Our odyssey begins all the way back in 2007, December 16th to be precise, with the First Aid carnival. Teams made great use of the playground near the clubhouse performing various scenarios in different age groups. In the U/15.s Brooke Carr/Natasha Swain won Gold and Gaby Remy/Natalie Allan won Silver. In the U/17.s Gold went to Lauren Swain/ Jess Moyes, Bronze to Ashleigh Swain/Jess Allan, 4th to Bryce Sainty/Rebecca Allan and Kayla Hannell/Elise Cansdale got 5th.

Next cab off the rank was Champion Lifesaver on 13/01/08, with Gold medal performances from Richard Grimmond in the Opens, Lauren Swain in the U/17.s, Natasha Swain and Matt Hurst in the U/15.s, Silvers went to Ashleigh Swain, Bryce Sainty, Brooke Carr and Keelan Bridge. Bronzes went to Shelley Smith, Jess Moyes and Bryce Sainty (Open Mens). What an excellent effort. 02/02/08 was a very busy day, with the last of the lifesaving events, the boats, the lifesaver relay and a Bronze/SRC exam all scheduled on the one morning. Outstanding results were achieved by all, including the exam candidates who all passed - woohoo!!

Patrol Competition is a multi discipline event made up of five separate components (surf race, rescue relay, theory paper, resuscitation and scenario) and wouldn.t you know it; another carnival, another Gold. The U/17 team (Jessica Moyes, Ashleigh Swain, Lauren Swain and Natasha Swain) produced a dominant display in every facet of the competition and thoroughly deserved their victory. The open team (Jessica Allan, Mark Davis, Katie Dixon, Richard Grimmond, Bryce Sainty and Nij Fitzgibbon) didn.t fare as well, having to settle for Silver against arch rivals Umina. Thus with the conclusion of the lifesaving events OB sat atop the club championship, in front of Umina with Terrigal a distant 3rd.

Boats kicked off first with the .Thunder. (John Young, Jim Manning, Blake Cansdale, Chris Young and Dean Simonson) winning gold in the U/23.s and getting pipped on the line in the Open championship by Avoca – the Australian champions. Well done fellas!! The .Carnage. crew (Mark Van Aalderen, Glen Moffitt, James Consertino, Tyson Davis and Ryan White) got Silver in the U/23.s and made the Open final. Great performances were also put in by the .Batchicks. (Dave Miller, Cassie Blok, Tegan Brocklehurst, Flick Bell and Ashleigh Brady) in the U/23 women and the .Octane. (Scott Hannell, Nick Sainty, Kirk Thompson-Sparrow, Tim Ryan and Dean Brocklehurst) in the U/19 mens; but unfortunately they finished out of the medals.

The lifesaver relay is an event designed to test the overall strength of a club across five different disciplines. In the boat leg the Thunder chaps led off to our valiant swimmer Lizzie Elbra, followed by Scott Riley on the board, Scott Harvey on the ski and Tyson Davis as the sprinter. Problems with the course meant we finished 5th place but everyone found a reason to work their butts off and never stopped trying.

09/02/08 saw the Masters arrive at OB. A small team, dominated by Franz .Fritz. Van Aalderen and Ian (Bronson) Lindsay, flew the flag high. Scott (Riles) Riley, Jason (Tuck) Tucker and Alison (Nip) Tucker, Donna (Hanno) Hannell and Eric (Grizzly Adams) Daniel all competed with aplomb.

10/02/08 saw the traditional event skick off another medal spree. Golds went to the Open 5 Man R&R (Connor Grimmond, Nij Fitzgibbon, Rob Gassman, Richard Grimmond and Graham Tangye) the Open 5 Women (Katie Dixon, Shelley Smith, Lizzie Elbra, Alison Pope-Moore and Bronwen Scott) and the girls (plus Jess Allan) in the Open 6. Shelley also got 2nd in the Open Belt race. The bigget upset of the day came down to the blue ribbon event, the Open Marchpast. Two OB teams took to the sand, with the Rebels dreadfully unlucky to get 2nd on a count back and the .Deadbeats. only a point behind in 3rd.

16/02/08 saw the Seniors Branch carnival. Alas, not as good a showing as we would have liked, but we got some good results in the beach events and the 2km run.

So in the final wash up the club championship points score shows we came 4th behind the big three (Terrigal, Avoca and MacMasters) and I really think we punched above our weight. I would like to thank all the competitors, especially the ones who combined competition and patrol commitments. A big shout out must go to Bernie O'Keefe’s patrol who got 95% in a branch marking during the junior carnival. It goes to show that our core business does not have to be neglected at the expense of competition.

Regards,

Nij Fitzgibbon,
Director of Competition

The link below is to the circular explaining the changes