Special Events

This recent summer, during which we eventually managed to get all events away and completed our first full Bass Coast Series for several years, contained some of the more dramatic twist and turns that have bedevilled us for the past six seasons. With Covid lockdowns behind us it seemed that there was a real appetite amongst our regular group of competitors to get back to competing in the Bass Coast Series of events as well the Little Penguin Dash for youngsters at Cowes. Our communications manager, Ryan Box, aided by Erin Close, had been extolling the virtues of our events to past and prospective competitors on several platforms, including our large data base of previous participants, and the early registrations were very encouraging.

After a Covid induced break of two years, it was terrific to see the Cape Paterson Aquathon up and running again with a healthy number of competitors lining up at the start on Sun 22nd Jan – 173 in total for the individual and relay categories - and hopefully we can get this event to reach the 200 mark next season.

Then everything was looking very promising for our scheduled Channel Challenge event on Sat 4th Feb with over 600 entries in the system on the morning prior to the event and a certain new record of 635+ about to be set. We were even thinking that it might be possible to achieve that magical mark of 700 competitors which has been discussed for years and now seemed very much in reach. However, the Weather Gods again decided to intervene in what is our major event of the summer and with rising winds and a bleak forecast predicting gale force winds for the day of the event a hastily convened meeting of all stakeholders was held on the San Remo foreshore on Friday the 3rd Feb, when the difficult decision to call off the next day’s scheduled event was made and then proven correct with a very choppy Channel there for everyone to see on the Sat morning. Unfortunately, we did not have the resources available to reschedule for Sunday the 5th Feb when conditions were suitable and that is something the club needs to look at for future events.

With an immediate announcement needing to be sent out to all 600+ registered competitors to save many the cost and time involved with a trip from all over Victoria for the event we had to make some quick decisions. Our first announcement informed everyone of the event’s cancellation, but we also announced that there was a suitable date in early December for the 2023 event to be held with the 2024 event still to be scheduled for February – in effect we were proposing two Channel Challenge’s be held in the one season. The aim of this was to ask all those who had registered to have their entries rolled over for the postponed event while we also opened up the race centre on Sat 4th for anyone wanting to come in and claim a refund in person or claim a refund online. It was sad to sit in the race centre and meet people who had travelled from as far away as Qld to tick off the Channel Challenge from their bucket list. We even had an English couple come in who had flown down from Qld where they were staying with friends and had seen the online promotion for the San Remo Channel Challenge. Their interest was aroused because they also happened to live in a block of flats known as the ‘San Remo Apartments’ back home in the UK. There was originally a lot of confusion about postponing the event to a date as far off as December and so we had another look at the tide charts for the summer and saw that it would be possible, with some quick work and co-operation from all the relevant authorities, to try and reschedule Channel Challenge 37 for Sat 11th March, which would be made more difficult by the fact that it would take place on the Labour Day long weekend.

However, it was amazing to see the Community Spirit that galvanised everyone into action and there wasn’t a person or group involved that didn’t get behind us and support the push to reschedule the event and keep it in the proper season while also ensuring that the Bass Coast Series prizes would be scored and distributed in the current season and that was greatly appreciated by most competitors. Of course, we had many people who had already made other plans and bookings for that holiday weekend, and it was never going to be possible to have the original number of registered competitors able to attend on the new date, but the fact that we saw a total of 520 individuals compete in either the solo or relay categories was a testament to the popularity of our iconic event. It was also a credit to everyone at the club who helped make it happen as well as the widespread members of the Bass Coast Community who assisted where needed. It was great to see the Special Events Management Team of Sully, Max, Melina and GB rewarded with a plaque from local MLA, Jordan Crugnale, at the recent Presentation Night. Special mention also to Ryan, Erin, Christian, AJ, Scott & Rusty who are also part of the team while the number of Gerries who helped out in the Race Centre made it all possible. Thommo and Ronnie Stephens moved shoes all day while the Pres was always there helping in many ways.

Before we held the rescheduled Channel Challenge, we saw a successful day at Cowes take place with the Little Penguin Dash again beating previous numbers and approximately 100 youngsters participated while the Cowes Classic saw another large turnout with 273 individuals competing in the solo and relay categories on a very pleasant day. We have a great affiliation and working relationship with the crew from the Phillip Island Netball & Football Club, and we are sure that will continue, and we thank Susan Fawaz for her assistance with the LPD.

Overall, it was another great summer of events, albeit with a bit of extra hard work needed with refunds etc tied up with the rescheduling of the Channel Challenge, and the club should be pleased with the results – both financial and in terms of community goodwill.

Another challenge arose when a newly scheduled event – the Bass Coast Swim, Bike, Run event was contracted to a NSW organization to manage but handballed to us, without consultation, to provide water safety at the Cowes Swim only a week after we had held the rescheduled Channel Challenge. It wasn’t easy to get personnel to attend but thanks to Brendan, Terry and Campbell we were able to help them out as they had a very amenable CEO. However, we will be sitting down with the relevant people from Destination Phillip Island & the Bass Coast Shire to discuss this soon before committing to our availability next season.

We already have a perfect date for next year’s Channel Challenge locked away with it being scheduled for Sat February 10th – an ideal date.

The Cowes Classic will be scheduled once we have some news from the Grand Prix Corporation regarding the date of next year’s World Super Bikes’ race, but it will almost certainly be on either the 24th Feb or the 3rd March.

Challenges for next season have already emerged and they include scheduled works for the water pipes under the San Remo Bridge and the fact that the Bass Coast Swim, Bike, Run weekend has again been contracted for March and we know that they are expecting the WBSLSC to help out again. We also have to deal with the fact that our technology partner, Register Now, has been bought out by the Asics Company and we will have to train up for the move to their platform, Race Roster, before we have our events set up and ready to take online entries.   

The club also needs to start some succession planning for the management of our events as there are still a large number of Gerries involved with both running the event and helping out on race day. We need an internal discussion to review how the management of the events is to be structured into the future. For the moment we are okay as our current team are all looking forward to next year’s events, especially with such a good date available for Channel Challenge 38, and the prospect that with the surge of new competitors that had signed up for the 2023 event we can definitely aim to set a new record for participating competitors.

Ron Nicholson & the WBSLSC Events Team.