Coalcliff Surf Life Saving Club kicked off its 100th year celebrations with a Comedy for a Cause event on Saturday, February 25.

Australian comedians Peter Werner, Dave Williams, Laura Hughes and Mat Wakefield took to the stage at Tradies Helensburgh, bringing the laughs, and helping to raise vital funds for Coalcliff SLSC.

More than 110 people attended the event and, as a result, the club was able to raise more than $1000 – with final figures yet to be tallied, club president James McFarlane says.

“We've raised over a thousand dollars, but it could even be [more].

“For us, it was more about connecting the community with the club and kicking off our centenary of lifesaving, and [celebrating] our association with surf lifesaving.

“[We had] a mix of club members, old and new, and community members connecting with the club for the first time.”

James says the funds raised will be split between buying rescue equipment and improving accessible facilities at the surf club, which recently received a NSW Government grant to update the kitchen.

The Comedy for a Cause night was the first social event for the club since the closure of the Bombie Bar four years ago, and marked the start of the club’s year-long centenary celebrations, which are set to continue into early 2024.

James says the social agenda is a work in progress, though digitising and documenting the club’s history – an activity that will require lots of help from the community – is how the club really wants to commemorate 100 years of surf lifesaving at Coalcliff.

“We'll be rolling things out [soon], [with] something mid-winter, and then to launch next season, and then it'll build up to a formal dinner probably in February next year.

“The priority for us is to capture any history that we don't have at the moment… [and a] big part of what we want to do is engage the community to give us – fill in those gaps – the stories of the shacks, stories of families [and] photos that they may have.

“We've got a lot of information from members and people that have been associated with the club, but there's still lots of information out there that would be great to capture and digitise.”

The club is also hopeful that a century-long record of outstanding lifesaving will bring more members to Coalcliff, and more participants to its steadily growing Nippers and Ocean Swim Club programs.

“We started Ocean Swim Club this season to engage people in two things: to engage people outside [our] community to come and get involved with the club if [they] didn't have the time to patrol or do training and stuff like that… at least improving your knowledge and your skills in the aquatic environment at Coalcliff; and the second part of that is to give the Nippers' parents something to do [as] they're coming down for Nippers every fortnight, and the Ocean Swim Club gives parents an activity to participate in as well.

“We're really excited as we've got in excess of 60 members new to the club through that process. 

“In our plans, we were thinking we'd get to those numbers in year three.”