Gillian Maynard is secretary of the Altona Life Saving Club, which recently won an award at Life Saving Victoria’s Annual Awards of Excellence. 68369 Picture: DAMJAN JANEVSKI
By ALESHA CAPONE
VOLUNTEERS at the Altona Life Saving Club have been recognised for their hard work and dedication.
The club won the ‘Administration Club of the Year’ at the recent Life Saving Victoria’s Annual Awards of Excellence, out of the 57 clubs across the state.
“I didn’t believe it, it was such a shock,” said the Altona club’s secretary, Gillian Maynard.
“That’s nice recognition from them, that we’re doing a good job and doing something right, because when we started a couple of years ago there was no administration.”
Ms Maynard became involved with the club when her two children wanted to join the Nippers squad and she was “roped in” to help with sponsorship.
But as the club’s annual general meeting approached two years ago, Ms Maynard, club president Ante Sardelic, treasurer Melissa Jacobson, Nippers co-ordinator Steven Cordina and club captain Pete Lindsay, stepped in to act as a committee.
“We found out we hadn’t been receiving funding for about 18 months and we said, ‘What do you mean?’” Ms Maynard said.
“We just found out things as we went along, it was trial and error for the first few months.”
Luckily the volunteers were able to track down the paperwork they needed and backdate it, in order to receive the funding.
From there, the volunteers went on compile a membership base, organise life-saving patrols and their hours, arrange club training and assessments and put “beach patrol data” into a system in order to qualify for further funding.
Ms Maynard said thanks to the hard work of the club’s volunteers, with
assistance from Life Saving Victoria’s Tony Borella and Bernadene Hanson,
they could now hand over the administration job to newcomers without any hassles.
“The hard work that has been put into the past two years is there for everybody,” she said.
Ms Maynard said the club’s main purpose was to serve the community.
“What I enjoy is the family atmosphere, the camaraderie between people of all ages from five to 70, it’s for families, individuals and teenagers, that’s what it’s like – a real community group,” she said.
See http://www.altonalsc.com for more information.
