All smiles as Austinmer clubhouse reopens with family-friendly features
By Lisa Metcalfe, president of Austinmer Surf Life Saving Club
Austinmer Surf Life Saving Club celebrated the re-opening of our clubhouse on Sunday, January 18 with Wollongong Lord Mayor Tania Brown and Maryanne Stuart, the Member for Heathcote.
The clubhouse on Austinmer beachfront won awards when it opened in 1992. Many of the original building team, including Ian Foreman, Steve Perkiss, Elaine Wliton and architect Ron Forbes, attended the reopening.
The upgrades include a new accessible bathroom, office, first aid room and storage spaces. The new design kept the original layout, retaining the heritage of the building and also reducing cost and environmental impact.
The design emphasises beautiful full height skylights and timber picture windows in the main hallway. The render on the main hallway wall has been removed to expose the original brick work. The wall contains some of the 22,000 reclaimed bricks that were salvaged from the original kiosk that served as a temporary club house from 1977 to 1991 and re-laid for the new building.
Modernising the facilities is crucial as we strive to grow, be more inclusive and celebrate diversity. Our club attracts people from Western Sydney, the Southern Highlands, Campbelltown, and other regional areas of NSW, with almost one in three participants coming from outside the Austinmer area. The upgrade has also tripled storage capacity for the club’s valuable equipment.
By modernising the facilities with improved lighting, enhanced privacy, and better accessibility, we can ensure the best facilities for everyone and particularly for women and girls, people of all abilities, First Nations peoples, those culturally and linguistically diverse communities, and LGBTQIA+ people.
A Surf Club Facilities Grant administered by NSW Office of Sport provided $253,000 towards the project. Austinmer SLSC generated an additional $90k of in-kind contributions.
Previous secretary Nigel Walsh and treasurer Ryan Sabet created this opportunity by securing the grant funding. The talented Lisa Perry, from Perry Designs brought it to life. Other industry partners were TileCloud and Reece Plumbing. Zoran Draca and his ProBuilt 4U building team have gone above and beyond.
Thanks also to the community for their patience – especially early morning swimmers who had cold showers through winter. It was worth the wait.
