Lifesaving Services
A bizarre and certainly different 2020/2021 patrolling season saw 37,000 punters enjoy a dip at Woolamai and Smiths this summer whilst we had the red and yellow flags hoisted up.
Most importantly, each one of those 37,000 returned home safely from their day at our beaches, of this as a Surf Lifesaving Club we should be extremely proud.
I’d like to begin by saying a massive thank you to the hundreds of members who give up thousands of hours in the lead up and during the patrolling season either on the beach or in the background keeping the wheels turning!
Patrols:
We begun the season with a very different look to our usual patrol operations, COVIDsafe measures forced our bunkrooms closed, capped patrolling numbers and singular day rostering of patrol teams to ensure compliance.
By peak season restrictions had begun to ease, the bunkrooms were reopened and the cap on patrol numbers extended out and eventually lifted – patrols started to look a lot more normal. We even got to the stage where patrol functions begun once again!
A massive thank you to all our patrol leadership team, lead by Vice Club Captain (Patrol Operations) Annie Coleman for their massive efforts this season which saw their workload significantly increase to ensure they lead a high level lifesaving service and maintained COVIDsafe compliance with their patrols.
Key improvements in our lifesaving patrol space this season included:
Implementation of an application process for vacant PC/ VPC positions.
Introduction of the end of patrol report form for patrol leadership to provide key information from their weekend on patrol including rescue / incident information, equipment issues, surf conditions and stand out patrolling members to better share information throughout the lifesaving services team.
Lifesaving Equipment:
Our lifesaving equipment team, lead by Vice Club Captain (Lifesaving Equipment) Campbell Smart did a terrific job given the challenges of COVID to ensure our equipment was in the best nick leading up to and throughout the season, navigating clubhouse access restrictions, supplier and maintenance services backlog.
Key Improvements in our Lifesaving Equipment space this season included:
Creation of online “Report a Lifesaving Equipment Maintenance issue” form, allowing all members to submit equipment fault reports digitally including photos which generated automated email notifications to the LSS team and automatically updated the “lifesaving equipment management” spreadsheet.
Creation of aforementioned “lifesaving equipment management” spreadsheet which includes an asset register of all lifesaving equipment owned by the club, its current condition and forecasted life expectancy. This document also tracks current and completed lifesaving equipment maintenance issues.
Creation of “tag out” system, allowing members to attach out of order tags to faulty lifesaving equipment.
A massive thanks to all the lifesaving equipment team.
Emergency Incident Response:
This season our highly skilled emergency response team members were tasked by the rescue command centre (Vic Police) to participate in three separate incidents (callouts) which included a missing fisherman at punchbowl, a missing kite surfer off kilcunda, and a missing swimmer at Cowes. I am extremely proud of our response time, professionalism, and the capability shown by our club members at these incidents – with our members responding to the incidents and on the water via the RWC’s (jetski’s) or members onsite within half an hour of tasking outside of patrol hours. A massive thanks to all who have responded, in particular, I’d like to acknowledge the long term contribution in this space of Alan “Aquamole / Moleman” Hailes and Sean “Preds” Carney who have continually for a very long time dropped whatever they are doing to respond to these incidents on the RWC’s.
Matt Hall came on board this season as the Manager – Emergency Incident Response which saw some great improvements to our response processes including the implementation of a group SMS incident alert system for quicker and more efficient notification of incidents to the response team. Thanks Hally!
Patrol Leadership Development:
Lead by Jackson Sinclair (Manager – Patrol Leadership Development), along with Hannah Tzimokas (Director, Leadership Development) ran our second patrol & vice patrol captains pre-season workshop via zoom (keeping it covidsafe) which saw our leaders given a masterclass in all things patrol leadership both on and off the beach.
Thanks Jacko & Han!
See you on the beach!
Josh Cottier
Director of Lifesaving Services
Club Captain