Click here for the full story

 


 

Club Champs
06 January 2008

Results

Junior Women winner would have been Minnie, however as an unqualified guard she was not eligible to take the placing.

Fire Patrol vs Wind Patrol - Beach Relay

Winner = Fire Patrol

The competition this year was heated up, with our largest number of competitors in recent seasons turning up to compete.  Congratulations to the following people who turned up on the day to give it a go:-

Senior Men - Lindsay, Chris, Evan, Tom, Patrick, Julian, Kris,
Senior Women – Nicky
Junior Men – Joel, Ryan, Hamish, Hayden, Te Piha, Matt King, Martin,
Junior Women – Anischka, Ellie, Natalie, Minnie

Big thanks need to go to the crew of officials who set the arenas, recorded placings, managed the unruly competitors and got the BBQ fired up to feed the hungry guards.  This event would not take place without the dedication of these people, so thanks again for your time:- Donna, Jim, Sue, Max & Gail, Allison, Chelsea & Abe.

The challenge is now on to get more guards turning up to compete next season.  The events are more fun, and more challenging with more people turning up, and as you can see from the photos, you don’t need to be an elite athlete, and while speedos are definitely the most appropriate competing attire, they aren’t compulsory!  The ego of the incumbent Club Captain is highly inflated after his win of the senior mens this year, so it’d be good to see him knocked down a peg or two next season.

Congratulations to all the competitors.  We’ll hopefully see a few of you at the District Champs @ Ruakaka in February.

Lindsay

SLSNR Trillian Trust District Championships

To be held at Ruakaka Beach, Saturday 16th and Sunday 17th February 2008.

Event list as per the attached.

If anyone wants to enter, email Lindsay on lindsay.hill@nzf.co.nz advising which events you want to compete in.

I'm going to enter, just for a bit of fun, rather than in the intention of actually winning, and would encourage any other members to give it a go as well.

Cheers

Lindsay

2008 SLSNR Trillian Trust District Champs_Event List v3.doc

Whangarei Heads – Surf Canoe
15 January 2008

Whangarei Heads VSLSP new Surf Canoe comes courtesy of the Ruakaka SLSP and North Tec – Boat Building. Ruakaka had previously owned this canoe after having it handed down to them from Red Beach and a team from the club won Silver at a district competition after only ever being in a canoe 3 times. Sadly the canoe got run down in recent years, and was replaced by newer equipment. Ruakaka kindly donated the surplus (and run down) canoe to Whangarei Heads to try to extend it’s life.

This is where the North Tec Boat Building team came to the party, and offered to repair the canoe, and bring it back up to a competition standard. As you will see from the photos, the team have done a very professional job, creating a sleek racing machine. The finished product was the result of many days/months work, and the personal touch can definitely be seen.

Not only did they do such a fantastic job on the canoe, but they also supplied a cradle to store the canoe on. This cradle now doubles as a transport cradle, as we use our unique way getting the canoe to the beach. Access to the beach with a conventional trailer would be near impossible, so combining the cradle with the Argo creates a convenient way of transporting the canoe to the beach. With the canoe being so lightweight, lifting it into place is a relatively simple process.

This canoe is going to give the club members of all ages a chance to develop their competition skills, and take the canoe away to compete with the other larger clubs around the region, and even the country. If Ruakaka’s previous example is anything to go by, then Whangarei Heads could be coming away with medals in a very short time.

The Whangarei Heads Volunteer Surf Life Saving Patrol membership would like to acknowledge the support of North Tec – Boat Building for their efforts in turning the surf canoe into a useable piece of equipment. This has been a sizeable contribution to club operations, and one that will create fantastic camaraderie between club members in years to come. It is hard to adequately express how grateful the club is for the assistance offered by other organisations, so hopefully this article, along with the attached photos comes part of the way to expressing our gratitude.

Thanks also needs to go to Jim Bidois and Matt Fleet who followed the repair process through and are always around to lend a hand to load the canoe onto the Argo to get it down to the beach.

Training/Refresher Weekend
21/22 October 2007

Well, our inaugural annual training/refresher weekend has now come and gone, and it went even better than we could have hoped. We had a great turnout, great food, and great time of instructors. We even managed to make it through the weekend without seriously hurting anyone!! Bonus.

Thanks have to go out to the ladies in the kitchen, who did a fantastic job of ensuring everyone was kept fuelled so that we could all make it through the days activities. They also did a fantastic job of controlling the flow of people through the kitchen, and ensured that the dishes were washed up at the end of each meal. Big thanks to Sue B, Sue H and Donna, and anyone else who put some kitchen time in.

The next big thanks goes to the instructors, who not only had to survive the weekend, also had to plan and structure the entire weekend before hand, and ensure it all ran smoothly. Tom, Nicky & James are setting a great example for the younger club members by showing how far lifesaving can take you if you’re willing to put a bit of effort in. Rob was as usual brilliant with transferring some of his extensive lifesaving knowledge to the younger members. Thanks also needs to go to Tasha Harvey who kindly lent us some programme ideas from the training camp run at Bethells Beach.

The final thanks goes to everyone who turned up for the weekend. You all gave it 100% and impressed the instructors with how well you managed. The list of people who made it (to as close as I can remember) is:- Ellie, Reuben, Joel O, Leo, Neville, Matt, Jess, Georgina, Ryan B, Hayden, Hamish, Anischka, Lani, Finn, Eden, Lena, Matthew K, James, Te Piha, Martin, Jamie, Tayga, Luke, Ryan O, Joel M

A copy of the weekend programme is attached, and here’s a brief (ish) rundown of how it all went………

Saturday morning kicked off with a brief introduction, and explanation of rules/expectations for the weekend. This is also the point where everyone was assigned their tube for the weekend, names were selected, and stories told about their tube “relationship”. Tubes were required to be kept with each participant at all times. Failure to do so resulted in punishment in the form of press-ups. This was immediately followed by a round of icebreaker activities. Nothing ensures that everyone has a very “close” relationship at the start of the weekend than a quick round of the reducing square, and the human knot.

This was followed immediately by the first of the great meals, which led into the first theory session which covered off some basic first aid, to ensure that we all are capable of treating some of the minor ailments that we see at the beach on a regular basis.

On to the beach in the afternoon, where everyone braved the howling offshore, and frigid water, to get some scanning training, followed by a run/swim/run, tube rescue, and rock entry/exit training. The purpose of this was to make sure everyone was comfortable in and around rocks, and that they are confident doing tube rescues. Only one injury during the rock activity (sorry Jamie) which is a pretty good result!!

Once everyone had staved off the onset of mild hypothermia, it was back into another theory session, where the acting skills of Tom, Anischka, Nicky & Lindsay got put to good use imitating some of the potential scenarios we could run into on the beach. Anischka & Nicky did a great job imitating foreigners, possibly too good a job!!

After dinner, it was back into the classroom for a quick run through on potential lifesaving career paths, followed by a briefing on searches, and the helicopter landing kit. Everyone was pretty much falling asleep in their chairs at this point, so it was outside to have rousing game of Kiwi. The champions of the night were Ryan O, Nicky & Lindsay, although Te Piha’s blindfolded commando rolls in the middle of the game had to be the highlight.

Day 2 kicked off with a gruelling 7am run to the lighthouse. Matthew Sullivan led the way the entire way up, closely followed by the slightly older two in the group (Chris & Lindsay) who caned the rest of the young ones up the hill. Needless to say everyone was pretty ruined by the time they made it to the top, but the downhill run was loads easier.

Breakfast back at the club was much more rewarding after dragging ourselves through the punishment of the run, and it was good to see everyone completing their refresher theory paper with ease. Nicky then took everyone through their paces with CPR, which also completed this component of the lifeguard award refresher.

After lunch and a short break, it was time to kick off the afternoons carnage, with full on scenarios planned to test the skills that everyone had learnt during the course of the weekend. The group was split into two teams, and were instructed to elect a Patrol Captain for the duration of the scenarios. There were two initial scenarios running simultaneously with one team attending to each.

Scenario 1 was medical related, and had multiple victims. The group had been drinking on the beach, one had gone swimming (and was very drunk) and was semi-conscious and cold, another had a bee sting (and was allergic), the last victim had a heart attack from the stress of the situation. Compounding the treatment was a drunk friend who kept getting in the way of the lifeguards. (Big thanks to Sue H, Ellie, Harriet & Donna for their acting skills).

Scenario 2 was trauma related, again with multiple victims. It was a logging day gone wrong, which resulted in one victim with a large gushing wound to his upper thigh (along with other injuries), another victim with multiple injuries, and two distressed children. This scenario was particularly difficult due to the prodigious use of blood and fake injuries which really made the lifeguards utilise every skill they had. (Actors in this scenario were Rob, Nicky, Eden & Jesse)

Both teams did great jobs managing each scenario, to the point where none of the patients “died”!! Great work!

Scenario 3 was the final culmination of the entire weekend. Chris was assigned as PC (little did he know the job this was going to be!!) to oversee the entire operation. This was a 3 stage lifesaving scenario. The lifeguards were first alerted to a patient hanging onto the North rocks, who when the arrived was found to have been a victim of a shark attack. While this rescue was occurring, a mother approached the patrol to inform of her missing children. This meant a search had to be instigated simultaneously with the first rescue. To compound matters further, there were then two further patients at the south end of the beach caught in a rip who had to be rescued.

The shark attack victim and friend were rescued quickly and efficiently by the IRB crew, who then went to assist the tube swimmers who had secured the patients at the South end of the beach. While this was going on two teams were searching the beach for the missing children, who were found alive and well playing in the sand dunes.

This was a particularly intense scenario, with numerous situations happening at once. While it is something that may not occur for a long time at our beach, it is good to know that we are at least in some way prepared. Congratulations to everyone who took part in this and did such a great job.

Everyone who attended this weekend, whether they be participants or instructors, should be extremely proud of the effort they put in. There was barely a whisper of complaint the entire weekend, even when press-up punishment was being assigned. Everyone got stuck in, and hopefully got the maximum amount of benefit from the weekend. Thanks again to everyone who helped out, and we look forward to being able to utilise some of the participants from this years training to help instruct next year.

Lindsay

Club Captain

 

---