PRESIDENT's REPORT

Welcome to our 2009 surfing season. What a tremendous roll up for our first competition. Great to see all our regular members back and it was very pleasing to see former members Phil Meyers, Ross Cordery and Roger Coulthurst back on the beach with us for 2009. Welcome to new members Bayne Bowen, Steve Watts and Frank McWilliams. I'm sure you will enjoy the year.

2008 was a challenging year for the club but fingers crossed 2009 will be kinder to us all both surfing wise but more importantly health wise.

I would like to thank members for the vote of confidence in electing the executive for another year. Congratulations to our other elected committee members. Your assistance will be much valued throughout the year. I would like to thank Phil Calnan for acting as returning officer at the AGM.

For those of you new to the club it was formed in 1990 by a group of surfers who simply wanted to get together on a regular basis once a month for a surf and a social get together. Nothing has changed - the tradition continues.

ENJOY

President Wazza

SOCIAL CALENDAR

Our next social gathering will be at the Federal Hotel at Alstonville on Friday 13th February at 6:30PM - 7:00PM. It's not possible to reserve tables so get there early as this venue is always popular with members. Hope to see you all there. Our Social Organiser, Brian Delaney, is putting together a full year schedule which will be online very soon.

COMPETITON UPDATE

Our first comp round brought a few surprises with a huge roll up of 22 surfers, including 6 returning and three new members, and some challenging waves of around 2 metres. See the photos page for more pics.... see the movie page for a movie.

Judging - Brian Fryer, Col Woodbry, and Pete Wilcox. (Who's watching the surf?)
In the background - new Club Captain Eric Walker discussing the rules with Alan Rich & Kerry Wilcox

COMPETITION RESULTS - FEBRUARY 2009

The next club round is on Sunday 1st March.

PIC OF THE DAY

Each month we feature the best picture taken on the day.

Pete Wilcox on the rail
(Picture courtesy of Alan Rich)

FOOD ROSTER

At the 2009 AGM members agreed to establish a roster to allocate the responsibility of purchasing the food for the competitions rounds. Each month two members will be nominated in this section of the newsletter. If they are unable to attend the round for any reason they are to advise the secretary who will arrange a replacement.

The job involves arriving at Flat Rock at 6:30AM checking the conditions and deciding if a comp will go ahead. If the comp is on then ducking down to the shops at East Ballina to get some bread rolls, snags, etc. It was agreed the club executive would be excluded from the roster.

MARCH TEAM: Alan Rich & Bayne Bowden

TRAVEL REPORT

Please email the secretary if you have an interesting story.

CLUB T-SHIRTS

The new club shirts are ready, please contact Wazza to arrange collection. The shirts are blue with a white BMC logo on the front and cost $30 each. More shirts can be ordered so members who have not ordered yet can do so by contacting Wazza.

NEWSLETTER & NEW WEB SITE

The club has a new web site – www.ballinamalibuclub.org. All the club newsletters can now be accessed via the web site and either viewed online or downloaded in a format suitable for printing. Members who have provided their email addresses to the secretary will receive an email each month containing a link to the newsletter. The Committee urges all members to take advantage of the new web site and register their email address. Members without an email address will still receive a printed copy via surface mail.

Members will find many benefits with the new web site including:

Members interested in submitting stories for inclusion in our monthly newsletter should Email submissions to secretary@ballinamalibuclub.org

MEMBERS CLASSIFIEDS

Items for sale (eg. used surfboards, surfing-related items etc) may be listed free of charge by members. Members are invited to lodge advertisements by Email to the Secretary. Please include a description, asking price, contact details, and preferably a color photograph of the item(s) for sale.