For most of Australia, the main summer season is now behind us, and although some of the more popular beaches continue to provide lifeguards, most of the beaches are back to weekend patrols. In contrast, Northern Australia is gearing up for the start of their season in Northern WA, Northern Territory and Northern Queensland.

Lifeguards across Australia have worked tirelessly to keep our beaches safe all summer, lifeguard numbers have increased, and supervised beaches have grown. Unfortunately, the main holiday period has still seen a number of drowning deaths. In most cases these drownings have occurred on unsupervised beaches, or away from supervised areas. There is still much work to be done in reducing the drowning toll, and if we are to reach the Australian Water Safety Council goal of a 50% reduction in drownings by 2020 – then we have a lot of work to do.

LIFEGUARD, the Lifeguard Network's industry newsletter, is being printed as we speak and will be delivered to 1000+ network members and copies delievered to all lifeguard services around the country over the next few days. Never before has a lifeguard industry communication tool reached so many people, and this 3rd issue is a BUMPER EDITION - 16 pages of industry news and information from all over the country.

In this eNews there's a taste of what's in the LIFEGUARD newsletter, as well as some extra news and articles that couldn't make it. If you can't wait for the hardcopy of the newsletter to arrive, you can go to the network website and download a PDF version here (it's in the 'news' section).

Calling for content for LIFEGUARD Newsletter Issue 4
The next edition of LIFEGUARD, and last for the 2009/10 season, is due out in April, so if you’ve been holding back on sending something in, get your contribution in to admin@lifeguards.com.au soon.

Don’t forget to get onto the network website – www.lifeguardnetwork.com.au – register, and enjoy instant access to a whole heap of interactive industry stuff including news, events and discussion forums. It’s now even easier to register, so get on and check it out!

LIFEGUARD Newsletter sneak peak

Amongst other challenges facing local councils, the key to an excellent lifeguard service is your recruitment. Having competent, well trained lifeguards equips you with the most important resource.

These people must possess a number of skills which are not common amongst the average person on the street. Not only must they have excellent water skills they need to excel in areas such as customer service, jet ski operation, ATV/Rhino operation, computer skills, beach management, team work, medical treatment and communication...

In another example of the Sutherland Shire Council Lifeguard Service’s ‘Working Together Attitude’ (see LIFEGUARD Issue 2), a lifesaver/lifeguard exchange was recently held during the school holidays between the Shire’s Lifeguards and junior lifesavers from the local surf clubs.

The concept was simple, develop a program that would give junior lifesavers a chance to experience lifesaving from a lifeguard perspective, and at the same time continue to build closer relationships between surf clubs and the council lifeguards...

Our ‘salty old dog’ and former professional lifeguard is back with his thoughts on the current standard of lifeguard talent – challenging Lifesaver Vs Surfer and Nature Vs Nurture, and perhaps proposing more questions than answers.

I recently watched a professional lifeguard at a metropolitan beach set up a swimming area with a massive rip running straight through the middle. Seeing this made me wonder about the quality of lifeguards getting employed these days...

Newcastle 'legend' lifeguard clocks out after 37 years
Newcastle professional lifeguard Noel Burns has recently hung up his lifeguard uniform after 37 years on the job. A committed, tireless and valued member of the team he will be a great loss to the lifeguard service, but not to lifesaving as he continues to provide valuable experience through his home lifesaving club Stockton...

With the main summer season starting to wrap up, many seasonal lifeguards will be looking at other opportunities available to them around the world. There’s nothing better than travelling the world, experiencing different cultures and learning or sharing knowledge between lifeguard services. You could even make lifeguarding a year round job if you plan it right! We’ve compiled a summary of the main international lifeguard opportunities to give you an idea of what’s out there...

In the previous edition of LIFEGUARD we brought you a sneak peak and summary of the three main public safety campaigns that were being developed by Surf Life Saving. These three campaigns have been developed to combat trends identified in the 2008 National Coastal Safety Report. In this edition we can take a closer look at the campaigns: Rock Fishing Safety, Rip Currents, Foreign Beach Visitors...

Black spots - A strategic approach to reducing drowning deaths

In 2009 Surf Life Saving Australia developed theTotal Service Plan 2009-2011, a strategic report to guide the organisation through to 2011 with theaim of reducing drowning deaths along the coast of Australia. LIFEGUARD caught up with Matthew Thompson, Coastal Safety Services Manager from SLSA to talk about the Total Service Plan and the ‘Black Spot’ initiative...

Also in this Issue:

Bondi to the rescue for Temika
2009 National Coastal Safety Report
Operation Edge - A statewide lifeguard strategy
2009/10 Drowning deaths - stats update
Using technology to save lives on beaches - Coastsafe Alive
Interviews with Matthew du Plessis, Beach Services Coordinator, ALS (WA) & Paul Stone, Programs Coordinator, Lake Macquarie Council
Lifeguard competition results update

View these articles in full on the Network Discussion Forum and have your say too.

Like father like daughter

Plenty of parents like to hang out with their children at the beach – but this summer was extra special for one father-daughter team. 17 year old Marli Blackney worked alongside her dad Rebel as a paid lifeguard for the ALS (Vic). Like any new recruit, Marlie expected the boss to be keeping a close eye on her, but said she initially felt a bit more pressure because the lifeguard supervisor for the western region was also her dad.

“Working with dad is interesting, he’s got a lot of experience so I can learn from him,” she said

“The best part is probably being able to come down to the beach every day – it’s where I’d be anyway if I wasn’t working.”

Mr Noter, who first became involved in lifesaving when Marli began nippers, said it was good to see her so passionate about progressing through the ranks.

“She’s going well. She’s willing to listen and learn new things, “ he said.

“It’s a lot of responsibility for a 17 year old but she’s been around the club long enough and education she’s had through lifesaving has been really important.”

Water Safety for visitors to Australian beaches (Targeting CALD communities and tourists)

Surf Life Saving, with support from lifeguard services, has been developing a targeted campaign to educate and ultimately reduce incidences of drowning by visitors to Australian beaches - particularly those from Culturally & Linguistically Diverse communities and tourists.

The campaign features a new set of national resources developed in consultation with a specialist multicultural marketing agency. The messages and message delivery has been simplified right down to make it very simple for an infrequent or new beach-goer to understand our beach environment. Here's a quick look at some of the campaign development:

Australian beaches are some of the best in the world, and millions of people visit them every day from all over Australia and the world. The majority of these visitors know very little about the beach environment and its hidden dangers. The DVD resource provides beach safety educators with a range of tools with which to promote beach safety to visitors to Australian beaches. Whether it’s an international visitor, an immigrant to Australia or an inland resident the messages are the same.

Understanding the issue
In Australia the incident of international tourists and other foreign nationals drowning in the surf environment is over represented in data. Of 359 drowning death cases examined over the 2004-2008 period, 95 (27%) were determined to have been born outside of Australia and 66 (18%) had foreign nationality. 37 (10%) were confirmed as being international tourists though it is estimated that this proportion is higher.

There are five simple beach safety messages. Why 5? We know that people don’t like to read a lot of ‘rules’ about having a good time, so we’ve kept it short and simple, we hope this way people will remember them. When someone is exposed to these messages, we hope if nothing else they take away the 1^st message which will always feature more prominently in the resources, and if they remember the remaining 4 that’s even better.

These languages were chosen from tourism and immigration data supplied by the Department of Tourism and Immigration as the highest ranked languages spoken by visitors/immigrants to Australia, and cross-referenced with drowning incidences in Australia. Note: More languages will be added to this list over time.

The imagery used has been adapted from that which you might see on an airline safety briefing card. The objective is for the message within the image to be understood without the need for words.

Animation was chosen as it allows the imagery to be neutral and generic to beaches all over Australia and to ensure cultural sensitivity. International and Australian Standards were used in all cases, specifically in the use of signage, flags and uniforms.

The campaign will be officially launched this month, however, the main campaign drive will be staggered, with Northern Australia targeted for their high tourist season which kicks off shortly, and then the rest of Australia at the beginning of next season. All lifeguard services can expect a campaign briefing in due course, with campaign resources, timelines and distribution ideas.

Surf Life Saving will be calling on all lifeguard providers to get behind this campaign, there are so many ways to integrate the new resources and look and feel into your own resources, and the campaign resource kit including DVD has everything you will need and more!

Shortly you will be able to view and download these resources from www.beachsafe.org.au, in the meantime you can view a selection of these resources on the network website in the 'About the Network - Public Safety Campaigns' section.

Water Safety Conferences - Australia and the World

The Australian Water Safety Council announces the 2010 Australian Water Safety Conference, Act Today for 2020 – Preventing Drowning

Join the world’s leading experts in the areas of drowning research, prevention, rescue, lifesaving, disasters, regional and sport development at the International Life Saving Federation’s World Conference on Drowning Prevention 2011.

With drowning a leading cause of death in the region, Vietnam provides a venue that is not only rich in terms of cultural, historical and tourism highlights, but provides an ideal venue in which to be debating how to lead global efforts to prevent drowning.

Young lifeguard needed for volunteer water safety education in Bali

SLSA is pleased to announce that as part of its international development aid program, they have been granted an Assignment from the AusAid funded Australian Youth Ambassador for Development (AYAD) program to have a young surf lifesaver/lifeguard travel to Bali to work as a volunteer with the Indonesian Surf Life Saving Association as a Water Safety Education Officer teaching water safety in schools and communities and to support the lifeguards in the delivery of similar programs. This Assignment is for 10 months from July 2010 to April 2011.

View the assignment Go to http://www.ayad.com.au/assignments Click on ‘All Assignments’, Enter 28IDGO-A18 in the ‘Search Job Code’ field, Click on assignment to obtain all details. Read all information in ‘Volunteering with us’

In summary, the key objective of the assignment is to working directly with the Indonesia Surf Life Saving Association to establish sustainable and effective school and community water safety and lifesaving programs to support drowning prevention/reduction in Bali.

The applicant will be an SLSA qualified trainer, who can speak some Bahasa Indonesian or who is prepared to learn the language, and who has the ability to develop and deliver programs in lifesaving and water safety education for schools and communities while regularly collaborating with local community leaders, school leaders and teachers, and government officials.

All candidate applications are due by Friday 26^th February (still give it a shot if you're keen) with full application details available on the website www.ayad.com.au

National Lifeguard Championships - Survey

Surf Life Saving is still exploring interest from within the lifeguard industry for a National Lifeguard Championships (NLC’s), much similar to the Australian Surf Life Saving Championships (Aussies) - although on a much smaller scale!

And that's a wrap for this edition of the Lifeguard Network eNews. I hope you're all looking forward to the LIFEGUARD newsletter - it's a great read!

If you haven't already registered for the lifeguard network online, why not register today! Head to www.lifeguardnetwork.com.au and follow the prompts. Online you can enjoy all the up-to-date news, events, classifieds and jobs you'll need as well as polls, galleries and a discussion forum - get on to it!

Have your say!

Have you had your say in the discussion forum? The network discussion forum is a great place to have your say on anything you like. Although preferably about lifeguarding, it could be anything you want to say, debate or comment on. There's no doubt lifeguards love to discuss the lastest issue - this forum gives you the opportunity to take the discussion you had in the lifeguard tower or Rhino online!

Spruce up your desktop

Check out the desktop backgrounds available on the network website! Go to the 'Fun Downloads' page in the 'Benefits' section and choose one of four awesome backgrounds to have the network, and your passion, there in front of you at all times.

Calendar

2-3 MARCH 2010
Australian Coastal Councils Conference
Byron Community centre, Byron Bay, NSW

19 MARCH 2010
7th International Surfing Reef Symposium
Bondi Surf Club, NSW

12-13 APRIL 2010
International Symposium on Coastal Zones and Climate Change: Assessing the Impact and Developing Adaptation Strategies
Monash University, Gippsland, Churchill, Victoria

28-30 APRIL 2010
Australian Professional Ocean Lifeguard Association (APOLA) Conference
Kiama, NSW

28-29 APRIL 2010
Local Government Risk Management Summit
Novotel Brighton Beach, Sydney

13-14 MAY 2010
2010 Australian Water Safety Conference
Novotel Brighton Hotel, Brighton Le Sands, Sydney, NSW

29 JUNE-1 JULY 2010
2010 International Climate Change Adaptation Conference
Gold Coast, Queensland

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Lifeguard Network eNews [Issue 6] - Goodbye summer

Goodbye summer - Hello dry season!

LIFEGUARD Newsletter sneak peak