READ ALL ABOUT IT.

• Presidents Report
• Club Captains report
• Nippers Report
• From the Boats
• End of Season club awards
• Awards of excellence nominations
• Indigenous Partnership report

Lock it In! Upcoming dates

LSV Valuing Volunteers evening – 24th May at LSV, Port Melbourne

LSV Awards of Excellence – 27th July, Pullman Hotel, Albert Park

Lorne SLSC AGM – 3rd August from 3pm in Lorne

We started the season as champs and ended it in the same way!

Success kicked off with the Lorne Again 160 Masters and Lorne Edge Open Women winning GOLD and the Lorne Growlers Reserve Men winning SILVER at the World Titles in Adelaide in November 2018.

We finished the season as 4th ranked overall Boat Team in Australia! A mammoth achievement behind North Cronulla, South Curl Curl and Palm Beach who are clubs that field multiple boat crews across all age and grade divisions.

The Lorne Edge Open Women’s crew were the Australian ranking leaders for the season across the ASRL competition and the Australian Titles. The fab 4 (plus Geoff) put their money where their leader’s guernseys were by rating to GOLD in the 2019 ASRL Final at Elouera Beach. This was the first ASRL Gold for the Edge after a bronze and silver medal in respective years.

The Australian Titles were back at Broadbeach on the Gold Coast (aka Kurrawa and/or North Kirra). The surf was huge (like multiple boats flipping every race and missing fingers huge!). Racing was delayed, cancelled and relocated throughout the week, but all Lorne crews took on the challenge of the competition and the changing conditions with skill, talent and courage.

The Lorne Mowers Reserve Men, The Lorne Dry Reserve Men and the Lorne Edge Open Women all rowed through to semi-finals (among the top 12 crews in the country in each division) and were unlucky not to be in contention for finals medals.

The Lorne Agains Masters Women’s crew won Gold in the Masters Final. Two fearless and fit members of that crew, Paula Matthews and Joukje Siebenga backed up their Masters campaign bruised and battered to win the silver medal in the Reserve Women Australian Final alongside Georgina Box and Shea Grant (with none other than Geoff at the helm).

Oh and we cleaned up in the medals at the Victorian Titles too! It was freezing cold this year in Warrnambool and the surf took a few victims, both of the human and boat craft variety. Highlights include Open Men Lorne Edge GOLD, a broken foot, a severely bruised coccyx and the newly christened Long John III will need some panel beating over the winter!

The boat team sincerely thank their awesome leader Geoff Matthews for his dedication to, and belief in all his rowers and the enduring support, on and off the beach, from Jamie Robertson, Frank Veltman, Tamara Brawn, Marty Guerow, Alistair McCombe and Jay Parkin.

Presidents Awards

Peter Atkinson

James Carew

Kirilee Wilson

Flynn Thompson

Patroller of the Year

Flynn Thompson

Patrol Group of the Year

Patrol 8

Best Senior Competitors

Lorne Edge – Open Womens Surfboat

Michelle Yann, Peta Glaister, Megan Grierson, Chantal Guziak. Sweep – Geoff Matthews 

Best Junior Competitor

Harry Hay

Junior Boys Champion 

Billy Read – Under 9

Jerome Palmer – Under 11

Junior Girls Champion 

Pippa Morgan – Under 9

Poppy Tresise – Under 9

Overall Outstanding Junior Competitor

Billy Read – Under 9

Pippa Morgan – Under 9

Jack McKerron – Under 11

Club Captains Awards

Lukas Karlson

Meg Greison

Harvey Mariner

100+ Hours patrol season

1. Paul McMaster – 129.0

2. Harvey Marriner – 118.5

3. Samuel Aschhoff – 111.0

4. Flynn Thompson – 104.0

5. Vincent Sheehan – 100.5

6. Nicholas Murnane – 100

Best Patrol person – By Patrol Group

Patrol 1 – Ruby McMaster

Patrol 2 – James Walsh

Patrol 3 – Edward Callan

Patrol 4 – Olivia Louis

Patrol 5 – Nathan Vabec

Patrol 6 – Mia Cunningham

Patrol 7 – Emma Hainsworth

Patrol 8 – Isabella Atkinson

Patrol 9 – James Lawsson

Patrol 10 – Tilly Shepherd

Lorne – Gunbalanya Community Partnership

The establishment of a community partnership between Lorne SLSC and Gunbalanya Community School brings together our great lifesavers and great Indigenous students from Gunbalanya in West Arhemland, NT. These students speak English as a second or third language and have never seen waves or rips. In the NT, they are taught to never go into the ocean due to very real dangers such as crocs and Irukandji jellyfish. As such, they are absolutely perfect candidates for our lifesavers to teach lifesaving and aquatic safety to, as these challenges represent similarities for many of our beach goers where our preventive focus resides.

Our leaders were put into situations where they had to develop and adapt to a dynamic learning environment and cater for language and knowledge barriers. This provided a highly challenging and highly rewarding experience for our members who have achieved most awards in Lifesaving and instructed most awards. Instead of being another course where their spare time is requested time and again, this was a thoroughly enjoyable and exciting program that has re-engaged many advanced lifesaving members.

Of the 15 Lorne members, at least 8 are going through the University-Career transition. A phase where our patrolling members typically drop off, and do not continue patrolling. Based on observations from our previous CALD program (with the Sudanese group), I believe we will retain all 8 of those members for at least another season and most probably longer.

This partnership has provided more learning and development for our lifesavers and for the students than either their teaching staff or we could have imagined. The personal growth, leadership and engagement in the club and lifesaving developed by our members through this short experience cannot be quantified and was truly astonishing to witness and the most rewarding experience I have ever been a part of.

This program could not have been possible without the support of the committee. Id sincerely like to thank each and every member of the committee for backing this program and having confidence in our members and myself to execute such an initiative for our great club. I assure you that the return on investment is there and will be witnessed in the club for years to come.

Heath Armstrong, Program Coordinator