By Ron Lane
ANOTHER weekend of safe bathing on Noosa and Sunshine beaches.
The only incident reported was when a lady in her late seventies collapsed on Noosa’s Main Beach.
Patrol members immediately responded, paramedics were called and the lady was taken to hospital.
At Sunshine, patrol captain and life member Bill Twigger said that patrols in the club were good and with Christmas holidays now starting all is in readiness.
For those who read recent articles regarding the profit margins in our lifesaving clubs, if you want a really good breakdown on where your money goes, just visit our mates over the hill in Sunshine Beach Supporters Club.
Read the colour photo on the wall just right of the main entrance, a copy of which has been kindly donated to us courtesy of the Sunshine Beach Club member and photographer Dave Gleeson.
This informative photograph which shows the cost of each item will probably leave visitors shocked.
The actually cost of putting a fully equipped patrol on a beach is staggering and, please note, these figures do not include the big killer – insurance!
As with all businesses running surf clubs is now a business and in some cases big business, there are other hidden costs that the man on the street is not immediately aware of. Some media outlets tend to neglect these.
Apart from the above mentioned, another is maintenance.
With the majority of clubs being on beach fronts, all equipment is exposed to salt water in all forms and this tends to drastically reduce the life of many craft.
As this equipment is for the protection human life, once erosion starts to appear on certain craft, response must be immediate, regardless of cost.
Each piece of equipment in the photo is what is required for a patrol to be fully manned and please note that the patrol members are unpaid volunteers!
What person in their right frame of mind would be silly enough to put a value on the life of a fellow human being, in particular a child? Enough said.
This last week Noosa boat section played host to a group of visiting boaties from the North Barrier Branch, with four coming from Sarina and one from Mackay.
Group spokeswoman Lisa Vernon said: “We met Noosa boaties at a carnival at North Barrier and as we are working to build up the boat section in our branch we were invited to Noosa for training sessions.
“For us this was a great opportunity for rowing in surf conditions as we don’t get big surf in our region.
“The training sessions have been a great learning curve and we learned some hard lessons.”
At the completion of the training they drove back to Mackay, a long way but vital if they wish to come south and compete in open surf conditions.
Noosa boat sweep and coach David Tomba said: “We were only too happy to assist. We wish them well and are always here to help.”
Last weekend at Torquay, round four of the Summer of Surf was held in big surf. For Noosa it was definitely a great day.
Lana Rogers put in a great effort to finish third in the prestigious Open Iron Woman Final, once again telling us she is someone to watch.
In the men’s, Cooper Williams won the open Run, Swim, Run, (youngest ever to do so) and also the Iron Man for the 17-year-old age group.
Then he and his brother Bailey contested the Open Iron Man and in a field of 55 of Australia’s best and finished in the middle of the pack – a great effort from these young men.
Lara Rogers, and Cooper and Bailey Williams are young guns on the rise.
