Saving the lifeguards
They normally rescue others, but now Surf Life Savers are asking to be rescued themselves. Libby Wilson reports.
Ella Boyens has spent this summer on the beach. She wasn’t relaxing in the water or sunbathing, though – she’s a Surf Life Saver who has dealt with everything from sprained ankles to head injuries.
On a sunny morning at Raglan’s Ngarunui Beach, there’s a woman doing yoga on her towel, board short-clad boys tossing a rugby ball, a drone buzzing out of a gazebo, and a steady influx of surfers.
The water’s balmy, wave height is around 73cm, and Boyens is one of four paid lifeguards keeping everyone safe.
At weekends, volunteer guards take over.
Both groups have a problem: money. There isn’t enough.
Paid and volunteer guards around New Zealand have rescued or assisted more than 2000 people this season and patrolled more than 100,000 hours, Surf Life Saving New Zealand statistics show.
But local clubs tell of ailing beach vehicles, volunteer guards forking out for fins, jackets and wetsuits, and some patrolling more than 150 hours in a season.
Club members fill out grant application after grant application to find the tens of thousands of dollars for equipment, compliance and club overheads.
Overarching organisations Surf Life Saving New Zealand or Surf Life Saving Northern Region have a tough time with money, too, despite dedicated long-term sponsors.
The Northern Region says it needs $12 million more for each of the next three years and is asking for government help. It has already taken guards off two beaches and moved them to more dangerous swimming spots.
On top of that, there’s a list of old clubhouses needing work.
It’s also hand-to-mouth at Surf Life Saving New Zealand, but that group says club infrastructure is the heart of the movement and therefore the priority for funding.
But it wouldn’t say no if the Government wanted to fund paid guards.
Back in Raglan, Boyens is in her fourth season as a paid guard and seventh as a volunteer.
She scans the beach as she talks about dealing with head injuries from collisions involving surfers, taking the rescue boat out in challenging conditions and calming panicked swimmers during in-water rescues.
Guards try to avoid rescue situations by warning swimmers before they get into trouble.
‘‘I think this summer we have definitely [done preventative actions for] people who would have not been okay otherwise,’’ Boyens says.
She’s partway through studying to be a paramedic, so she’s the kind of person you’d want to have around if you got into trouble.
Sometimes she spends five days working the beach on paid patrols and comes back to volunteer at the weekend.
Funding isn’t something she deals with, but she’d love an extra pair of hands on some patrols – the beach doesn’t stop being busy while there’s a serious incident.
Beachgoer Michelle Pease
doesn’t hesitate when asked if surf life savers should be government funded: ‘‘Yep, definitely’’.
Her family was on holiday from Taranaki and picked Ngarunui Beach because there were guards. That meant her kids could bodyboard safely.
Raglan’s beach could have about 800 people on a busy day, Surf Life Saving Club chairman Mark Shrimpton says.
‘‘Imagine looking after that with 10 or 15 lifeguards.’’
The club has about 60 volunteer patrollers, but often struggles to get patrols with the right mix of skills to cover weekends.
A lot of younger guards go off to work and study in other cities, he says, so the club is regularly recruiting.
And volunteers aren’t just giving up their time.
They’re handed the red and yellow shorts and shirt when they qualify, Shrimpton says, but pay about $500 for their own fins, a wetsuit and branded jacket.
The club would like to help, but it’s trying to find the $125,000 plus it needs just to keep functioning each year.
Most of the money comes from grants, Shrimpton says, but there’s no certainty and applications take up volunteer time which could be used on the beach.
The club often has to make do and recently spent $1800 fixing a beach vehicle because it can’t afford to sell it and upgrade.
On the Coromandel Peninsula, Whangamata lifeguards could be watching almost 10,000 people along 4 kilometres of beach in peak periods.
There will be 15 to 20 guards, many aged 14 to 21, club president Nathan Hight says.
He doesn’t think central government should foot the whole Surf Life Saving bill, but wants a conversation about expectations of the service.
In the 21 years Hight has been involved with the club, he’s seen beach usage increase – exponentially up the coast in Hot Water Beach.
More and more beachgoers haven’t grown up near the ocean and don’t understand its dangers, he says, but guards also respond to out-of-the-water incidents: heart attacks, drug overdoses, heat stroke. Guards can start the job quite young, like a dedicated Whangamata volunteer who has patrolled 150 hours this summer – her second season.
The club tries to shield youngsters from more serious incidents, Hight says, but when he was 15, he did CPR for 90 minutes on a woman pulled from the water.
The Whangamata club needs about $350,000 a year to function and Hight says the funding model’s not sustainable.
As club president, he has to sit down after his day job, knowing about $70,000 in club funding is covered from multiyear agreements, and find another
$280,000.
The first $4000 to $5000 raised has to cover a financial review required for charitable status or, as Hight puts it, the right to keep fund-raising.
Something like a mid-week Waitangi Day can also throw a spanner in the works.
Many members are based in Whangamata and couldn’t get back for a Tuesday patrol this year, so there was no patrol at all.
Surf Life Saving Northern Region – which represents 17 clubs – is sounding the alarm.
‘‘We see there’s going to be a critical problem ... let’s have the conversations in advance,’’ chief executive Matt Williams says.
It’s not a lack of will from current funders, he says, but rather increasing costs, decreasing revenue and no new funders.
Northern Region needs about
$12m extra a year for 2018 to 2021, Williams says, for work like rebuilding or revamping clubhouses, putting more lifeguards on beaches, and improving the emergency radio network.
This year, the organisation had to cut historic patrols at Browns Bay and Milford Beach to put more guards in high-risk spots like Piha and Muriwai.
Clubs can’t ask their volunteers for higher membership fees, Williams says, because that would be like paying to be a policeman or ambulance officer.
The organisation has already tried to find new funding streams. Many of the grants it does have are uncertain and often have application rounds every three months.
Instead, Williams’ organisation would like to propose a joint funding model involving local and central government, which would cover areas like paid guards, operational funds and the overheads for umbrella organisations such as his.
Williams has to lock in planning for 2018-2021 by June, he says.
‘‘If the funding we need isn’t available, we can’t plan for the current services.’’
If the Government funded all New Zealand’s paid guards, it would cost somewhere around $2.5m, Surf Life Saving New Zealand Paul Dalton says.
It’s not ‘‘gazillions of dollars’’, so the suggestion is worth making, he says.
But clubs are Dalton’s funding priority.
‘‘That’s $100m worth of buildings, tens of millions of dollars of equipment, and running that ... that’s the heart of surf live saving. That’s the bit we need to protect the most.’’
Take Raglan, for example: Volunteers do weekends and paid guards use the same clubhouse, boats and boards during the week.
Surf Life Saving New Zealand covers all 74 Kiwi clubs and Dalton says it’s a hand-to-mouth existence for many. The national organisation has key sponsor partners such as TSB, DHL and BP, which provide about $2m.
Other money comes from mailouts for donations, sales of equipment bought in bulk, membership fees and sport entry fees, and ‘‘every kind of grant that’s out there’’ – but it’s getting tighter.
‘‘We do whatever we need to do to survive, basically, and get money from anywhere we can.
‘‘You’re trying to find millions of dollars each year [to replace old club buildings].
‘‘If you don’t get it, you just struggle on with a building that leaks or is rat infested or is costing you money to maintain.’’
Clubs have local sponsors, plus door-knock and shake buckets, which can work for a $25,000 boat or $20,000 four-wheel drive vehicle, he says. If you need a $2m to $3m building, ‘‘You can’t sausage sizzle your way to that.’’
Still, the movement would be foolish to think the Government would fund Surf Life Saving without also considering services such as New Zealand Land Search and Rescue, Coastguard and the New Zealand Mountain Safety Council.
Local government provides funds for paid life guards around the country, and the Waikato does it through a regional rate, which stopped Surf Life Saving groups from having to do the rounds of councils.
The regional emergency services fund also contributes to Coastguard and rescue helicopter services, and has regional councillor and finance committee chairwoman Jane Hennebry’s support.
‘‘It’s a national issue. It should be nationally funded, but we just can’t wait for them,’’ she says.
Each Waikato property pays $3.74 into the fund, but Waikato Regional Council is proposing an increase to $4.13.
The extra 39 cents would collect an extra $25,000 for two Hot Water Beach life guards to have a longer season, and help Land Search and Rescue for the first time.
Anyone who saw those teams searching for Raymond Stirling in Rototuna will know how good they are, Hennebry said.
In central government, the contact is Community and Voluntary Sector Minister Peeni Henare, who has said he will meet ‘‘with ministerial colleagues who have an interest in the topic’’.
That’s expected to happen in the next month.
So for now, Surf Life Saving clubs will keep shaking their buckets and churning out the grant applications.
●➤ If you wish to donate, visit surflifesaving.org.nz/organisation/ donate-now/support-us/ or contact your local club.