Ninety-year-olds, Bill Garbett and Bill Powell, will be special guests as Tweed Heads and Coolangatta Surf Life Saving Club celebrates its 100th birthday this weekend.
The duo are the oldest surving members of the club which has a long and proud history which stretches back beyond its official formation at a public meeting at Tweed Heads on March 13.
“The original Tweed and Coolangatta club was formed here in 1909,” Centenary committee chairman, patron and life member Alan Hickling said.
“Four ladies and a gentleman came to our beach from Murwillumbah and were rescued by a squad training with a wheel-line and belt.”
He said the equipment had been given to the club by one of the Sydney surf clubs and the rescue was the first of its kind in Queensland.
However the first club began to falter and by 1911 it was decided to hold a public meeting to reform the Tweed Heads and Coolangatta Life Saving Club with the local paper getting behind the push.
It restarted with 20-30 members and, depite a few struggles over the years, now has 500 members on its books – 150 of them on active patrol duty.
A hundred seasons on, they are not only bigger but Mr Hickling said they have an enviable record – they had not lost a single life on the beach since their patrols began.
The club also had the first junior lifesavers in Qld (with those under 18 patrolling during the first World War, when all the senior club members were away at war). They had the first female member to earn her bronze medallion – although the official surf lifesaving body refused to hand over the medallion when they discovered E Kieft was actually Edie Kieft. She finally received her award 68 years later. The club was also the first Queensland club to host the Australian titles after bad weather saw them transferred down from original host Southport.
There are hundreds of stories spanning the past century and Mr Hickling and his committee have used old reports and documents to recreate them. Last year they launched a book written by Brian Styman, tracing the club’s story in words and pictures.
Mind you, it wasn’t all secondhand information, with members like Mr Hickling having had a long association with the club, considered the oldest and first to operate in Queensland.
“Sixty seasons,” he answers, making it clear that he and his life-long surf lifesaving friends have a lot of stories to tell.
And there will be plenty of times to reminisce about the past and look to the future over the next two weekends. This weekend, celebrations will kick off with a members only function at the club on Friday night and a private cocktail party at Twin Towns on March 12.
On Sunday the celebrations will move into high gear, with a program of entertainment and fun for the whole family getting underway from 10.30am (Qld). There will be displays of memorabilia and time for a giant club photo during the afternoon.
