Welcome to South Curl Curl SLSC

Surf Ski Training

The South Curly Cadets continue to keep busy with Patrols, training, competition and generally enjoying themselves around the club on weekends. We have been able to squeeze in a couple of ski training sessions on Saturday afternoons and Peter Yeates has kept up the fitness sessions on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons whenever possible. February has been a very busy month for those competing with Branch and State Championships being held and with most of our competitors in the U15 category this is their first year in the Senior Carnivals. In the last edition we highlighted the performances of the group at the Branch Championships and since then a team of 7 Female and 9 Male competitors representing the club at Swansea Belmont, plus 4 males in the junior boat crew. (See boat report) 

Champion Lifesaver 

The first event of the program was actually held on the last day of the Nippers Carnival with Kiorie Bennett and Liam Yeates competing in the Champion Lifesaver competition. This is arguably the toughest event on the program with competitors having to perform in both physical and mental challenges. All competitors are tested on First Aid, Resus and CPR in both practical and theory exams. They need to compete in a swim, board, tube swim and sprint race to round out the competition. The results came through late Sunday afternoon and it was Gold Medals for both Kiorie and Liam in the U15 Champion Lifesaver. This is a fantastic result for both of them and with their win they are now selected by State to compete at the Aussies in this event. Credit must also be given to Bill Yeates who worked very closely with Kiorie and Liam to prepare them for this event along with Bryn Russell. Congratulations guys and good luck at Kurrawa. 

2km Soft Sand Race 

Another new event for this age group is the 2km soft sand race and SCC had 5 female and 4 male starters out of approximately 20 starters in total in each race. Maddi Jones performed best finishing a strong 7^th with Serena Hodgson, Tamara Harrison and Daana Stoker filling out the top 10 followed by Louise Duncan. The boys did extremely well with Liam Yeates and Harry (where did he come from?) Blake battling out 4^th and 5^th so just missing a medal, Jordan Brown also finished strongly followed by Talan Doyle. Well done to all those who competed, this is a very tough event. 

Cameron Relay 

The water area was next with Cameron Relay and Harry Blake buoyed by his efforts in the 2km run put his hand up for the board paddle leg, unfortunately his eagerness to get started saw him get the team DQ’d with a break so it was back to the beach area for the boys. The girls however did get started with Tamara doing the board paddle, the pace was a bit hot for her and by the time Serena had tagged Louise for the swim leg the pack had gone and all she could see was the sunrise on the water. Perhaps knowing this was her last swim for the weekend she proceeded to swim completely around the adjacent water area, then her own water area and finished somewhere down the beach turning a 400m swim into a 1km adventure. When Daana finally reached the finish line the officials congratulated the team for their marathon effort! 

Surf Swim 

The individual sprints were contested by all the boys with Charlie Taylor and Jake Vale making it through to the Finals day on Sunday. In the girls Caz Russell put in an excellent qualifying round to also make the finals on the Sunday. Jason Roche having just gained his Bronze medallion decided to make his first Carnival the State Titles and competed in both the sprints and flags, while he didn’t make the finals I am sure we will see him back again next season to have another go. The girls also needed to qualify their relay team by finishing 4^th or better in the heat, they ran a fantastic race to finish 3^rd ahead of Manly and Cronulla only to find out there had a slight infringement on one batten change which meant they missed the final on Sunday. The finals day unfortunately saw Charlie and Jake drawn in the same semi with Charlie finishing 4^th to go through to the final and Jake 5^th just missing out. In the final Charlie put in a massive effort to get 5^th only just out of the medals. Caz finished 5^th in her semi to just miss the final but performed extremely well to get that far. The boys relay was a straight out final with SCC fielding 2 teams. The team of Harry, Talan, Jordan and Josh Yeates competing with Charlie, Liam, Luke Feledy and Jake. The later team ran exceptionally well in every leg with Jake Vale bringing it home strong to secure a Silver Medal, their 3^rd in as many years but first for Luke a new member of the team. 

Flags 

The girls were first up Daana, Louise, Tamara and Maddi all competed well on a very hot Saturday afternoon. Louise did best getting through approximately 6 rounds to make the final 12. The boys saw Talan, Charlie, Luke, Jordan, Harry and Josh have a go and for a while it looked as though Luke and Charlie might be working together to take out the rest of the field, unfortunately for Luke he missed out one place short of making it through to the final on Sunday but Charlie went through and looked strong. Sunday’s final got underway with the last 8 competitors and a high level of tension in the crowd. Charlie was working and gradually working towards the medal rounds and when he made it to the last 3 the SCC cheer squad was in full force. He then proceed to take one of the last 2 flags and was so far ahead of the other 2 competitors he had time to cut across in front of both of them to get the flag, it looked like the Gold was his. The final run however saw him lose his footing in the take off which gave his competitor a big start, but far from giving up he recovered to come back almost level just missing the final flag. This was really a tremendous effort from Charlie winning an individual Medal at this level is very tough.

So the final Medal tally from the beach and water events for SCC Cadets was 2 Gold and 2 Silver, an outstanding success by any measure and equally pleasing was the fact we had a great group of competitors regardless of who won the medals they were all offering support and were part of the team. 

South Curly had a team of 9 Male and 6 female competitors at this years Open branch championships held at Queenscliff Beach. There were a number of excellent results kicked off by the highlight of the weekend in Liam Yeates winning GOLD in the Champion Lifesaver event. This event combines R&R, first aid, water and beach events to determine the winner and Liam scored an impressive 110 points from a possible 120, congratulations Liam. Credit must also go to Bill Yeates and Bryn Russell for providing excellent training.

The other first time event for our Cadets was the 2km beach run and we had 2 Male and 4 female Competitors. We have incorporated training for this event into our Sunday morning activities and all competitors performed exceptionally well with Liam Yeates getting Silver in the Boys and Maddi Jones Bronze in the Girls.

Another outstanding performer on the day was Charlie Taylor who picked up Bronze in the Sprints and Silver in the Sprint Relay. Charlie also ran the first leg of the Open Relay and was more than competitive helping the team make the Final, as a result he missed the U15 Flags which were on at the same time. In his usual casual manner Charlie simply stepped up to the U17 Flags and took the Silver Medal!

Hats off also to our Girls Cameron relay team of Tamara, Maddi, Daana and Serena. No medals were won here but the effort in the board and swim leg from Tamara and Daana in difficult conditions showed great spirit and would make any SCC club member proud.

Results in summary:

Shelly Beach Weekend

Our Junior Development weekend has come and gone on November 20, 21 & 22 at Shelly Beach and in the end we had a total of 105 attending consisting of 66 juniors/cadets and 38 Adults. This is an increase from last years total of 64. The weather could not have been a more stark contrast to what we experienced last year, we went from winter conditions of 17 degrees in 2008 to a heatwave in 2009 where on Sunday as we left to return, the temperature reached 40 degrees!

This year there was an Open carnival on across the seekend at Shelly Beach which inevitably interupted our club activities. We had quite a number of competitors involved plus Dermot O'Brien and myself were called upon to bulster their number of officials. The level of competition was extremely high with all the top competitors from across NSW and some from S.E. QLD competing. Everyone did exceptionally well with some standout results being:

• Charlie Taylor 2nd in U15 Flags
• Jake Vale 3rd and Charlie Taylor 4th in U15 beach Sprint
• Caz Russell 4th in U15 Beach Sprint
• Ben Taylor 4th in U19 Beach Sprint
• Liam & Josh Yeates with Charlie Taylor made the final of U15 Cameron Relay
• Jake Vale, Julian Ingham, Ben Taylor & Jordi Skelton combined to get 3rd in the All Age Relay

Of coarse the weekend was not just about competition and there was plenty of time for fun and for the kids to get to know each other better. We had a great contigent of U13's this year and they spent plenty of time on the surf together along with the U14's. Most of U15's were involved in the carnival at some point while the u16's were rarely out of the surf.

This year saw the start of what is sure to become a fixture on these trips with the running of an intraclub Taplin Relay. We had 16 teams of six competitors greet the starter at Towoon Bay Surf Club on Saturday afternoon. Each team consisted of a swimmer, board paddler, ski paddler and 3 runners. Teams were drawn from a hat with the first drawn being named Captain and having the power to nominate the role for each team member. Following 3 heats we assembled a final of 6 teams for a very competitive race conducted with much enthusiasm and only a small amount of cheating, as is tradition at SCC. The winning team will receive due recognition at this seasons presentation night; nominations are still open for naming rights to the event.

An update on our numbers registered this season is:

U15 – 25

U17 – 23

U19 – 9

Sunday Activities 

The U15's have been getting together at 8:30 AM on Sundays to do some training on the beach and in the water, we will continue this for the remainder of the season whenever Carnivals do not conflict.

Many of the U17's are training for their Bronze medallion with Bucko each Sunday morning and will be doing their first exams very shortly.

Training

• Board training continues on Saturday morning with Peter Yeates, check details under the Nipper section of this website.
• Sprint training continues on Thursday afternoons with Jordi Skelton, check details under the Nipper section of this website.
• Fitness training has commenced on Tuesday afternoons at the Surf Club from 6PM with Peter Yeates.
• Ski Paddling starts again this Saturday afternoon December 5th, 3PM at Surf Club

A quick summary of Carnivals and other activities include:

January

Saturday 9^th – Queenscliff open carnival at Queenscliff Beach

Saturday 23^rd – Manly open carnival at Manly Beach

Tuesday 26^th – Freshwater Australia Day open carnival at Freshwater Beach

Saturday 30^th – SNB Branch Championships Beach events at Queenscliff/North Steyne

Sunday 31^st – SNB Branch Championships Water events at Queenscliff/North Steyne

February

Friday 26^th – Sunday 28^th - NSW Open Championships at Swansea/Belmont

March

Thursday 18^th – Sunday 21^st – Australian Open Championships at Kurrawa Beach QLD 

More information on all of these events will be distributed as we get closer to the date.

Social Activities

We are looking for a few motivated cadets to organise 1 or 2 Under 18 events at the surf club this season, the hall and deck can be made available for your use. If anyone is interested in taking on this role please let me know. In the mean time if you have any questions or would like more information on anything, please let me know.

Regards,Darrin Stoker                 Contact: 0412 597 930   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it