Wow! What a week!

Sorry, I haven’t been around much this week. My post on Monday got a ton of traffic and I appreciate the private messages, e-mails and phone calls. Every so often you write something that strikes a nerve and you learn to just ride that wave of traffic. I also enjoyed the break. It gave me an opportunity to do some additional reading, planning, and finish some projects that have been sitting on the back burner – but needed to get done.

As a result, I’m feeling pretty refreshed and eager to get going on some new projects that fell into my lap during the week. It’s amazing to me how you finish something up; something else opens up to fill that space. We’ll be writing more about them as the week’s progress.

I wanted to do a quick post today about a new program that I’m pretty excited about. I have a relative who’s disabled and this type of thing always peaks my interest because of it. Being disabled doesn’t mean you can’t experience life. Yes, it can make things a little more difficult, but as I’ve seen time and time again, it’s all about how you perceive things that can make a disability an obstacle or advantage.

It’s nice to see this type of program in our industry. While it’s not a niche that I’m actively involved with, I do know a number of people are. I did a search on it last night and only found one other link to it, so I thought I’d promote it, so all of you know about it in case it comes up in your dealings with clients.

Oh, and yes, that’s a real cat! (In other words, it’s not some Photoshopped prank.)

~ Guests of Beaches Turks & Caicos can now become Handicap Scuba Association (HSA) certified at the property ~

Beaches Turks & Caicos Resort Villages & Spa has expanded resort programming for persons with disabilities and now offers a tailored disabled scuba diving program. A team of twelve dive instructors from the resort, under the guidance of Mark Rausch of Poseidon Handicap Scuba Adventures, underwent an intensive training course that will allow guests to participate in three specialized programs. Through the Handicap Scuba Association (HSA), guests can become certified in the HSA Basic Open Water Scuba Diving, the HSA Junior Open Water Scuba Diving and the HSA Open Water Dive Buddy. The resort will continue to offer the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) certification in addition to the Handicap Scuba Association certification.

Michael Clark, Beaches Resorts Water Sports Manager, stated, “Scuba diving is the sport where gravity is not an issue,” he further stated, “we are delighted to be able to offer our disabled guests the full value of our ’Luxury Included’ facility including equal water sports opportunity that caters to their special needs.”

Handicap Scuba Association is made up of over 4000 underwater educators, with disabilities and supporting members, located in over 45 countries. Beaches Turks & Caicos is the first in the Beaches Resorts chain, as well as the island of Turks & Caicos, to receive HSA certification training and marks an important milestone in disabled programming at the resort.

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How cool is that? (Thought you’d like it!)

Have an awesome weekend!

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