President

2023-24 was a mixed and challenging season for the Club

 Our Club patrols Woolamai Beach and Smiths Beach throughout the summer and at these beaches we achieved our primary aim of keeping beachgoers safe.

However we were called upon to respond to incidents at remote unpatrolled beaches including Forrest Caves and Kilcunda and unfortunately these incidents resulted in multiple drownings.

In January 6 lives were lost at Forrest Caves, Kilcunda and Surf Beach. There were also some near misses at other unpatrolled beaches. 

Whilst our heartfelt sympathy goes out to the families and friends of those whose lives were lost, these incidents had a profound effect on our Club members and other first responders and the local community.

One of the things that got those of us involved in these incidents was the support provided by other Club members and Life Saving Victoria.  Annie Coleman and Fi Blackmore led much of this from our Club perspective, while people like Ella Arnold, Nick Giblin, Emma Atkins from Life Saving Victoria were outstanding and Lisa Hind from LSV Comms provided great support.

Following these incidents, we appreciated the messages of support from members of our local community and its leaders.  Jordan Crugnale MP, our local member, Catherine Basterfield CEO of Phillip Island Nature Parks reached out to us immediately.  Councillor Clare le Serve and Jordan visited the Club and joined us for a BBQ to reflect on the incidents, reconnect and thank those involved.  Life Saving Victoria covered the cost.  These things all meant a lot to us.  Thank you.

The Club has been working with local authorities and Life Saving Victoria to improve beach safety messaging on the Island, particularly for visitors to the Island.  Signs at beaches are being upgraded by Phillip Island Nature Parks. and it was great to see the Bass Coast Shire introduce beach safety messages on electronic road signs towards the end of summer.  We hope to see more of this next summer.

Life Saving Victoria has a big challenge to continue its important work in the community education space as unfortunately there are communities who are over-represented in drownings in Victoria.

From these incidents, I have never been prouder of our members.  Seeing them doing everything they were trained to do and then seeing how other members provided support when it was most needed was incredible.

This season threw some other challenges our way.  

In the lead up to the season we saw some unplanned changes to our Board - but others stepped up and took on new roles or extra responsibilities.

This season was our longest one yet -we fielded patrols for nearly 6 months.  For a volunteer organisation this is a huge ask and we are so grateful to those members who kept coming back throughout March and April even though, work, study, sport and other commitments made it harder for them to do so.  We really appreciated every hour given to help keep our beaches safe.

Throughout the season we also sadly lost some much loved members of the Club and the Club community who will be greatly missed.

Over 200 of our members helped keep our beaches safe.

Despite the challenges, overall it has been another very successful season for our Club.

We kept everyone safe at Woolamai Beach and Smiths Beach and this was no easy feat given some of the conditions and the fact that over 25,000 visits to our beaches were recorded.

Over 200 members patrolled and over 20 of them achieved over 100 voluntary patrol hours.

The fact that every visitor to our two patrolled beaches went home safely means that we have had a successful season.

Our special events broke all records.

This season our special events moved up to the next level thanks to the amazing work of our crack events team led by Ron Nicholson, Mick Sullivan, Max Eldridge, Melina van Weerd Arceo and Graeme Burgan. A big congratulations to Graeme for reaching 30 years of service to the Channel Challenge.

We were thrilled with the community's support of our Club's programs and events.

This year we saw a record field of 750+ competitors in the Channel Challenge and the Cowes Classic swim/run also broke all records. 

For the first time ever that we saw three competitors dressed as bananas complete the Channel Challenge -we also saw the best ever Channel Challenge tee shirts too.

Our Nippers program went from strength to strength.

Nearly 400 children participated in the summer program at Cleeland Bight and Smiths Beach.

This is where many of the life savers of the future get their start. 

Led by Tanya Pinnock and then Jules Hay we had another great season.  Running Nippers takes a lot of effort and planning and Jules did an outstanding job in her first year in the role.

A real highlight this year was seeing the increased role played by our junior age managers or JAMS who took the reins in running many of the group activities.  A huge thanks to Sophia Hungerford for her incredible work in training and leading the JAMs.

We delivered some outstanding training programs.

The Club ran 4 successful Bronze Medallion Courses with 86 candidates obtaining their awards.

The Club ran two Surf Rescue Certificate courses including one with students from Bass Coast College.

 We also ran three Inflatable Rescue Boat crew/drivers courses with 44 life savers gaining qualifications to drive or crew rescue craft. Numerous other courses relating to first aid, resuscitation and other aspects of life saving were also delivered.

Campbell Smart took over this portfolio from Terry Aslanidis during the season and our amazing trainers did a fantastic job training new members and skilling up our existing members.

Throughout the season we ran several special patrol weekends to raise awareness of important issues in our society.

The Blue Zinc Patrol raised awareness of Mens Mental Health.  Pink Zinc celebrates and recognises the contributions of our female members.  Rainbow Zinc is an all inclusive patrol which provides a safe and welcoming space for all members and shows our Club’s support of the LGBTQUIA+ community. Each patrol included some fun social events.

This season we celebrated the 50 year anniversary of the Club's first and only Australian title win.

In 1974 the Club won the Surf Life Saving Australia surf boat race in Glenelg South Australia.  Over 150 guests visited the Club in January for our annual Paella Night and to acknowledge the 5 crew of the surf boat Trevor Clauscen, Ron Hay, Stewart Bell, John Sill and Ron Barber who were in attendance. We heard some great stories from the crew.

We had a ship named after us.

During the year the Club was honoured with the Royal Australian Navy naming a defence vessel the ADV Cape Woolamai.  The ship was launched off Darwin late last year and is busy keeping Australian waters and borders safe.  Our Club received numerous mentions during the official ceremony as the ship’s motto is ‘Intrepid’ which describes our Club, our beach and our members to a tee.

We continued to look after the Clubhouse and its surrounds.

With funds raised by the Club and with the assistance of Phillip Island Nature Parks and the Commonwealth Government's Building Better Regions Fund we have managed to stabilise and the dunes around the Clubhouse, build a retaining wall and commence revegetation of the dunes.  We have fixed the all abilities access ramp and improved the pathway to the beach.  The retaining wall won’t stop all of the sand and it will need regular clearing, but it will prevent the Clubhouse from being totally inundated and once the vegetation in the dunes takes hold they will stabilise further.

The Bendigo Bank, San Remo Community Bank has also been a great supporter of the Club and a grant from them has allowed us to build a concrete pathway connecting the car park to the Clubhouse, the all abilities access ramp and the public toilets and improve the entrance to the Clubhouse. We will soon have a new entrance sign/information board near the doorway to the Clubhouse.

We have repaired and virtually re-roofed the Clubhouse and there have been lots of internal improvements in the building.

Thank you to the many local businesses and organisations and families who supported us.

I would also like to thank the many local businesses and organisations who have supported the Club through sponsorships or prizes for our events. 

At Presentation Night we acknowledged the excellent support provided to the Club by Shoreline Pest Control.

The Cowes Mens Shed and Bowens Hardware supported the upgrade of our honour boards this year.  We also received a generous donation from the Phillip Island Patchworkers.

Many local businesses donated prizes to this year’s Nippers raffle and of course we have received amazing support from local businesses who have sponsored the Channel Challenge and other events.

Please support the businesses who support us.

We also greatly appreciate the generosity of the family and friends of Cooper Reid who sadly passed away earlier this year and directed donations to the Club following his passing.

We are raising funds for urgent repairs to Smiths Beach Rescue Base

A key focus for the next year will be raising funds to carry out urgent repairs to the Smiths Beach Rescue Base where the structure and public staircase have experienced severe corrosion.

Without these repairs we will not be able to operate the rescue base or allow public access to the staircase in coming seasons.

We are applying for grants and seeking assistance from local and state authorities we are also seeking donations from the public and any Club members who wish to donate. To learn more click HERE, and to donate click HERE

The Block paid us a visit

One of the highlights in this extremely unusual season was our visit from the Block.

During the first week of the April school holidays, our Club became a Channel 9 film studio as over 50 production crew, contestants, cast, caterers and Logie award winning personalities converged on the Clubhouse.

The Block has been filming for several months in Cowes but chose our Club for their community challenge which involved doing a special challenge at our Clubhouse.

About 20 of our members will now be celebrities as we took part in beach games, IRB and jetski demonstrations and rescues and were part of the ‘big reveal’ once works on the Clubhouse were completed.

We had a few nervous moments with contestants taking part in IRB demonstrations in pretty tricky conditions.  Fortunately we did not need to activate any of the waivers put in place between Channel 9 and the Club and Life Saving Victoria.

The Block has done some amazing things at Woolamai Beach.  The show will air in the second half of 2024 and we are looking forward to seeing the results.

The Block has given us a great gift, so please look after it.

We completed the Woolamai Beach SLSC Environs Management Plan

Victorian Senator Jess Welsh and a number of other special guests visited the Club on the June long weekend to help us celebrate the official completion of the Woolamai Beach SLSC Environs Management Plan.  This comprised dune stabilisation, revegetation, construction of a retaining wall, a concrete path and ramp repairs.  This was very generously funded by the Commonwealth Government’s Building Better Regions Fund as well as with funds from our Club and Phillip Island Nature Parks.

We celebrated the achievements of our 100+ hour patrol members.

On the June long weekend we held the inaugural Bass 100+ Celebration at Cape Paterson Surf Life Saving Club.  Along with their friends and families, we celebrated the achievements of the 60 members of 6 Clubs who patrolled over 100 hours this season.  It was a great night with live music by the band ‘Hot Tub’ and yummy food from Bigger than Texas BBQ catering.  A great example of what can be achieved when Clubs work together.

Thanks everyone.

I would like to express my gratitude to all members of the Club Board -Fi Blackmore, Annie Coleman, Campbell Smart, Christian Born, Ryan Box, Jules Hay and Dave Ellison as well as former Board members Tanya Pinnock and Terry Aslanidis.  You’ve all worked extremely hard over what has been a very long season.

I would like to thank everyone else who has made a contribution to the Club this season whether it has been patrolling on the beach, training others, doing admin work, applying for grants, looking after equipment, running special events and programs, looking after the wellbeing of our members.

While we ask a lot of our members, I’d like to throw down a challenge for next season. Do just one more thing to help our Club. Come to a working bee, come to a planting day.  Join a committee. Ask your parents to get involved.  We would love to see them step up.  We have a lot of young members who are busy patrolling the beach but things need doing off the beach.  You don’t have to be a life saver to do some of these things.

Thanks to my two patrols the Gerries and the Smithsonians.  Sometimes its great to get out of President mode and just enjoy time with you all on the beach.

Finally I would like to thank my wife Susan and daughters Erin and Ava for their support throughout the past year. 

Jason Close

President