After more than nine months facilitating a surf safety roundtable, Noosa Council last week decided that it was time to step back and let the surfing tribes of Noosa seek their own solutions to problems associated with our overcrowded surf breaks.
The surf safety roundtable, established last January after a hectic holiday season, was originally a joint initiative of Noosa World Surfing Reserve and Council, conceived as a short-term series of meetings at which stakeholders from all of the surfing disciplines could plan a strategy to combat safety and behavioural issues as Noosa’s popularity as a surfing destination continues to grow. As well as Council and the NWSR, founding members included representative of Noosa Boardriders Club, the Noosa Malibu Club, Noosa Heads Surf Lifesaving Club and Maritime Safety Queensland.
Under the chairmanship of Council CEO Brett de Chastel, it soon became obvious that the job at hand was bigger and more complex than first thought. For starters, several of the people at the table were at loggerheads, but Mr de Chastel’s gently methodical approach began to sort out the issues and personalities and start to map a pathway forward.
Council’s facilitator at the roundtable, Community Development Officer Cheryl Patterson, said after the final meeting at the Pelican Street chambers: “We did a recap of how we formed and what we have achieved and where we are headed as a group. Everyone agreed the roundtable has provided an avenue for open communication for all surf craft in regard to a number of issues in the Noosa surfing community and a chance to form a bond through everyone’s love of the water, their craft and where they live.”
The roundtable members decided to call themselves the Noosa Surf Community Alliance (NSCA) and move forward as a working group that will meet approximately every three months to consider issues and emerging themes within the Noosa surfing community, with a major focus on surf safety and behaviour change across all codes. “The Alliance will work alongside the Noosa World Surfing Reserve and work collaboratively on projects that benefit our surfing community and surfing visitors to the region,” Ms Pattison concluded.
A big part of the roundtable’s work in 2021 is an over-arching voluntary code of conduct that applies to all of the surfing disciplines, with a secondary code specific for each discipline, from longboarding to hydrofoiling, from ocean swimming to kite-surfing. A signage and media campaign is in the final stages of development for release this summer.
