By Phil Jarratt
A new support program launched by the Noosa World Surfing Reserve at last month’s Noosa Festival of Surfing is off to a flying start, with more than 30 signings in the first month and more coming in every week as word spreads.
The Friends of Noosa World Surfing Reserve campaign offers members a welcome pack of NWSR goodies, including tee shirt, cap and key-ring, participation in monthly prize draws, and regular beach and social events, such as next month’s Noosa Main Beach cleanup and free barbeque breakfast. “We were going to call it Friends With Benefits,” laughs NWSR president Kirra Molnar, “but we were advised it might be taken the wrong way.”
Since a stewardship committee was formed in 2014 to campaign for the Noosa National Surfing Reserve (dedicated 2015) and then the Noosa World Surfing Reserve (dedicated 2020), the NWSR has relied on a few corporate sponsorships, such as current major sponsor GemLife Resorts, fundraising events and the support of altruistic members of the surfing community to fund its ambitious but essential portfolio of projects built around its motto of “share, respect, preserve”.
Through a lot of hard work and the generosity of people – mostly surfers – NWSR has managed to create a wide-ranging awareness and education program promoting surf safety and a surf code of behaviour, partnered with Noosa Heads Surf Life Saving Club in establish 24/7 defibrillator stations (AEDs) at lifesaving intervals throughout the NWSR from river mouth to Alexandria Bay, and produced extensive video content for social media promoting not only our 10th World Surfing Reserve but responsible behavior that will help protect our marine and land environment.
These are just a few of NWSR’s achievements over a relatively short time, but now as the not-for-profit organization moves into a new phase of activity and generational change, Kirra Molnar, who is also a professional longboarder and leading surf instructor, has found time to put together a core team of professionally savvy surfers who are securing the future of the surfing reserve by building an involved support base of likeminded people who are concerned about what surfing in Noosa might look like in 10 years’ time when South East Queensland will be home to five million people.
Says Kirra: “One of the purposes of Friends of Noosa World Surfing Reserve is to encourage people to donate money when they can’t physically be here to help in what we’re doing, and there are a lot of people in my age group [Millennials] that want to help. But it’s also a great way to get people who do have available time to actually get involved in our programs to protect our surfing assets into the future.”
Working on the Friends program with Kirra are vice-president Mick Court, the Noosa Boardriders representative with a long surf manufacturing and retail background, Chris Doney, a founding NWSR member whose skill sets include surf life saving and IT, new member Marc King who has a background in project management for environmental groups and will manage the Friends program, and consultant Scott Thorson whose background is in project managing IT business applications. In addition, Noosa Media’s Jason de King is redesigning the NWSR website to accommodate the Friends operation, and local artist Emily Nicholas has designed a Friends-specific product range.
Together, the core team hopes to create a community support base that will not only make the NWSR financially sustainable but will share the sheer joy of involvement in projects that will make surfing itself sustainable in Noosa.
The Friends team is not putting a target number on membership just yet, but expectations based on the initial response are high that it will exceed 100 before the end of the financial year. For more information about Friends of Noosa World Surfing Reserve visit noosaworldsurfingreserve.com.au, or Noosa World Surfing Reserve Facebook page.
