Woolamai Newsletter - February Edition
Telephone: 0467 475 263 Postal Address: PO Box 49, San Remo, VIC, 3925 Web: www.woolamaibeach.org.au Email: secretary@woolamaibeach.asn.au
In this Edition:
President’s Update
Board Update
Forrest Caves Incident 24/01/2024
Thank you from the Champion 1974 Surf Boat Crew
Presentation Night date announced 18/5/2024
Development Camp
IRB Crew Camp
Rainbow Zinc Patrol
Another Successful Channel Challenge
Cowes Classic and Little Penguin Dash
Callout for historic club items!
Wild About Wooli Holiday discount!
President’s Update - Jason Close
Its been a very mixed January and February for our Club so far with many highs and lows.
Drowning incidents at the unpatrolled beaches of Surf Beach, Kilcunda and Forrest Caves have been tragic events for the friends and family of the patients, our Club members, other emergency services and the wider community.
In each instance inexperienced swimmers got themselves in trouble at unpatrolled beaches and while our members did everything possible to assist, the remoteness of these locations led to devastating results.
I couldn’t be prouder of our members and lifeguards who responded to each situation. As Brian Whittaker said in a recent message “Although it will not dull their pain, the family members on the beach saw your efforts and will know that their loved ones were given every chance”
There was a near miss just over a week later with 3 swimmers pulled from the surf in varying states of consciousness at the unpatrolled Kilcunda beach. While 1 patient was airlifted and 2 were transported by ambulance to hospital, fortunately all survived.
Over the coming months our Club will continue to engage with local authorities, emergency services, Life Saving Victoria and local media to continue our efforts to improve beach safety, signage and public education.
During January we heard the sad news that two former members Rebecca Murphy and Cooper Reid passed away. Each spent important periods of their lives at the Club and held many fond memories of their time at Woolamai. Bec did her Bronze in 1990 and was a big part of the dominant IRB competition teams of the 1990’s. Cooper came through our Nippers program, did his Bronze several years ago before gaining other awards and becoming part of the training team. We extend our condolences to their families and friends.
On 10 February we saw a record field of 750 competitors compete in the Channel Challenge in perfect conditions. The A Team of event organising Ron, Mick, Max, Melina, and Graeme B are to be congratulated for their incredible work throughout the year, and were joined on the day by so many of our members who helped with set up, pack up registration, transition area, water safety, first aid, running the evening event and many other important tasks.
The atmosphere on the day was incredible and feedback from many was that it was the best yet.
It was touching to see so many of the Nicholson/Speakman family forming Team Jan in dedication to Jan Nicholson who passed away late last year.
It was also great to see many of our members take part in the race, some even going as far as dressing in banana suits and handing out bananas during the run.
Many of our members took part in the IRB Crew Camp during January. A huge thank you to Mark Bain, Nick Reynolds, Aquamole and their team of trainers for organising and running such an important course.
Pink Zinc Patrol will be happening this weekend and many of our members will be attending the Bass Coast Pink Zinc breakfast at Cape Paterson to celebrate the achievements of many of our female life savers.
Congratulations to Jules Hay who has now been appointed to the Club Board as our new Nippers Director. Jules and her committee have already started planning Nippers 2024-25.
There is still a lot of summer left, we have the Cowes Classic, Trivia Night and some great patrol social events coming up.
With many of our members now back at school, this is the time of the season where our patrol numbers sometimes drop so if you are free and want to spend some more time on the beach, this is the time to do it.
The Power of the Whistle
One of the most important tools for a life saver is their whistle.
When you are standing at the waters edge near the flags trying to get the attention of swimmers, pointing or waving your arms around is often not enough to attract the attention of swimmers.
This is especially the case if the swimmers are not looking back at the beach.
A short sharp blast of the whistle is the best way to attract attention when you need to direct someone back between the flags.
Continuing to blow your whistle will also give someone the hint if they don’t hear you the first time. Nobody likes being continually whistled at so they will usually move back between the flags.
While many of us remember to bring our uniforms, wetsuits and fins to patrol, many forget their whistle.
For hygiene reasons the Club does not supply whistles. Its therefore very important that you bring your own.
They are the cheapest piece of life saving equipment you will ever own and can be easily tied to your patrol uniform so you don’t lose it.
Happy whistling!
See you down the beach soon.
Regards
Jason Close - President@woolamaibeach.asn.au
President
Decisions
The Board made the following decisions:
Jules Hay was appointed to the Board as the Club’s new Director Junior Development (Nippers)
General Business
A meeting will be organised for the Life Saving Services team, reiterating communication avenues and recent incidents debrief. But also to highlight the great effort being demonstrated by the team.
A post incident update was given on incidents at Forrest Caves/Surf Beach/Kilcunda was given. Member welfare follow ups are in progress.
A thank you event will be organised for members of WBSLSC/LSV/emergency services. It will be a general thank you BBQ for all members & family, with open invite to the local emergency service personnel.
Bass Coast series update provided.
Terry Aslanidis has officially resigned as Director of Member Development.
There will be two further IRB camps this season which are currently being organised.
The Club will also assist with a SRC camp for Bass Coast College, San Remo.
Discussions are being held with Newhaven College about the potential for a Bronze camp.
The Board will develop a list of grant priorities, which our new grants team of Rachel Vanketwich and Aaron Grace will assist with.
The Club has lodged an application with Bass Coast Shire for ‘prescribed accommodation’ to enable the clubhouse to be used for school camps.
The passing of former members Bec Murphy and Cooper Reid was acknowledged and Club members have reached out to family and friends to assist.
Presentation Night has been booked for 18 May 2024 at Silverwater Resort. An organising committee will be discussed at a patrol leadership team meeting. We will need someone to organise the awards. Special guests will be invited..
Director Update
See below updates from the board:
President - Jason Close
The Club has held two successful planting days where dunes surrounding the Clubhouse have been revegetated. More proposed as we near the end of summer.
We are currently in the process of obtaining approval for the Clubhouse to be able to be used for ‘prescribed accommodation’. The Club has received independent advice that this is not required for the Club’s accommodation provided in relation to life saving activities, however an application has been submitted to permit the facility to be used for non-life saving school camps.
Troy Hungerford has carried out an electrical audit and has recommended a number of works to be carried out to improve exit and emergency lighting and switchboard safety. Quotes are being sought.
A building inspection has been carried out by Bass Coast Shire and the Club will be required to carry out a number of improvements to achieve compliance with building regulations.
Myself and Campbell Smart have met with Council and Phillip Island Nature Parks to discuss emergency management issues and beach signage following the Forrest Caves incident. The Club is also speaking with Victoria Police about roving patrols to unpatrolled beaches. I have spoken to Jordan Crugnale MP our local member and have updated her on recent incidents.
The Paella Night and celebration of the 1974 Australian Title winning Surf Boat Crew was a huge success and we received great feedback from many attendees. The on the night raffle also raised $350 for the Club.
A big thanks to Megan Crow for her great work re-stocking the bar throughout summer.
I ampeaking with various LSV representatives about a thank you event to acknowledge the work of our lifeguards, members and other emergency services involved in recent incidents.
Meetings have been held with Life Saving Victoria, Phillip Island Nature Parks and Bass Coast Shire to try to generate funds to do urgent repairs to the Smiths Beach Rescue Base and stiars.
Rachel Vanketwich and Aaron Grace have joined our grants team and will be providing the Club with assistance in obtaining grants as Brendan Smart prepared to depart for work overseas. We are rapt to have access to Rachel and Aaron’s expertise and vast experience in this area.
Presentation Night booked for Sat 18 May
Club Captain - Campbell Smart
All Members,
I am touching base with the membership in relation to the incidents popping up in the media as of recent. These incidents are an unfortunate reminder of why we do what we do and why we train so hard. It’s a reminder of the serious nature of our operational patrols and why we should not underestimate the work we do. The service that Woolamai Beach SLSC puts on is phenomenal, and that’s a credit to its volunteers.
In times like these, it shows us the strength of family and friendship. Its shows us the importance of training and resilience. And it shows us what we are all about here at Woolamai, about prevention, education and preservation of life.
I implore you to keep you heads high, focus on the abundance of amazing things you, your peers and Woolamai family members are achieving, with the bond we have and share, we are unbreakable. Unite together, lets finish off the season well!
Thank you again for your time and devotion to this service, organisation, and cub, Keep up the good work
Forrest Caves incident 24 January 2024
Following the incident at Forrest Caves where 4 people tragically lost their lives while swimming at an unpatrolled beach, the Club released the following statement to the local media.
Statement from Woolamai Beach Surf Life Saving Club
Our heartfelt thoughts go out to the family and friends of those who tragically lost their lives during the recent incident at Forrest Caves. Words cannot describe the sadness and grief that they will be experiencing.
It is also a difficult time for our lifeguards, Woolamai Beach Surf Life Saving Club lifesavers and other emergency services members and others present who did everything they could to assist.
The impact on our community of these drownings and those at Surf Beach and Kilcunda also not be understated.
At least 13 members of Woolamai Beach Surf Life Saving Club, some on duty and others off duty attended last week's incident at Forrest Caves while many others provided additional support . Whilst it was not the result any of us wanted to see, I am very proud of the efforts of our lifesavers who worked alongside other emergency services.
We want to encourage everyone to be safe at the beach for the rest of summer and only swim at a patrolled beach, between the flags.
Woolamai Beach and Smiths Beach are the two surf beaches on the Island which are patrolled by life savers.
Phillip Island has many other beautiful beaches, but we cannot patrol them all. Lifesavers cannot be everywhere, all of the time.
Many of the drownings involve visitors to the Island. All this year have been at unpatrolled beaches.
The community can help us by keeping an eye out for situations at unpatrolled beaches where people unfamiliar with local beach conditions may be putting themselves in danger.
We are heartened by many accounts of local surfers and residents approaching visitors and making them aware of these dangers and pointing them towards patrolled beaches or safer beaches.
Most people will be very grateful for this advice and it may just save a life.
We all want to make sure that everyone has a good time at our beaches and can go home safely at the end of the day.
Over the past week we have appreciated the messages from members of our local community and the support provided by Life Saving Victoria.
The Club will continue to work with Life Saving Victoria, local authorities and other emergency services to do what we can to improve beach safety on the Island.
Jason Close
President
Woolamai Beach Surf Life Saving Club
Thank you from the Champion 1974 Surf Boat Crew
At the Paella Night on 6 January we celebrated the 50 year anniversary of the Club’s surf boat team winning the Club’s first Australian title gold medal. A couple of week’s later we received the following email from Life Member, Ron Hay who was a member of the victorious team.
Dear Jason,
I would like to express on behalf of my fellow crewmates from the 1973/74 ‘B’ Boat Crew to yourself and the Directors of Woolamai Beach SLSC our sincere thanks for the presentation afforded to us recently at the Woolamai Clubhouse on the 6th January 2024.
This acknowledgement has given us immense pride in our club, its members and our many friends that were there to make us feel very special by celebrating the 50th Anniversary of our achievement at Glenelg in 1974.
Saturday the 6th, gave us the opportunity to ‘catch up’ even for a few of us, have a swim together and to rekindle the special friendship and bond that rowing in that crew in the 1973 / 74 season we had and that has now survived 50 years! We are very fortunate to have been provided the honour of representing our great club during the 1970’s decade of competition where the spirit of competition, patrols and duty helped to develop us into very successful and happy Wooli boaties as well as giving us enormous faith in ourselves to achieve and win over life’s many obstacles.
We also want to afford our sincere thanks to Alan McLean for pushing forward to organising this celebration for us and to Graeme Clauscen for arranging and presenting the beautifully framed picture of us from 1974 that we all cherish.
Again, on behalf of the ‘B’ Crew from 1973 / 74, our sincere thanks.
Kind regards
Ron Hay
Presentation Night date announced 18/5/2024
The date has been set for Presentation Night 2024.
This year we will again be holding our annual presentation night at Silverwater Resort, San Remo on Saturday 18 May.
Keep an eye out on our Facebook page and future newsletters for booking details.
We will soon be looking for helpers from each patrol to bring the night together and to help organise our awards. If you are interested, let your patrol captain know.
Bass Coast Development Camp
Bass District Lifesaving Development Camp 2has had another successful year in 2024 comes to a close!
Woolamai had 15 members complete the camp with 8 Wooli members coming back as leaders!
There were members attending from all over the state and country including Waratah, Inverloch, Cape Paterson, Ocean Grove, Hampton and Fingal Rovers.
The 35 candidates spent the week at Waratah Beach SLSC completing their Advanced Resuscitation and First Aid, along with their IRB driver or IRB crew.
The camp has a great mix of theory as well as practical experiences done through scenario based learning creating a realistic environment to learn in.
A special thank you to Campbell Smart for running the camp for a good few years now as well as all the trainers and helpers from Woolamai and other clubs.
Woolamai Trainers
Campbell Smart, Emily Ross, Emma Gallagher, Jordan Kuerschner, Jasmine Kuerschner, Nellie Boyce, Bonny Dickie, Kat Turner
Woolamai Candidates
Charlotte Derham, Oscar Goodger-Mcgrath, Zoe Scott, Ellie Glenk, Tom Baird, Charles Necoski, James Williamson, Bridie Broughton, Brody Derricks, Jaz Mau, Sophia Hungerford, Jack Ryan, Bailey Lawton, Jasmine Leally.
IRB Crew Camp
Between Thursday the 25th and Sunday the 28th of January, Woolamai held its annual IRB Crew camp.
The camp was a success with a large amount of new Bronzies taking the next step in their lifesaving journey successfully completing the course and gaining the required qualification to get in the boat on patrol!
A big thank you to all the trainers and helpers who made running the course possible and kindly volunteering their time to help out.
Rainbow Zinc Patrol
On Sunday 4th of February our club showed its colours with our annual Rainbow Zinc Patrol.
The purpose of the patrol is to support and celebrate the LGBTQIA+ community and hopes to send an important message to all that we are an inclusive club where everyone is welcome!
A special thank you to Maddy Reynolds, Ava Close, and Zane Smith for Patrol captaining the day as well as everyone who got down and patrolled!
Channel Challenge Success
Hot off the back of a successful first leg in the Cape Paterson Aquathon, The San Remo Channel Challenge did not disappoint with a record 750 registrations!
We have been dreaming about the magic number – 700 - for quite a few years now and it has finally become reality.
Thirty-eight years of sweat, toil and perseverance has now seen the club’s signature event – the San Remo Channel Challenge – become what is almost certainly the State’s biggest annual Aquathon.
From 57 competitors in 1986 when Lyle Williams and Dennis Harris got the show on the road until last Saturday, 10/2/2024, when we had nearly 750 competitors registered for Channel Challenge No 38.
And all along that journey it has been a great team effort with many contributors from both the WBSLSC and from other individuals and organizations within the Bass Coast Community who have been involved in creating what is now an iconic, popular and highly regarded event.
Mind you, we did not get 750 competitors to the starting line. There were several no-shows and notified withdrawals because of Covid and a multitude of reasons but only a handful have asked for refunds due to illness, injury or work commitments. However, it was amazing to see that with this record number of competitors we actually managed to get every single swimmer to the other side of the Channel without a rescue. Even my son-in-law, ‘Phil from Aberdeen’ managed to beat two competitors’ home without a training swim. It is a rare year, even with smaller numbers, when we haven’t had to pull a handful of struggling swimmers from the water. Great work by GB and GN to read the tide perfectly after the tide check on Friday morning showed it was going to turn a bit earlier than expected.
The key management team really had to work extra hard this year:
Melina handling many aspects of the administration until 2.00am in the morning on Race Day.
Sully & GB looking after all operational aspects from Friday lunchtime until pack up time on Sat afternoon, including the Start, Transition & Finish areas.
Max organizing permits and following up with the Water Safety roster and operations on the day.
Ryan for a terrific job with marketing and comms which really had a big impact on the improved numbers at Cape Paterson and San Remo, including the last two weeks operating from NZ.
And we now have Georgie joining this crew as the Race Centre manager, with Michelle Murphy to be her partner next year unless her work with Ambulance Victoria calls her away again.
What about Mark Roney’s effort! I called him on Wednesday to confirm he was okay for the weekend, and he answered from his hospital bed before turning up to help on Friday night and again at 7.00am on Saturday. Then on Sunday he was back in hospital after working all day Saturday.
There are now many moving parts to our event and the Bass Coast Series as a whole and it takes many hands to make it all work out each summer. Thank you to everyone who contributed to the successful running of the event: whether it be in the Race Centre or the Transition area, Water Safety, driving the van, monitoring the traffic, packing race bags, paying the bills or donating sponsorship to the event. We thank you all.
The addition of an O/60 category has been well received and the addition of relay teams has grown and brought another 120 competitors to this year’s event.
Overall, we ran a very smooth event. No hitches with timing and results, good presentations, no lost property etc.
Ron Nicholson - Life Governor
A big thank you to Ivan Webb for taking all the amazing photos on the day!
They can be found on the San Remo Channel Challenge Facebook account https://www.facebook.com/sanremochannelchallenge
Cowes Classic and Little Penguin Dash
The Cowes Classic and Little Penguin Dash events are the third and final leg of the series and will be held on 2nd March 2024!
Helpers are still needed! - please refer to Max Eldridge’s Facebook post and club emails
Callout for historic club items!
We now have a new email address historian@woolamaibeach.asn.au which is a great way to send in any photos or historic information you might have for the club’s records!
Hello to all Woolamai Members
From Graeme Clauscen, Club Historian
From the Archives a little bit of History !
S.L.S.A. Poster from 1977
Woolamai Aerial Photo 1987
I am currently working on the Club’s archives and cataloguing a lot of new items that have been given to the Club.
It is proposed that all of the items in the Club archive will be digitized and uploaded to Victorian Collections where anybody can access all of the items, on line.
The family of Dennis Harris recently provided a large number of photos and documents collected by Dennis over many years.
This is an appeal for donations of items of Historical interest to Club Members past and present. I am looking for the following:
Club Garments
T Shirts, Tops, Shorts, other Any item of clothing with the Club Name/Logo on it, condition not important.
Photographs
Color or black and white photographs of Club activities over the years 1959 -2022. Where possible, detail of, Location, Date, Names, and any other relevant info.
General Memorabilia
Any item of Club interest, Medallions Trophies Certificates Pennants etc. In other words if it is part of Woolamai History I would like to know about it and see it.
IMPORTANT. PLEASE PROVIDE – NAMES DATES TIMES LOCATION AND ANY RELEVANT INFORMATION
If you would like to donate any item that would be great, if not we will photograph the item and return to you.
Best Wishes
Graeme Clauscen
If you would like to contact me, 0412 789 499
Wild About Wooli! A 50 Year History of the Club
Discounted for Summer
Want a segment in next Month’s newsletter?
Hi all,
If anyone would like to submit something for next month, the best way to do this is send me an email at communication@woolamaibeach.asn.au with a title for the segment, and text of what you’d like to be included as well as any pictures or images and I’ll be sure to add it in.
Deadline for January’s Newsletter - 8th of January
Cheers,
Ryan Box - Director of Communications