College Skydiving clubs

[ColdDuck 0]

A friend and I recently started a club at our university. What do you think our chances are of getting our school
to buy us gear.
Any useful ideas would be great!

[indyz 1]

Here at U of I, we are recognized as a legitimate student organization, but beyond that they won't touch us. "Too dangerous." We have had less injuries in the entire history of the club than most of the other sports related clubs have in a year, but hey. We do get discounts at the DZ, mostly I think because we bring in tons of tandems during the year.
One of our grad student members went to MIT as an undergrad and they had school sponsored equipment. I guess it all depends on where you go.
--
Brian
Homepage

[pilotdave 0]

Totally depends on the school and their funding policies, but the short answer, at least for the near future, is no. University clubs that own gear (such as georgia tech, which owns 7 rigs i think) are well established clubs. At my school, and probably most schools, the amount of funding a club can get increases with time, beginning with no funding the first year. I happen to be the president of a collegiate skydiving club which is about 4 years old now. We were able to get funding for van rentals and advertising (in the school paper) for the upcoming semester. We asked for the university to pay for part of each student jump to cut the price down a bit, but that didnt get approved. We wouldn't even think about asking for gear (and dont forget rigging to go with it). So, my best advice for you is to just get established. My school has very set, strict procedures for getting money from the SGA (student government). Find out what you have to do, and start off small. Unless your school works very different from mine, you'll have graduated long before they'll spend enough money on your club to purchase and maintain gear. See ya,
Dave

[SkydiveMonkey 0]

I'm on the commitee of a Uni club, and we have to use all the DZ's gear. We did have a few altis etc a while ago but they all "disappeared" [sad] If you want equipment, especially rigs, you'll have to raise the money yourself.
Support the cause - do a skydive(r)

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[TheMarshMan1 0]

Yeah, I would say it all depends on the student government. The one I belonged to did really well. SGA gave us our fair share of money (for gear). Between that and semesterly dues, we owned and maintained 3 complete rigs, and I hear they just put together another one for this semester (I dont go there anymore). Also, they were in good with the people at the DZ because it was a pretty long established club, so we got discounted jumps, and an excellent discount at the gear store. Maybe it would help to make up a nice presentation (on powerpoint or something) and present it to the Student Govt. to show them what the sport is all about. Include a little bit of everything...equipment, safety, training, disciplines, etc. Good luck...
-Marshall

[AggieDave 6]

The Texas A&M Skydiving Club has some of it's own gear and has great support from the University. Even the department that is in charge of Risk Management for student organizations LOVE us. But then again, we are the oldest university skydiving club in the nation. (We started back in the very early 60's or late 50's if I remember correctly. Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.-General George Patton-

[FallingILweenie 0]

Like Brian said, the Illinois club is handcuffed by the fact that the administration says it's too dangerous to give us money for anything. In the past we have considered buying gear on our own (like helmets, jumpsuits, and altimeters) but there is a liability issue that we didn't want to deal with. Instead, it has worked out great for the club to associate itself with a dz, and have them take care of everything relating to the actual skydive, and the club just gets discounts for its students and the occasional free jump for the officers.
blue skies
Tomas

[ojf1982 0]

The way our club would raise money is to sell food like hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, and sodas at the DZ since the nearest place to eat is 15 mins away. We would easily make $200 on a weekend. But that would go to members who helped out with the BBQs to pay for their student jumps. As far as I can see, SGA is not going to give us alot of money to buy a rig. But Skydive Miami gives us 25% off new equipment . Thats how I was able to buy my rig, saved me more than $1000.
Omar B-24801

[mountainman 0]

I tried to start a skydiving club at my college, but they said NO. It is a small private college with only 3000 students. They pretty much said NO and that was that. Oh well...there wouldn't be enough skydivers anyway. Only a bunch of tandems.
JumpinDuo.com...come and sign the guestbook.

[pilotdave 0]

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...there wouldn't be enough skydivers anyway. Only a bunch of tandems.

You've probably got that right. I'm at a school of over 30,000 students and our club has about 6 or 7 "regulars." When we really do a good job advertising a skydiving trip, we can get over 30 first timers to come along. About a fifth of them usually do AFF and the rest tandem, but almost nobody comes back for another jump and only a few have gone on to get their licenses.
Dave

[AggieDave 6]

There's a bit over 45,000 students at A&M and we have about 20 regulars with licenses. And a few die hard guys, like our ever so crazy CReW Dogz...
Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.-General George Patton-

[mountainman 0]

I hear yea PilotDave. There is me, another girl who wants to do the training and then another girl who is going to do AFF this spring. Other than that, everyone says they are going to/want to do it, but, of course, you don't see it happen.
It just isn't worth fighting the system to see the club die in less than a year after I graduate.
JumpinDuo.com...come and sign the guestbook.

[Vallerina 2]

Purdue doesn't like our club too much (they won't let us have demo jumps into our stadium, and they watch us like hawks.) But, other than that, as long as we're legal (which means going through our business office for all of our dealings) we're allowed to spend our money however we want. Our club eventually wants to purchase a rig, while still having fun with our money (raised from the 150 or so one-time jumpers) by going to the wind tunnel, collegiates and fun jumps. We're gonna try selling magazine subscriptions as a fundraiser, so we'll see how that goes...
"You laugh at me because I am different, and I just laugh at you."

[casey 0]

I started a Dive Club (skydiving and scuba diving) at my university last semester. I found that there was a lot of interest from the students. However, the school was not interested in funding us at all (but they did let me use their facilities). But, I did get massive discounts on a heap of tandems. Eventually, the school gave us the axe because such "potentially dangerous activities were not covered" by their insurance policy. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. I still got together group trips though, who needs the university anyway... We still had a blast (and still got group discounts) ;)