substantial discussion of the Boat Operator Certification program. Everything is in place for the Inland Certification. There are currently 102 Advanced Certifiers in 10 Districts. District 14 needs to move to develop at least one Advanced Certifier in each Squadron. There will be a morning Seminar on Boat Operator Certification at our District Fall Conference in Hyannis.
V/C Bob Sweet, SN will present an overview of the nuts and bolts of the program and its value to the individual boater. We will also have some hands on fire extinguisher training from the Hyannis Fire Dept. (Fire extinguisher use is one of the requirements for the Inland Certification as is Using VHF/DSC Marine Radio Seminar which will be offered at a reduced fee at the District Conference.)
What we need to do now is begin planning for the on-water powerboat-handling portion of the Certification process.
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