Firstly 16 of our juniors, eight boys and eight girls, made their way up to Queensland for the annual Junior Boys Kirra Teams Challenge and Women’s Kirra Teams Challenge.

The three-day event is the biggest of its kind in the world with 24 club teams from all over Australia competing. It’s always a great long weekend away for our members to develop their surfing, learn how to compete outside the club environment and build team camaraderie. Well done to all our team that attended and thank you for putting in their best efforts.

On September 28th was the event we had all been waiting for, the Scarborough Boardriders 40th Celebration at Headlands Hotel Austinmer Beach.

Around 120 guests ascended up to the stunning Ocean View Function Room with panoramic views of the coast North, East and South. A busy small committee worked tirelessly all year to set up loads of old memorabilia, club trophies won over the years, a slide show, guest speakers from the clubs past and commissioned a special piece of artwork to commemorate the occasion.

On the night Club President Christian De Clouett ran through the clubs history from humble beginnings with founder Bettina Huckle seeing an opportunity to run a few events with the Scarborough surfing crew. John Skipp, founder of Skipp Surfboards was present and spoke about his involvement providing prizes for the competitions and sponsoring a lot of the surfers at the time.

We then had Nick McLaren interview a panel of ex-presidents (Casey Van Leu, Geoff Iddles, and Ray Smith) along with previous Girls Coordinator Raylee Golding. Then a vibrant live auction was run by Ian Pepper, Dave Hyslop and Dylan Pearse utilising the new artwork commissioned for the night. And to finish some dancing to covers band Tongue and Groove. All up a very memorable and fitting night that we all won’t forget anytime soon.

Finally, a make-up pointscore was held on Sunday, 20 October at Coalcliff Beach in a building south swell. It was challenging for the juniors early on but those that braved the conditions did well, in particular negotiating the notorious Coalcliff shore dump. The afternoon saw the swell peak and the Open Women and Men take on the larger waves well offshore.

Well done to our Open champs Mannix Squires winning on a count back with equal scores to Joshua Pepper and Zhalia Short narrowly edging out Talina Wilson.

Reminder – dates for your diary

• Last pointscore for the year – Sunday, November 3.
• Presentation night – Saturday, November 23 at Wombarra Bowling Club.