Welcome to The Christmas Bumblebee, your quarterly email newsletter for the Point Lonsdale Surf Life Saving Club. The Bumblebee is the club's newsletter providing an update to members on important club matters.
President's message
merry christmas ...
It seems hard to believe that Summer is hear and patrols have recommenced for Season 2015 / 2016. This Season we enter the 69th year of providing this essential service to the community, often referred to as our "core business". We all know that this is just one aspect of our Club, but it is why we were formed, why our brand is an Australian icon and why so many people support us financially or otherwise. With all the predictions for a long, hot and dry summer it may well be a very busy Summer for our volunteer surf life savers and Paid Lifeguards, so let's not forget how important it is to do this and do it well.
On the evening of Saturday 21st November approximately 80 people gathered for our inaugural Season launch function, held at the Monahan Centre Queenscliff. The aim of the function was to thank the many people that take on positions of responsibility (e.g. Committee members, Patrol Captains and Patrol Vice Captains) in the Club and join with our major sponsors, as well as local government representatives, including the Mayor Cr Helene Cameron and Hon. Lisa Neville MP. It was such a success that we have already asked to book the venue for the same night next year. Thanks to David Cross for your role as MC, to the decoration committee and to Justine and Will Cain for the entertainment.
From now until the end of January the Club, our Beaches and the towns of Point Lonsdale and Queenscliff will be full of our peak events and activities - Patrols, Training and Assessment Requals and courses, LERT RWC patrols, Aquatic Sports training and Carnivals, Nippers, the Doorknock, the RVSC, Major Social Events and everything else in-between. To the few who are leading these events and activities thanks for your hard work, leadership and dedication to the Club and the community. To our members and friends that assist, thank you for your efforts as without this these events simply could not occur and the Club would suffer for this.
Please keep up to date via our Website, Facebook or Twitter and please get involved - take part in the event (s) and activities that you enjoy and you feel that you can contribute to as there is such a wide variety of ways to help out and to get involved!
Kind Regards,
Matthew Ponsford
Come along to the Grown Ups WHITE PARTY
Friday 15 January 2016 from 6.30pm at the Clubhouse
Never to old to wear a toga!
Dress in White and Dance, Sing, Talk the night away with friends.
Tickets will be on sale through the Club office and at Nippers.
Enjoy good company, music, tasty light food and cold drinks.
Raffle items or any helping hands would be most welcome.
Any enquiries, Emma Harrison 0417033059
or elharrison23@gmail.com
Stingers 2015-16
The junior aquatic sports team (Stingers) has made a great start to the season, enjoying some good training sessions both in the water and on the beach. As a reminder, the junior aquatic sports program is open to all Nippers who would like to compete for Point Lonsdale and/or improve their surf living saving skills through additional training with new specialist coaches.
While one of the aims is to compete for the club, an equally important component of aquatic sports is to foster a strong team spirit and allow the Nippers and their families to become more involved with their surf life saving club. Each age group is eager to welcome new members to the team. The club has sourced new boards and surf skis over winter and the Stingers are very fortunate to have access to a fantastic range of new equipment.
Training for Stingers continues to be held every second Sunday at Santa Casa up until the commencement of the Nippers program - a summer training schedule will be available shortly. The summer program will work around existing Nippers sessions. All sessions will run from 9.30-11.00 am. While attendance at all training sessions is encouraged, it is not mandatory. Feel free to come down to a training session, say hello and see if Stingers might be for you. (Please do let us know if you are coming though - we need to ensure adequate water safety personnel for all Stingers).
Competition formats are very similar to the club championships for individual events. For many Stingers, their favourite events are the team events - swim, board, wade and beach sprint relays and the aqua Cameron (effectively a medley relay) are the main components. The club would love to field teams in all events in each age group. The junior competition schedule for the summer will be as follows:
Saturday 2 January - Cosy Corner, Torquay
Sunday 14 February - Reg/State qualifying, Ocean Grove
Sunday 28 February - Junior carnival, Lorne
Sat/Sun 12/13 March - State Titles, Warrnambool
The State Titles carnival is a highlight of the year for the Stingers, with many families camping together or sharing accommodation and celebrating the end of the competition season.
If you have interest in joining the Stingers squad, please contact us at correct email address.
We look forward to welcoming new families to the Stingers team.
Cheers,
Kate Kennett
Captain's corner
Requals:
About 50 members re-qualified their awards at the Point Lonsdale Requal. A cold and windy day but great to see many members there. Final remaining skills maintenance sessions are as follows:
Sunday, 20 Dec 9am LSV State Requal
Wednesday 30 Dec 4pm Ocean Grove
Patrol:
New Patrol Captains and Vice Captains were trained on Saturday 21 Nov and Sunday 22 Nov.
A great weekend of learning, skills maintenance, fun and leadership. Saturday included running through the newly devised patrol manual and practical skills. Sunday, Team Building company ACE training lead us through a SURVIVOR course focusing on competitiveness through collaboration and creative problem solving.
Back beach patrol commenced on the last weekend of November. Patrols now have team names and an inter-patrol competition will be run. Roster is on club website so please mark in your diary. Any patrol changes please follow instructions on club website.
New Initiative- Pink Zinc Patrol. Sunday 10 Jan all female patrol. This will be a joint Point Lonsdale and Ocean Grove initiative. Thank you to Carmel from the Rip Rumour for her generous sponsorship and Greg Jones- Bongo for his t-shirt design. Open to all current female members who hold a current BM. Please contact me.
Regards,
Jo Burch
Club Captain
Senior competition team
The 2015 /2016 Senior Life Saving Competition Season is almost upon us.
This is a very exciting area of development for the club and we hope to see the senior squad grow substantially in this and future seasons.
The Point Lonsdale Senior Competition Team is made up of four Age Groups:
* Under 15
* Under 17
* Under 19
* Open Age
The team is open to all active Members with either SRC qualification for Under 15's or Bronze qualification for Under 17's, 19's and Open age.
The club has sourced new boards and surf skis over winter and we have access to a fantastic range of new equipment.
To register your interest please complete the online form at http://goo.gl/forms/uJwvoC8Ymc.
Below are the dates for training and competitions:
Training:
* 13, 20, 27, 31 December
* 5, 7, 12, 14, 17, 24, 31 Jan
* 7, 14, 21, 28 Feb
* 13 March
Swims:
* Point Lonsdale - 3 Jan
* Queenscliff - 30 Jan
Carnivals:
* Fairhaven - 10 Jan
* Torquay - 21 Jan
* Jan Juc - 6 March
State Championships - Fairhaven - 19, 20 March
For further information please call our Senior Team Manager
Simon McPhail 0408 848 858
Matt Baenziger finishes LSV Scholarship in Sri Lanka
Point Lonsdale life saver Matt Baenziger was awarded a 2015 Life Saving Victoria Building Leaders Scholarship (BLS), a program designed to develop the leadership skills of young lifesaving members.
Since 2012, LSV's BLS program has been developing advanced leadership skills of lifesaving members by incorporating professional and personal development, teamwork and teambuilding, communication, leadership and behaviour style profiling, value proposition/time management, cultural awareness training and technical training.
The six month program concluded with a visit to Sri Lanka where the scholars helped improve local lifesaving skills aimed at addressing the over 850 drowning deaths occurring annually.
Scholars in this year's BLS program were Mattias Baenzinger - Point Lonsdale SLSC; Isaak Newcombe - Anglesea SLSC; Dylan Griffiths - Black Rock LSC; Neisha McLean - Waratah Beach SLSC and Georgia Davey - Aspendale LSC. A group of young lifesavers recently returned from Sri Lanka as part of LSV's 2015.
Congratulations Matt. You've done us proud.
Regards,
Matt Ponsford
President
Blue Bonnet BBQ Pop-up restaurant to raise funds for new clubhouse
Beach Bonnet BBQ is a pop up restaurant opening at the Point Lonsdale Surf Life Saving Club this Summer with all profits going to the new clubhouse redevelopment fund.
The Point Lonsdale Surf Life Saving Club has partnered with Melbourne's famous Bluebonnet BBQ who will be firing up their smoker on the lawn to serve up their amazing BBQ.
Lawn games and picnic rugs will be available so everyone can chill out and soak up the atmosphere - all while enjoying some great food and even better company.
Food will also be served upstairs in The Surf Club Bar, which will be open every night from 5pm - 11pm.
Daily drink specials, good music and a sun soaked veranda will make The Surf Club Bar the place to be come sundown.
Surf Club volunteers will also be selling Streets Ice Cream and soft drinks at The Club to raise money and awareness. They will also be hosting a number of great
events over the summer to achieve their goals.
All proceeds of this pop up are going to the Surf Club Building Fund, which has been set up to help build the new clubhouse in 2018.
The Club also sees this as a great opportunity to generate support and reward their members who work tirelessly every summer to keep our beaches safe.
Beach Bonnet BBQ will open its doors to members and locals on Friday
18 December trading through summer until the end of January.
The official launch of Beach Bonnet BBQ will be on Saturday the 26 December (Boxing Day). Kicking off at 12pm, the BBQ and bar will be firing well into the night. There will also be a backyard cricket tournament, live music and entertainment for all to enjoy!
From Sunday the 27 December, Beach Bonnet BBQ will be open almost every
day from 5pm - 10pm, even New Years Day. The Surf Club Bar will be open most
nights from 5pm - 11pm.
Look forward to seeing you there.
Bec McHenry
