Hey Luke! Since you asked my thoughts =P 1) I've found a classifieds section really helpful for buying dive related gear and selling it. 2) Another section that is really useful, especially to newer divers is a resources section where people can compile the sites they like to use to read swell (and how to), dive techniques, freedive certs, safety blogs, common tips for spearfishing noobs, etc. Just nice to have it all in one place for newer divers. It took me over a year to learn the ropes for myself though heaps of google searches, forum snooping and satellite maps, and I'm still learning in some areas. Live cameras (particularly the ones at the aquarium and the 2 at pebble) make checking the current conditions really nice. I can predict a lot of areas diveability just by looking at some live cams.
3) This is more of a personal interest, but I love DIY stuff from dive boards to gun mods to painting white squid outlines on your gloves and cool ocean/shell related gift ideas for Christmas. Even things like "how to restring your gun and shaft" or what type of crimps to use... etc. Fun, helpful and weird stuff! There are other things that I personally enjoy, but I'd like to spend some time getting to know the MBT way of life before putting it all out there! I'm hoping to be a voice and a help to the club, not an instigator of conflict =)
Good ideas Eric.
A classifieds section is on my to-do list. Just want to discuss with the other board members first on if we want to put any specific rules in place, and if we want to have it be members-only or outward facing as well.
The dive resources section is something we had rather scattered around the old forum, and we'll work on getting a one-stop thread set up for all of that here on the new one.
I'll create a DIY-specific thread in the general member forum. That is something that lots of us enjoy, and it's super useful to see what others have come up with.
Thanks for the contributions!