Sennen Surf Club

your local community surf club, founded in 1965

SSC News

2015 – SSC 50th Anniversary Year!

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​Sennen Surf Club is a true community surf club – ​run entirely by volunteers – with a rich history spanning the years, from 1965 (when Sennen surfers Johns Adams, Tony Hole & Mike Carr, amongst others, formed the club after a conversation in the car park at Sennen Cove!), through to today’s thriving groms & seniors clubs with clubhouse in prime position on the front at Sennen!
The club was initially solely a seniors surf club, run by Keith Prowse, Chris Tyler, Colin Wilson, Harvey Hoare, Barry White and Pete Urquhart. It wasn’t until 1994 that the first groms club appeared in Sennen – with surfers such as Sam & Lew Smart and John Buchorski as members until it dwindled out briefly in the early 2000s.
The club was then resurrected in its current form by Steve Jamieson in 2007, with Bilbo as club mascot and some great local young surfers taking part – such as Seb Smart, Mike Lay, Christian Jackson, Bert Wright and Lowenna Murley.

Current club activities

Today we have thriving groms club which meets every Sunday morning from May – September and a seniors club held on Wednesday evenings.  Our groms club sessions instil not only surf skills and ocean awareness into our groms but also essential lifesaving techniques, which are further built on when they participate in the rookie lifeguard programme which is run through the winter, with an aim to build their skills to prepare them to take the RLSS beach lifeguard qualification.

This winter 4 adult volunteer members achieved the full beach lifeguard award and 4 junior members the assistant beach lifeguard award!  Groms club head coach for 2015 is Matt Szlichta who surfed with the groms club himself.  He also takes up a post as RNLI lifeguard on Sennen beach this summer following achieving his beach lifeguard award in winter 2014 with the club!

With social activities like fun days, BBQs, an elite surf training programme run by Smart Surf School and friendly interclub surf comps with Gwithian Academy of Surf alongside the surf and lifesaving sessions, we are a true community club for adults and children alike.

We have a number of events running through the year this year to mark the 50th anniversary of the surf club – the first of which is an over 18s night at the Ritz in Penzance (Sennen Surf Stock) and then we have a family day (Gromstock) to be held in Sennen, further details to follow!

Winter Lifesaving Training 2014/15

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RLSS Rookie Lifeguard Programme

Our popular rookies programme (7-15 year olds) will be running as usual this winter. The rookies programme offers the opportunity to follow a structured RLSS lifesaving skills programme, including Water Safety, Rescue, Self Rescue and Emergency Responses. The aims of Rookies is to:

  • Teach Lifesaving Skills
  • Increase Swimming Competence
  • Develop Survival Skills in Water
  • Develop Confidence, Initiative and Judgement
  • Develop Teamwork and Leadership

There are 3 levels of awards: Bronze, Silver & Gold for the groms to work their way through. A great, fun way for the groms to learn essential skills to keep themselves (and others) safe in the water and at the end they receive an RLSS rookie lifeguard award (certificate, badge and sticker).

The programme runs for 10 weeks on Saturdays from 7-8pm in the Penzance Leisure Centre pool and costs £25 for the whole course. Due to swimming galas in the Penzance pool we have split the course into 2 parts, the first 3 weeks running from 3rd – 17th January, then the final 7 weeks from 14th March – 25th April.

We have had a lot of interest so are recommending that you book your child a place if they would like to join in so we can guarantee them a place. You can do this by emailing, posting on our facebook page or phoning (Sadie – 872685).

RLSS Beach Survive & Save

This award is for groms (12+) progressing from the Rookies programme, or their parents who would like to learn basic lifesaving techniques.  Survive and Save awards teach lifesaving rescue, self-rescue, survival, and lifesaving skills, and also develop swimming ability and fitness, the programme we run is a beach survive and save so additional beach specific lifesaving & first aid skills will be covered.

The programme is taught both in the pool and on the beach. The pool sessions run over 10 weeks (dates as above for rookies), first aid sessions will be held on the Saturday evenings between 24th January – 7th March when we cannot have the pool due to swimming galas and the beach sessions will be confirmed later. The whole programme is £50 which includes the RLSS award applcation costs, all your training & pool costs and the award certificate.

Booking a place on this course is advised as we have limited spaces available.

RLSS NBLQ (Lifeguard) & Assistant Lifeguard Programme

The Beach Lifeguard & Assistant Beach Lifeguard training programmes are running again this year and we welcome groms of over 14 and adults.  Bear in mind that these awards are quite demanding and do require a commitment in terms of time (both for the club and to achieve the award).

The programme consists of 10 pool sessions (dates as above for the rookie lifeguard award), 10 first aid / theory sessions and 6 beach sessions (incl 6 clubhouse briefings). The cost of both of these awards is £75 which includes the RLSS exam fees, all your training & pool costs and your award certificate.  7 of the first aid sessions will be held on the Saturday evenings between 24th January – 7th March when we cannot have the pool due to swimming galas and will be held at the Penzance Leisure Centre.

NBLQ manuals are £25 – lifeguards will need to have access to one in order to be able to read through some of the important topics covered there (it is recommended that all full lifeguards have their own copy).

For those doing the full NBLQ award (not assistants) who are not currently actively volunteering with the club there will be an additional £100 training cost applied, payable before the exam (half refunded each year that 10 weeks are volunteered with the club). The typical cost of this award is £250+ so this is still a good saving on the programme, but protects the club as there are quite a number of costs involved in running a programme like this and we need our lifeguards to attend sessions in order to enable the club to run!

In order to complete the award you will need to have the training hours logged so it is important that you note the dates above, you will likely need to swim outside of the Saturday evening sessions in order to achieve the minimum pool swim time (400 metres in 8 minutes for the full award and 200 metres in 4 minutes for the assistant award) and commit some time to at-home learning from the manual.

If you are interested in these awards please contact me (email, facebook or call me on 872685) as soon as possible as we are commencing the beach sessions immediately in order to complete most of the work whilst the temperatures are still warm! Booking a place on this course is advised as we have limited spaces available.

Qualified lifeguards are vital to the continuation of the club so please do consider giving it a go. 

Groms club 2014

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We’re looking forward to the start of groms club again this year.

New season of groms club starts 1st June

We’ll be returning to the beach again on Sunday 1st June 2014 for our first groms club session. Sessions will be held at the same time as last year (9.30-11.30).

In the 2 weeks before we are running coaching training sessions for our volunteers – 18th & 25th May

If you’d be interested in volunteering with us please do come along to these sessions and join in!  It will be a mixture of beach and clubhouse training so we are well prepared to guide the groms in their learning.

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our coaches & assistant coaches 2013

Rookie Lifeguard Awards

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Congratulations to all our Rookie Lifeguards – everyone did really well this winter and all the rookies achieved their awards, with many of them even going on to achieve a second award!

Big thanks to Julia & James who volunteered their time to help the rookies achieve their awards.

rookies2013-14

During their awards they have practiced the following lifesaving skills:

  • Clothed swim (with a timed element for some awards!)
  • Casualty rescues (both unaided and using various methods: rope throw, torpedo tube rescues, board rescues)
  • Treading water
  • Help Signals
  • Life support
  • Underwater object recovery
  • Various swim techniques

Congratulations to you all on all your awards!

Bronze 1 – Jensen, Patrick

Bronze 2 – Sennen, Dolly, Minnie, Mia

Bronze 3 & Silver 1 – Leo

Silver 1 & 2 – Finley

Silver 3 & Gold 1 – Benjy, Joey, Jos, Jay, Sam, Aiden

rookies

Winter Lifesaving Programme

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The Rookies lifesaving programme is a great way for the groms to learn essential skills to keep themselves (and others) safe in the water.  We are lucky to have Julia who is an excellent coach, to teach the rookies again this year. We’ll be running the bronze, silver and gold awards.

The sessions will be on Saturday evenings from 7-8pm in the Penzance Leisure Centre pool. Dates for your diary:

18 Jan
25 Jan
15 Feb
22 Feb
15 March
29 March
5 April
12 April
19 April
26 April

This is 10 pool sessions in total, there are a few weeks the pool is not available due to swimming galas, hence the gaps in the above list.

Beach Lifeguard Pool Training (& Assistant Beach Lifeguard)

The above programmes will be running at the same time as the rookies lifesaving.  Qualified lifeguards are essential to keep the club going, The full lifeguard award is open to those age 16+ and the assistant beach lifeguard to those 14+

The initial pool training is 10 weeks, which will be followed up by some additional sessions on the beach / in the clubhouse.

Additional details to follow on these awards.