Surf’s up! Participation Regimes and Motivations for Surfing in Wales Jon Anderson Katie Jones June 2008
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- 2.4 Benefits of surf clubs
- Case study: Encouraging female surfers
- Case study: Including young people
- 2.5 Funding for surf clubs
2. Surf clubs in WalesBy way of exploring formal surfing practices in Wales, this chapter focuses on the role of surf clubs in encouraging and sustaining participation in surfing. The chapter begins by highlighting some of the issues experienced whilst attempting to make contact with surf clubs, it then moves on to explore the roles of the British Surfing Association and Welsh Surfing Federation in relation to clubs and their memberships. The chapter provides an overview of the benefits of surf clubs for local surfers, and finally considers different sources of funding that are available for clubs. The findings in this chapter are based on interviews with representatives from six surf clubs in Wales. 2.1 Contacting surf clubs Through Internet and book searches, 16 surf clubs were identified in Wales. However establishing contact with all of these clubs proved problematic. Several of the clubs that were contacted had either disbanded or were relatively inactive at the time of the research. Similarly, many contact details were out of date or it was not possible to establish contact with club representatives during the three week fieldwork timetable. These issues are summarised in Figure 2.1 below. Thus the initial finding of this research is that it appears the life cycle of a surf club tends to go through ‘peaks and troughs’, or phases of (in)activity. The reasons for this were explored during the interviews and many interviewees revealed that running/administrating a surf club requires a degree of time and effort which is not always sustainable with other work/life commitments. As the president of one currently inactive surf club states: “In reality it is that you rely on a core of individuals to do all the work. And once you attract a decent membership our situation is usually one where sort of 2 people carry the load really and the two of us who have been most involved over the number of years are left committed to other things currently you know. So that’s just the way it goes you know, surf clubs ebb and flow, surfers are free spirits, you can’t pin them down you know.” (South Wales surf club) As a consequence perhaps of the time and skills required, allied to the ‘free spirit’ perception of surfing, there appears to be only a small number of durable surf clubs across Wales. From those clubs that were interviewed there was a distinction between clubs that had been running for several decades, having members that had ‘grown up’ with the club, and relatively new clubs that had established themselves using the Internet and resources such as Facebook. It is open to question the longevity of these latter clubs. However those surf clubs that were active at the time of the research were vibrant and working well to encourage surfing in their local areas. These surf clubs are usually associated with a surf school in the area or key and committed local surfers. These clubs have regular meetings, a committee structure, their own bank accounts and a club constitution. It was difficult to obtain precise information about participation levels given that some clubs had a large proportion of inactive members, echoing perhaps the peak and trough nature of clubs themselves.
Figure 2.1 Surf clubs in Wales 2.2 British Surfing Association surf club affiliation The British Surfing Association (BSA) is the governing body for surfing across Great Britain and the Channel Isles. According to the BSA, ‘surf clubs provide surfing communities with a focal point and, more widely, structured growth within the sport’ (BSA website, accessed June 2008). It is not a requirement that all surf clubs in Wales have to be affiliated to the BSA; however, according to the BSA the following clubs have up to date affiliation to the organisation:
[Source: BSA website, accessed June 2008) The BSA’s Surf Club Affiliation Scheme was set up to encourage the formation of a club network throughout Britain. Club affiliation with the BSA provides a number of benefits for local surf clubs, including:
In addition, on its website the BSA provide information documents about ‘How to form a surf club’, which details: the first steps; recruitment of members; the club constitution and set of rules; the role of officers and the club management committee – president, vice president, chairman, secretary, treasurer; club meetings and procedures; and the management of committee meetings. (See Appendix V) 2.3 The Welsh Surfing Federation The Welsh Surfing Federation (WSF) is also affiliated to the BSA. Its function is to promote surfing in Wales through the provision of training and surf competitions. A new secretary was appointed in October 2007, who is currently in the process of updating WSF policies and procedures. The WSF has approximately 180 members from across Wales and have recently provided training for coaches and are hoping to set up some judging courses in the near future. The WSF are responsible for the Welsh Nationals Surfing Competition, held at Freshwater West in May 2008, and have been involved in other competitions in South Wales including the Ripcurl Grom Search, Welsh Universities Contest and Interclubs competitions. 2.4 Benefits of surf clubsAs part of understanding formal surfing practices in Wales, the project explored the benefits that surf clubs provide for surfers in local areas. In order to do this, interviews were undertaken with surf club representatives and the opinions of surfers themselves was obtained through the web-based questionnaire. Out of the 134 questionnaire respondents, 44.8% thought surf clubs important in encouraging and supporting participation in surfing activities. 22.4% thought they were not important, and 32.8% did not provide an answer. Through interrogating the questionnaire data further, it was found that only 20.9% (n=28) of respondents were members of a surf club. From these 28 respondents, 26 lived in Wales, and their membership was shared between clubs in West Wales (n=14) and South Wales (n=12). As this chapter has demonstrated so far, this geographical location is perhaps unsurprising given the relatively low number of active surf clubs in Wales, and the concentration of clubs in West Wales and South Wales. Amongst the 28 respondents who were members of surf clubs, 82.2% thought them important in encouraging and supporting participation in surfing in Wales, compared with just 14.3% who thought they were not very important (1 respondent did not answer). Respondents who identified themselves as members of a surf club were then asked to tick the benefits their club provided for them. In order of popularity, the most significant benefits are as follows:
The most important benefits surf club members receive from their club relate to insurance (78.6%), which as we have seen above is obtained through the BSA, and social links (75%), with each of these being selected by a high percentage of respondents. Far fewer respondents selected the next most popular benefit of training, just 35.7%. The least popular benefit was the club house, with just 10.7% of club members selecting this option, although as interviews with surf clubs revealed, few actually have their own premises and instead hold meetings in local public houses. In addition to the ‘tick box’ question, respondents were also encouraged to provide more detailed answers about the benefits surf clubs provide for their members and local surfing community. The social links apparent within clubs were particularly emphasised by some respondents: “[The surf club] provides a friendly atmosphere and positive competition between members. It brings surfers in any one area together.” “Surf clubs provide a safe progressive atmosphere in learning to surf and furthering performances. Good social point. Also useful to encourage new surfers” Additional benefits highlighted by some participants include engaging young people (grommets) in surfing, organising competitions and developing local surfers: “Youngsters should be encouraged to participate in the surf clubs, that way they can learn the do and don'ts of the ocean with others of a similar level.” “Competitions organised through clubs are good for bringing people together and pushing the standards up.” “The NGB [National Governing Body for Wales i.e. Welsh Surfing Federation (WSF)] for Wales is very poor to non-existent and it is the clubs such as above that have developed the current top Welsh and British surfers with the help of local lifeguard clubs and the Gower bays” These findings were reinforced through interviews with surf club representatives1, who described how clubs benefited members and local surfing communities through:
Despite many of the positive comments about surf clubs and their role in encouraging and sustaining participation in surfing in local communities, not all respondents felt surf clubs to be important. Indeed, some felt such an organised, formal set up contradicted with the ‘free spirit’ nature of surfing, as the following qualitative responses indicate: “Clubs and organisations are counter-intuitive to the very concept of surfing. It's an attempt to exert control and organisation over something which by its very nature is unpredictable & removed from the constraints of an ever increasingly restrictive and risk-averse society.” “Organisations contradict the free spirit of surfing.” These examples emphasise a polarisation in opinion surrounding surf clubs, for this reason it is important that this report has focussed on both organised participation in surfing through surf clubs and surf schools, as well as more informal surfing practices undertaken by surfers themselves. Surf clubs can be particularly useful as broadening access as the following case studies outline. Case study: Encouraging female surfers“I was driving home past Rest Bay. There was a reasonable swell and a few lads were still in the water. Then I saw a group of girls walking up from the beach, in wetsuits carrying boards. That was a pretty rare sight in my day. But that’s a good thing. It’s a great thing for more people, especially women, to be getting into the sport. That’s a change for the better” (Huw ‘Herbie’ John in Wade 2007: 219) Surfing has traditionally been a male dominated sport, however over recent years more females have begun to take up surfing. By means of encouraging more females to take part, and supporting their participation and development, a surf club in South Wales organises ‘female only’ surf sessions, where girls can turn up and receive support and encouragement from each other in a non-intimidating environment, as described by a committee member at the club: “If there’s new girls that come to club night then you’ve got to be quite brave to come along, quite often they do on their own … but we do girl’s training days, or we’ll go for a surf together on the weekend or something like that” (Surf Club, South Wales) Case study: Including young peopleOne surf club, established in the 1970s attributes its success to the emphasis it places on encouraging young people in the local area to take up surfing. Young surfers, or ‘grommets’, play a fundamental role in the growth and succession of the club between generations. The surf club representative we spoke to had been a member for 20 years, since first joining the club as a grom at the age of 12. In addition to him, there are several other members at the club who had been there for the 20 years previous. The club’s constitution is based on: “… helping the youngsters in the area get into surfing and get good at surfing” The club specialised in running special training sessions and competitions for grommets, and had recently hosted the Rip Curl Grom Search competition, aimed at uncovering the surfing champions of the future. 2.5 Funding for surf clubsThe surf clubs that reported having relatively few overheads nevertheless required some form of financial backing to organise their activities. These activities included subsidised surfing trips, entrance to surfing competitions, maintaining and buying equipment, and other social events. In the main, clubs rely on membership subscriptions to fulfil this role, which are usually between £10 and £20 per person, per year, made as a one off payment. These figures were confirmed by questionnaire respondents who reported paying between £10 and £20 per year, although one respondent reports paying £30. From the 28 respondents who were members of a club, 26 of them felt that their subscriptions were good value for money. If the clubs are affiliated to the BSA, a percentage of each member’s subscription is given to the BSA so the member can receive surfing insurance. However, for one club in particular, subscription rates were a sensitive issue and they faced a tension between increasing subscriptions to create more finances for the club and putting off members through prohibitive costs: “As a club we would like to put on events and training but it is difficult when we are all in full time employment and few people can afford to join if we raise the prices.” (Surf Club, South Wales) As an alternative to increasing membership subscriptions, but in order to raise additional funds, several clubs ran fundraising events such as fancy dress competitions or surfing contests. Other clubs had managed to secure sponsorship from private companies and local businesses, both in terms of direct financial contributions and also donations of equipment: “Most of the help for surfing comes from private companies sponsoring things. They're really good the private companies … everyone gets free clothes and loads of good prizes [for competitions] but that's the corporate side of things. It’s more difficult to get money from the Sports Council. We’ve given up on that because we’re thinking there's more money from the corporate and they’re not asking for all this paperwork that someone’s got to do in their free time.” (Surf Club Representative, South Wales) As the above quotation highlights, the administrative tasks associated with applying for funding from non-corporate sources and public bodies is problematic due to the lack of availability and a perceived bureaucratic burden. In addition, another surf club representative identified a geographical variation to funding availability. He perceived there to be greater support for surfing from both public and corporate bodies in South Wales, when compared to the north of the country or mid Wales where he was located: “I think for Welsh surfing on the whole, if they want to progress, like if I was younger and wanted to compete it would be good to have funding for more contests or more sponsorship, because there is not really… I know like around the cities in Cardiff and Swansea you can get a lot of sponsorship, but the standard round here is quite high as well and you don’t really, there is no real route for them to get for us to get anywhere, sort of thing- I don’t know. I am trying to think like Quicksilver and Billabong used to do quite a lot of sponsorship in south Wales, but not really up this way so things like that would probably be quite good to support the younger guys coming through” (Surf Club representative, Mid Wales) This may contribute to the strength of surfing and surf clubs in South Wales in particular when compared to North Wales. The importance of funding in broadening access and making surfing available to the young was made by another respondent: “As a youngster I received a lot of guidance and support from older members of the surf club Gower Bays, we entered a number of Interclub competitions, some costs were subsidised by the club, but still even though we had paid for membership, we still had to pay towards the entry fees. It would be great if competitions and clubs received more funding and were given access to sports training facilities, or equipment such as video cameras for coaching. So everyone who wanted to be involved could be.” This chapter has focussed on formal surfing participation regimes through exploring the role of surf clubs in encouraging and sustaining participation. One finding from the research is that it appears the life of a surf club tends to evolve through ‘peaks and troughs’ or phases of (in)activity, mainly due to the time-consuming administrative and organisational skills required. However, several currently vibrant and active clubs were found across Wales. The chapter focussed on the role of the BSA, the governing body for surfing across Great Britain and the Channel Isles, in particular the support it provides to affiliated surf clubs such as insurance, discounted membership for individuals wanting to compete and general administrative support. At the regional level, the WSF is responsible for promoting surfing in Wales through the provision of coaching training and organisation of surfing competitions amongst clubs. The research revealed the most significant benefits surf clubs provide for their members include insurance (through affiliation to the BSA) and social links. Interviews with surf clubs revealed that they have relatively few overheads but still require some finances to organise and subsidise activities such as trips, competitions, equipment and social events. Clubs mainly rely on membership subscriptions, although some run their own fund raising activities or had managed to secure funding from local/private companies. It was suggested that limited funding is available from non-corporate sources, however this is often perceived to be overly bureaucratic. Continuing our investigation into formal surfing practices, the next chapter looks at the role of surf schools in Wales. 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