Matty Snelling, ace surf coach and Saturday Surf Club star has launched his new website featuring his photographic work. There’s lots to admire including landscapes, seascapes, surf photography and weddings. Check it out here .
And as a bonus, here are some of his shots from the end-of-season comp last year to remind us what our club is about.Enjoy!
Emma Jarvis secured a fundraising spot in Tesco St. Ives entrance last Thursday, and our junior surf club stepped up to persuade the public to open their purses on behalf of saints boardriders. A good number of children and parents offered their time in one hour spells to bring the story of our clubhouse construction to the town, and they succeeded in raising several hundred pounds toward the project. Pictured below are just some of those campaigners – my apologies to those who aren’t featured here because everyone’s input was valuable on the day! Many thanks to those who helped, and to those who weren’t able to help on the day, keep an eye out for our next fundraiser and be prepared to offer your services there.
Our heartfelt thanks particularly to Tesco St. Ives for the opportunity to campaign and raise our profile with their customers!
Winter brings us a little more downtime as far as saints boardriders goes, so here are a couple of videos featuring our leading competitors on the British scene. Both were shot at the Thurso Surf Festival at the end of last season by Mr. B Productions. The first covers the whole event in all divisions and offers a measure of what it takes to surf at the highest level on the national scene. The second features our own Jayce Robinson finding some nuggets in his free-surfing sessions away from the comp site.
Fill your cup with your favourite hot drink, grab a packet of biscuits, click on the image and enjoy!
Our thanks to Mr. B Productions, the UK Pro Surf Tour and Vimeo for these gems.
With the Saturday Kids Club wrapped up for the season, our attention now turns to the small matter of raising funds towards the building of the clubhouse. The first initiative of the winter was an End-Of-Season party at The Balcony on 12th November. We were honoured to have the Sandy Acre Seven deliver some spanking dance tunes which had the floor filled and the place rocking from their opening number to the very end of their set!
There was a great turnout from the Saturday morning kids and their parents, and fine support from the wider community, helping to fill the Balcony as well as filling our collection boxes and the raffle ticket sales.
Harris and some Nemos
Shark Alert!
After the band had finished and the kids ( and some of we older hands) had disappeared towards our beds, the fun continued long beyond midnight as the town’s regular Saturday night revellers came to join the party. A great night was had by all, and the club coffers were swelled by over £2000 in the process!
Thanks to The Sandy Acre Seven for bringing their special party vibe, thanks to The Balcony Bar and St Austell Brewery for the hospitality.
Further thanks are extended to to all the people who gave us raffle prizes; Porthminster Restaurant, The Fire House, Tregenna Castle, The Garrack, Howdens, R&J Supplies, Michelle Footman, Holly Kearey, Alder, Good Folks Barbers, and Burdett Wines.
Also thanks to our doormen Emma and Rebecca (no one would mess with them) and all the other guys and girls who helped on the night. And finally thanks to everyone who came and gave generously. We have a long way to go on the fundraising front, so please watch out for our next extravaganza and be ready to come and help us realise our dream!
In this second part of the report we’ll see the roll call of those juniors who earned their trophy by their season’s effort. It is difficult to persuade the coaches to make these choices as many of their charges have brought dedication and determination to the sessions, but we hope that those who didn’t collect a prize this time will come back next season with renewed enthusiasm and feel that a prize is within reach this time!
Here are this season’s choices:
Nemos
Surfer of the summer, Amber Kearey
Most committed surfer, Blossom Burdett
Most improved surfer, Milo Kirk-Mackrell
Dorys
Surfer of the summer, Ravi Simmons
Most committed surfer, Sydney and Cody Warner
Most improved surfer, Benjamin Olney
Tunas
Surfer of the summer, Kaitlyn Borghi
Most committed surfer, Milly-Rose Nichols
Most improved surfer, Evie Stattkus
Sea Bass
Surfer of the summer, Alexander Hosking
Most committed surfer, Thai Merrill
Most improved surfer, Bradley Beach
Seals
Surfer of the summer, Chanaelle Aberos
Most committed surfer, Kieran Stattkus
Most improved surfer, Kaya Stattkus
Of course, there’s a real sense that every child who has enjoyed her surfing and is keenly anticipating the next session is a winner. Finding a passion for a sport is a great feeling, and I hope we are introducing more than a few of our juniors to a lifelong association with surfing.
I’ll conclude by thanking those whose help and support made the day go so smoothly: St. Ives Surf School, RNLI Lifeguards, Jabula Tents, Porthmeor Beach Services, Carl and the Take-away crew and our own members who judged, coached and marshalled the event. Jayce Robinson came down to present the trophies – and it’s always a great inspiration to the kids to spend time with our local pros!
More pics!
Jabula came and pitched a fine big tent, St. Ives Surf School unpacked a box of shining trophies, and the new contest vests got their first airing as the final day of our 2016 season arrived.
Prizes all!
The running order was boys heats to the completion of their semis, then junior groups in the water with coaches and helpers for their last session and assessments, followed by girls final and then the boys final. The early rounds were keenly contested in chunky surf at the West end of the beach, watched by an enthusiastic crowd!
Judges and spectators find a good viewing spot.
Once the semis were completed the group sessions got underway and we saw some confident surfing from some very junior surfers. Their delight in showing their skills was great to see! As they got out of their wetsuits and dried off, we had a great display of fast food catering from Carl at Porthmeor Central takeaway as boxes of hot food and ice lollies arrived to tame any hunger pangs the surfing had prompted.
Mmmm! Just the job.
Meanwhile, the girls finalists battled it out, and then the boys had their shot at glory. The results were saved for the presentation and came in reverse order as follows:
Girls final
Fourth; Eleanor Hewlett
Third; Kaitlyn Borghi
Second; Tara Langley
And the winner was Bridgit Wells.
Well done to all our finalists and congratulations Bridgit!
Boys final
Fourth; Dev Parsons
Third; Bailey Rogers
Second; Matthew Burrell
And the winner was Taylor Bairds
A cracking final with Taylor finding the win this year after several second places in recent years!
Finalists; Taylor, Dev, Bailey, Matt, Kaitlyn, Eleanor, Tara and Bridget
Part Two of the contest day report to follow with a full round-up of prize winners and more pics as available. Meanwhile here’s a taster of the awards ceremony. Back soon!
Our youngest winners!
There were some notable absentees from our final Saturday session of the season. Saints boardriders decided to dip it’s toes in the waters of competitive surfing and entered a team into the 2016 edition of the Interclubs competition, held at Fistral Beach Newquay over the weekend.
Our Junior team was Joshua Martindale, Taylor Bairds, Dev Parsons and Harry de Roth.
Our Open team was Steve Hewlett, Simon Trebilcock, Harry de Roth, Joshua Martindale and Taylor Bairds.
We did not have a ladies team, something to aim for next year!
The junior team was a maximum of 4 surfers, with the mens open being a minimum of 4 and maximum of 6. Each surfer would surf 1 heat per day in each division entered.
The heats were in a 4 man format with first place scoring 10 points, second place scoring 8 points, 3rd place scoring 6 points and 4th place scoring 4 points. The total of all scores was then added up with the highest scoring team winning.
Day 1 saw a good size swell running with fairly strong NW Wind making tricky conditions. The Juniors took to the water first with Josh up in the first heat against some seasoned competitors to take 4th place, followed by Taylor for another 4th, then it was Harry to get our first 1st place of the day, Dev then surfed well to get a 3rd.
Taylor opened up for us in the mens to get a well earned 2nd, Steve Hewlett a 3rd, Josh a 4th, Simon a 3rd and Harry another 1st!
Day 2 was a lot smaller in the waist to chest high region with light onshores. Juniors were first in the water with what was probably the weakest conditions of the day on a dropping tide. Results were Taylor & Dev 4th, Josh a 3rd and Harry a 1st!
The mens open was on after lunch at low tide and a slightly increased swell. Harry and Simon were both up first and both got 1st’s, Steve got a 2nd, Josh 4th and Taylor 3rd.
Overall we came mid placed amongst the other clubs. Newquay A were the strongest and won the Open and the overall competition, made up of points in all divisions.
All the members of our team put in great performances and had a great weekend. It gave some of us our first ever taste of national competition surfing. We are looking forward to building on this and getting more members involved next year!
There comes a time when you have to let go. Our young surfer in the header picture has reached that point, and, indeed, so have the rest of the 2016 cohort of saints boardriders. Saturday was our last session of the season with only the grand finale on Sunday 25th to come. There will be group sessions for junior surfers, and a comp under standard judging rules for the Dolphins and Sharks. Here’s hoping for a fine day and great surf as we say goodbye to our 2016 sessions!
In the meantime here’s a gallery of pictures from Saturday.
Saturday 27th August brought us a small wave – we might call it Nemo-friendly! It served our mini groms very well, and they had a particularly fun session. Tandem rides and tricks were much in evidence. As usual, there were also a few steeper, more testing waves for the older surfers, so all-in-all, a fine day was had by everyone!
As we come to the end of our rash of postponements due to Saturday morning high tides, we are now anticipating another threat to our weekend session in the form of a predicted huge swell for the weekend! While we see how that plays out let us count our blessings that the sessions we have been able to run so far have all offered pretty decent conditions. Last Saturday was just such a case, and while the National Nippers Surf Lifesaving competition in Exmouth cost us a great numbers of absences, there were still 75 surfers took to the water.
I felt I detected some surfers’ attentions were beginning to focus on the end-of-season competition as there were several examples of trick rides on display as well as some traditional polished surfing to admire. The gallery below shows some of the action. Let’s see how that weekend forecast pans out!
