President

WBSLSC President - Mark Bain, Photo by Katelyn Watson

The year just passed would clearly qualify as one of the most unusual and challenging of any the club has experienced. As always, the “Wooli Family” came together and managed to deliver an outstanding Life Saving Service in a year dominated by the Global Pandemic.

Our preparation for the season commenced earlier than usual and involved a far greater effort to ensure we obtained our COVID Safe Approval from LSV. A very special thanks to those members who put their hand up to help with the COVID Safe committee. They spent many nights and weekends in meetings, preparing our COVID Safe plan, organizing the clubhouse for operations, assisting patrols and nippers to be COVID ready, and ensuring our compliance was maintained for the entire season. 

Due to Covid, our Lifeguards and Lifesavers patrolled from early Dec through until mid-April. Our patrols were well prepared, managed, and well represented with solid numbers of patrolling members. Congratulations and thanks to everyone who wore the red and yellow during the season and special mention to the patrol captains, vice-captains, and senior patrol leaders who organized a high quality and professional service. During the season we received an unusually high number of thank-you messages and compliments from members of the public for our service, professionalism, and response in emergency situations including a mass rescue at Woolamai. I am proud to announce that for the first time since the Smith Beach Tower was completed, every rostered patrol for Smiths Beach was fully serviced. This highlights the continued growth and depth of our life savings services team.  

Our grant seeking team has been as busy as ever and late last year we were awarded $251,000 as part of the Emergency Services Rebuilding Fund. This fund is being spent on a wide variety of activities and continues the uplift and maintenance of the club that commenced two years ago with Pick My Project. Special thanks to Darrell “Clarky” Clark who is spending an enormous amount of time leading the scheduling and delivery of this significant project that will result in a more modern clubhouse and renovated residence.  I would like to thank Life Saving Victoria who has provided us (at no cost) a Project Manager to assist Clarky with the execution of this project. 

Thankfully the club was able to run Nippers during the season, albeit with reduced numbers and COVID compliance restrictions. I would like to thank the nippers organizing committee for their amazing leadership and all those who volunteered their time to run a successful event. Last season there was a tremendous amount of innovation in nippers due to COVID and we appreciate all those who were supportive and understanding of the required changes. Many of the innovations from last season will be carried forward in future years.

As with many organizations across the world, COVID has had a dramatic impact on our financial position. However, through prudent financial management, amazing support from our key partners including Life Saving Victoria, Phillip Island Nature Parks, State, and Federal Governments, and donations from a wide variety of local and regional supporters we expect the club to make a small profit for the year. Special thanks to Rochelle Olarenshaw, our club administrator who is resigning after three years of dedicated service. The club will long remember and be thankful for her amazing work to manage and deliver the Pick My Project club renovation in 2019.

The board is looking forward to seeing the formation of the Development Fund sub-committee that will govern and manage the substantial sum of money we have preserved in recent years. This fund will support the club for the generations ahead and it is a reflection of the growth and maturity of the club that we are at a point it can be established.

Organizing and running training sessions in a COVID season proved to be extremely challenging. The variable nature of the virus and subsequently constantly changing rules and regulations meant planning and training sessions were difficult. To the entire training team and all those who volunteered their time to assist with running courses at the very last minute, thank you. Our ability to respond, plan and deliver our requalification program was a standout. An astonishing 20+ requalification sessions were planned and run over a 4-week period before the season. 

Our Life Saving Club is a large community of special people who make an enormous contribution to society in providing the wide variety of services we deliver. Thank you to everyone involved, Life Members, club members, social members, families, nippers, and of course our active lifesavers.

Jeremy Goodger, Hannah Tzimokas, and Riley Fyffe are stepping down from the board this year. On behalf of the club, I would like to thank them for their dedication, commitment, and service in ensuring their respective portfolios were well managed and contributed to the overall success of the club. 

Finally, thank you to the executive team who have worked incredibly hard across the year to respond to the challenges and move the club forward; Max Eldridge, Stafford Smith, Josh Cottier, Brendan Smart, Hannah Tzimokas, Jeremy Goodger, Darrell Clarke, Riley Fyffe Charles Tuchtan and Adrian Koller.

 Looking forward to seeing you at Wooli in 2021/2022

Mark Bain

President | Woolamai Beach Surf Life Saving Club