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General

‘Tom Hook’ travelling to the the World Junior Surfing Championships as part of the CISF team.

By General No Comments

13-year-old Guernsey surfer, Tom Hook, is heading off to California next week to represent the Channel Islands in the ISA World Junior Surfing Championships. The competition is being held at the renowned break of Huntington Beach. Tom, who will be competing in the Under 16s age category, will be joined by four Jersey boys to surf against the world’s best. This is the second time Hook has represented the Channel Islands at world level, having surfed at the World Juniors in Hyuga, Japan last year, earning his ranking of 81st in the world.

The schedule for the event will be as follows*:

October 27 – Opening Ceremony at 10am, Main St. and Pier Plaza
October 27 – Competition to commence at 3pm, Huntington Beach Pier south side
October 28 – November 4 – Competition at Huntington Beach Pier south side, 7:30am – 5pm
November 4 – Closing Ceremony after competition
*Schedule subject to changes. All times in Pacific Standard Time.
To see the full schedule of activities, click here.

The event will be streamed live on www.isasurf.org October 27 – November 4.

Click here to visit the official event page.

Life Saving Training Course with the Guernsey Surf School

By General, junior series No Comments

Last week the Guernsey Surf School ran a bespoke Surf Lifesaving courses for the GSC. This was a great fun course aimed at ensuring that we have lifeguarding cover for GSC events especially this summers junior series. the course was run over two evenings and was possible thanks to support from Investec Community Donations, EFG Private Bank (Channel Islands) Limited and Sea Change Recruitment. A big thanks to the surf school, our sponsors and to everyone that took part 

Surfing GB becomes The English Surfing Federation

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After nearly two years of negotiations Surfing GB released the following statement today. The Channel Islands Surfing Federation has been recognised as a National Governing Body in its own right and as such are not tied to the decisions of The English Surfing Federation so it’s good news all round:

Dear Member,

We are writing today to inform you about some important changes to our National Governing Body (NGB) application and to proudly detail our plans going forward.

As you may know Surfing GB passed stage one of the two stage NGB application process in 2014. Since then we have been working with UK Sport, Sport England and the ISA (International Surfing Association) as well as the surfing federations of Scotland (SSF), Wales (WSF), the Channel Isles (CISF) and England (ESF) with the vision of establishing a British NGB for Surfing.

We can now report that the state of play has changed since we first set out. The Scottish and Welsh Surfing Federations, and that of the Channel Islands are now recognised in their home nation, by their respective Sports councils, as surfing NGBs. The federations of SSF, WSF and CISF are now ready and eager to govern the sport entirely within their areas, however English surfers and surfing remain unrecognised by Sport England.

With this in mind, and considering the best interests of the majority 82% English membership we serve of surfers, coaches, surf schools and surf clubs, the directors of Surfing GB have decided to focus our organisation and operations on England only as of 2017. To best achieve this we have spent recent months negotiating and working with the committee of the English Surfing Federation, and it is today that we proudly announce plans to merge our two organisations to achieve England ONLY NGB recognition for surfing. This decision has been made for the benefit and future of English Surfers and Surfing.

Sport England have supported this approach through advice and funding for the legal work, which will involve changes to our constitution, and the merger of our organisation with the English Surfing Federation (ESF). We plan to ratify the legal changes at a General meeting in October, and move to full England only NGB application during this coming winter.

Surfing GB will remain in full operation until the end of 2016 after which point the combined volunteer boards of Surfing GB and the ESF will then move forward together as an English surfing NGB.

How these changes will affect me as a member

1. English Surfers and Coaches will continue to receive the same support and NGB accreditation as before with no disruption to service:

the structure and service that has served you and managed your membership or accreditation will remain in place

the same team voluntary SGB directors, with additional volunteers from the ESF will lead the organisation

continued insurance and member benefits

the same professional administrative and managerial staff remain in place

continued ISA/NGB recognition, coaching programmes and accreditation

accreditation by an English/ ISA recognised NGB from 2017 onwards

2. Members in Scotland, Wales and the Channel Islands

As of January 2017 we will no longer be able to offer you new or renewed Accreditation or membership. Your membership will be valid until its stated expiry date.

As of January 2017 we will no longer be able to offer you ISA coaching programmes in Wales, Scotland and the Channel Isles

The Surfing GB directors would like to thank you all for your continued support. Together with our fantastic team of professional staff that run day to day NGB operations, we remain committed to ensuring that the NGB service that we have built over the last 5 years is a world class, modern and forward looking organisation.

It is with great sadness that we will soon have to say goodbye to our members, surf schools, surf clubs and coaches from Wales, Scotland and the Channel Islands, and we wish you all the very best of luck in your future in surfing.

We now look forward to a productive and exciting future, and for those English members that will continue to receive our service in future we are stoked that we will be able to offer you a more sharply focussed and targeted support than ever before.

For all administrative enquiries please continue to contact Nick Rees or Sally Lawton in the SGB office via email, and if any of you would like to speak to one of the volunteer directors about the changes we are planning then please feel free to get in touch.

Below are some FAQs for you and a copy of our general release.

We will publish this information publicly at 8:00am.

Yours Sincerely

The Surfing GB Directors

GSC Meeting 19/02/15

By General No Comments

As many of you may be aware Jersey Surf Club have made some phenomenal strides over the past few years in restructuring and developing junior talent to represent their island at the European Championships. 

The GSC has been working closely with the JSC over the past few months in order to learn from their successes (and failures) so that we can build a similar structure going forward to benefit our members.

GSC is currently working towards this more structured set up so it’s members can not only enjoy the current benefits of insurance but also have the opportunity to take part in more competitions both locally, inter-island and eventually further afield, (with a particular focus on the juniors) not to mention more regular and better notified social events.

With this in mind we will be holding an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) on February 19th where we invite anyone who wishes to get involved in the club to attend. Here hopefully everyone can air their opinions and ideas and help appoint people to the relevant roles so that some of this can be implemented.

Obviously we have to be realistic about what we can achieve and how quickly we can do it but for 2015 we are proposing something along the lines of the competition schedule below, with the focus being the creation of the Junior Series over the summer months to encourage talent at this level:

28/29 March

Cold Water Classic (Open and Longboard)

Prize for highest scoring U18/furthest into the comp U18. 

23/24/25th May Watersplash

Channel Island Championships

6/7 June 

Summer Solstice Surf Session (Open and Longboard)

Prize for highest scoring U18/furthest into the comp U18. 

20 June WATERSPLASH

Breda Muratti

July/August/September 

Junior Series – COMPRISES 3 COMPETITIONS  (U14, U16, U18 divisions (girls too)

Points given in each division for 1st to 4th

Overall winner is one with highest points tally after Comp No 3.

Late September (perhaps 19/20 or 26/27) 

Island Champs 2015 (All divisions)

End of November/Early December 

Presentation evening

Dinner/dance with prize giving at the same time

None of this is fixed in stone but hopefully after the EGM we can get enough people in the relevant roles to help make them a reality and create more opportunities for local surfers to compete and socialise. We want to hear your thoughts and we need your help. So please come along on to the EGM on February 19th and help progress your surf club.

Mash and Mike shaping up

By General, Local No Comments

There’s not real purpose to this post, we just thought it was interesting to see Mash and Mike going through part of the shaping process to create another VEPO masterpiece. We hope to have a slightly more ordered and informative page on how to shape from start to finish in the future but for now just enjoy watching two guys who really know and love what they do get on with the job. If you want to get in touch with the guys at Vepo to order a new shape or get any awkward-to-fix dings sorted out you can contact them via their Facebook page.

UniSURFITY

By General, Travel No Comments

Many of you will know Jez Browning and his brother Nathan and father Richard, all cornerstones of the Guernsey surfing community. Jez moved to Portugal many years ago where he has worked as a surf coach before focusing on surf related boot camps, honing other surfers skills in waves of consequence. The first Bootcamp was back in 2009. The formula worked and since then they have been in great demand and have gone from strength to strength. Due to their success Jez was given the accolade of ASI level 4 Master surf coach. This is the highest surfing recognition you can get in the industry to date with only 6 others in the world that hold it. He also helps train and assess budding surf instructors.

Jez is always keen to get Guernsey surfers on his trips and with the Peniche in Portugal and then the Maldives coming up soon you’re guaranteed to get great waves and great advice. So if you’re keen to improve your surfing or just get some of the best waves of your life check out the newsletter or visit the UniSURFITY website

Farewell Mr Warry

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On a cold and blustery November morning The Guernsey surfing community paid homage to one of the Islands finest and most inspirational surfers, Bob Warry, who sadly passed away recently. Both as a surfer and as a shaper Bob was one of the Pioneers of surfing not only in Guernsey but also the UK. The turnout for Bob’s memorial paddle out was phenomenal and a true testament to his influence on our surfing community. Along with Bob’s wife Phyllis surfers of all ages attended and Bob’s son Phil lead the procession out to lineup at Vazon to say few words and give thanks for this amazing man who paved the way for so many surfers after him.

We will post more about Bob’s inspirational surfing story in a coming feature which will touch on both his incredible talent as a surfer and how, along with Barry Hughes he formed Blade Surfboards.

GSC Fantasy Surfer 2014

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As another year on the World Tour draws to a close the race for the coveted crown of Guernsey Fantasy Surfer Champ is coming down to the line. Chez leads the way with Vepo Surfboards and Pierre728 chasing hard on his heals. If you weren’t in the running this year why not sign up for the 2014 season. Just search for Guernsey Surf Club in the private club section after registering athttp://fantasy.surfermag.com/.