WORDS WITH WINNY – SURF SCHOOL // JANUARY

Published on 20/01/2022

G’day Surf Educators and Frothers

Hope you all had a great festive season, managed to stay covid free and getting plenty of lessons in over the summer months, the past 2 years have been tough going, fingers crossed 2022 is more user friendly for all of us.

Just a bit of house keeping, if you haven’t finalised you or your coaching accreditations

Should you be having any problems navigating the Go system, give Adam Seminara a call.

Semo is the Go Guru, a veritable Houdini, a quick chat with him will have you sorted.

Spotlight – Rusty Miller

Occasionally we shine the spotlight on some of our surf school operators, always good to be able to check out there part of the world and how they are operating.

Thought we would take a trip down memory lane, back to the late 1960’s, when there was an influx of US surfers to our shores, for some it was a transient experience, for some it became their new home and a life changing experience.

Bob Cooper the Cool Californian,  fell in love with the Coffs region and started plying his trade there as a surfer shaper.

The 1965 US National Champion, Rusty Miller, came under the spell of Byron Bay.

This is when Byron was truly cool, the Timperley’s had the BP Garage on the corner in town, The Great Northern was the main pub, and surfing Wategos was a trek, plenty would like to turn the clock back, to the golden days in the Bay.

1971 saw the release of what I believe is the most influential surf movie of all time, Morning of the Earth, a movie that influenced a whole generation of Aussie surfers and opened Bali up to the world, anyone lucky enough to experience Bali in the 70’s got to see the Island of the Gods.

 The sound track from that movie should be in everyone’s collection, or at least on your play list,  music that will live forever:-

G Wayne Thomas, John J Francis, Taman Shud and Brian Cadd.

The cover of this iconic album features two surfers walking across the reef to surf Uluwatu for the first time, Steve Cooney and Rusty Miller, who would forever be entrenched in surfing folklore, thanks to Alby Falzon.

Rusty has been running learn to surf in Byron through Surfing Australia / Surfing NSW since inception and continues to pass on his wealth of ocean knowledge and surfing protocol to this day.

Check out this clip, its pretty cool.

Watch Rusty Miller and Steve Cooney on ‘The Morning of the Earth’

Keeping Covid Safe

As we are deep in the Pandemic heres a reminder of some tip of reducing the risk of Covid-19

Reducing the risk of COVID-19 infection

You can reduce the risk of infection from COVID-19 through physical distancing.

Along with vaccinationwearing a mask and good personal hygiene, physical distancing can help keep us all safe and protect vulnerable people in our community.

To keep yourself and others safe

  • get vaccinated
  • wear a mask
  • wash your hands often and thoroughly with soap and water or an alcohol-based hand sanitiser
  • avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth with unwashed hands
  • keep a distance of 1.5m between yourself and other people
  • do not shake hands, hug or kiss as a greeting
  • if possible, use debit and credit cards instead of cash and make use of online and self-serve transactions.

It’s particularly important to take these precautions when visiting vulnerable people, such as those in aged care facilities or hospitals, infants, or people with compromised immune systems.

If you do have COVID-19 symptomsget tested and stay at home

Find out more about how you can protect yourself and others.

NSW Health strongly recommends that you carry a clean face mask with you and wear it if you are unable to maintain 1.5m of physical distance from others.

Learn more about when to wear a face mask.

“Remember – the worst day surfing – beats the best day working”. Cheers

Winny

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