The Red Till, Anglesea - Fri 9th Oct 2009
Martian's Cafe, Deans Marsh - Sun 11th Oct 2009
The Rose, Torquay - Sat 10th Oct 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
EXHIBIT "A" CREATIVE BLOG EXHIBITION
This is the first in the series of creative blog exhibitions.
"PHOTOGRAPHY"
Exhibit "A" will give creative people an opportunity to show their chops in a creative community.
We will endeavour to showcase Photographers, Artists, Writers, Filmmakers, Musicians, Sculptors and crafts.
If you are interested in any of the work you can contact the creator direct with their details below each image. All images are subject to copyright laws. Unauthorised use of images prohibited.
Email: bigmission@bigpond.com
Email: bigmission@bigpond.com
Email: bigmission@bigpond.com
Email: bigmission@bigpond.com
Email: bigmission@bigpond.com
Email: art.mill@bigpond.com
Email: art.mill@bigpond.com
Email: art.mill@bigpond.com
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
LOOSING MY JOB WAS THE BEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO ME.
Baines Crescent factory 1994. Peter Clarke (in blue)
It was way back in 1977, a 21 year old, Peter Clarke found himself unexpectedly out of a work, just being retrenched from his job as a wetsuit cutter at Dive & Surf in Boston Road, when there was a down turn in the what could loosely be called the, “Surf Industry”.
Most surfers at that time would have seen this as a golden opportunity to just go surfing. Not Peter.
Thinking on his feet Peter soon identified a gap in the legrope market, jumped in his car drove along the coast in both directions from Torquay calling in on surf shops along the way asking the retailers if they would be interested in buying legropes from him.
Back in ’77 a legrope consisted of a piece of surgical rubber tubing with a nylon rope coiled inside with a loop at one end to attach to your surfboards fin and at the other end was a piece of seatbelt webbing with a Velcro fastener. Crude by today’s standards, but none the less, effective.
With no grand plan of taking over the legrope world, and with only $50 in his pocket and no business or finance experience, Peter bought the necessary materials to start production on credit.
As for a name to call his product, Peter didn’t have anything but a deadline to work with. On the drive up to Melbourne to register a business name Peter’s brother suggested “FULL BORE” as a name, that Peter readily admits he was not fond of at the time, but hey, at least, it was something, so “FULL BORE” it was.
Working from his lounge room in Torquay, the materials Peter had bought would allow him to make 1,100 legropes. It was now time to call on all those retailers that said they would buy his leggies. Loading up his car, he drove to Warrnambool, then to Noosa and back, selling his “FULL BORE” legropes.
The product was as good as anything else around, if not better and business began to tick over for “FULL BORE”. The lounge room workspace, was becoming a problem as orders increased. It was time to build a garage.
“FULL BORE” continued to grow and soon there was need for more room, so Peter bought the house next door to use as a warehouse. The carport was the makeshift dispatch area.
PROBLEM SOLVING
The problem with legropes in those days was that they just hung down from your ankle and you would more often than not stand on the cord when you got to your feet. It would be a common sight watching surfers do the one legged stance to free their leggie.
It was an “off the cuff” comment by a surf industry friend that would change legrope design the world over, “Make a leg rope you can’t stand on and you will make a million dollars Pete”. Peter took up the challenge and began to experiment with proto type after proto type.
The big break-through came in 1984, with his invention of an insert moulded urethane swivel housing that was stitched into the ankle strap and stood out at a 90 degrees right angle from the ankle strap. This eliminated the problem of standing on your legrope when getting to your feet. It didn’t take long before other companies started to copy Peter’s – “FULL BORE” design.
After all these years this design is still the world standard.
In the mid eighties, the Wind Surfing phenomenon hit. Working with a handful of the world’s best Windsurfers that lived in Torquay, Peter’s creative juices came to the fore with major breakthroughs in harness design.
It was no surprise that; “FULL BORE” Windsurfing products would soon be at the forefront of development.
In1993 the business couldn’t function efficiently from the garage or the house next door any longer, and “FULL BORE” built a new factory in Baines Crescent.
John Aitkin, working at “FULL BORE”, showed Peter a new product that was around at the time. “The Soft Surfboard”. Together they worked on the project and redesigned it using alternative materials and construction methods. The extra workload proved too much, so he decided to sell that part of the business.
That was in 1996, you would know that business today as “G BOARDS”.
In 2003 after 26 years of living and breathing “FULL BORE”, Peter decided to sell his successful business and take life a little easier.
Not needing industry validation, Peter moved on knowing he had played a big part in surfing’s early development.
At their peak, the “FULL BORE” brand was heavily in demand around the world and made great product advancements.
A fantastic achievement from such humble Torquay beginnings.
After interviewing Peter, I tried to track down “FULL BORE” to see how it was all going, but came up empty handed. Where are they now?
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
SURFING TO COFFEE BEANS.
As son of Rip Curl founder, Brian Singer, most would assume that it was a given that Doji Singer would be involved with Rip Curl. For a while he worked the Rip Curl - 9 to 5. Spent time working in the Torquay retail store, the warehouse, took on a Rip Curl traineeship and finally worked in the accessories division.
The idea of spending more time outdoors became more and more appealing to Doji than being office bound. He eventually pulled the pin at Rip Curl, packed his bags and headed to the U.S. snowfields working as a Ski Instructor, a job he was familiar with, having worked as an instructor in the Victorian snowfields of Mt. Buller.
After 4 months in the U.S, came the time to move on. Doji headed back home to Torquay. He was still on his own personal search and wanted to experience new challenges. Now back home, he recalled the time he was working in the U.S and the road trip to Vegas, coming across that small drive-thru coffee shack.
What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, wasn’t going to be the case this time.
Could something like the U.S coffee shack work in Geelong?
After investigating all possibilities the idea of providing espresso coffee to people on the move seemed a real winner, it was all systems go.
Doji with long time friend, now new business partner, Andrew Pec, started the first drive-thru coffee outlet in Geelong, “Bean Squeeze”.
The first store was opened in Mercer Street, Geelong in 2006. Since then another 3 “Bean Squeeze” stores have opened in the Geelong area and there are plans to open more soon.
“Bean Squeeze”, is a locally owned business. It is not a franchise chain, nor part of a bigger company.
Doji Advice/Thoughts
Starting and running a business like “Bean Squeeze” has been great fun for most of the time, however it has been frustrating at other times too.
Overall, I think that by starting a business I have learnt a lot more than I would have, if I had stayed working in an established business such as Rip Curl.
My only real advice for anyone thinking about starting a business, is just give it a go. “To not take a risk, is taking the biggest risk of all”
Support young crew having a go! Drive through for a “Bean Squeeze” coffee.
Surf Coast Hwy, Grovedale store.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
FROM MORIAC TO ROD LAVER ARENA
The first time I saw local Torquay girl Mia Dyson perform, was as a support act for Ross Hanaford, (best remembered for 70's band "Daddy Cool"). It was at an annual event, held at the Moriac Football Club rooms, organised by her dad, Jim Dyson, who himself is a well known Torquay musician and guitar builder.
Mia was only 16 years old at the time. That was back in '97.
Fast forward ten years to 2007 and the next time I saw Mia perform was as the opening act for Eric Clapton at Rod Laver Arena. Mia opened for Clapton on his Australian leg of his world tour.
In the 10 years that had passed, Mia had been busy making a name for herself, not only on the Australian music scene, but also overseas.
She had released three albums, received multiple ARIA nominations and won an ARIA award for “Best Blues & Roots Album”, (Australian equivalent to a Grammy).
As with many successful Australian artists there is only so much you can achieve based in Australia. The lure of cracking the U.S. market just becomes too great to ignore.
Earlier this year Mia relocated to Boston to have a serious dig. Mia’s was joined by long time bassist, James Haselwood, and sound man, Lloyd Barratt.
Mia will be touring North America extensively playing clubs and festivals across the country.
Finally, Mia's advice to aspiring Surf Coast musicians, "follow your instincts"
To find out more about this talented former "Torquay" local musician.
Who's the man in green? Clapton's slide guitar slinger Derek Trucks
Sunday, September 6, 2009
"There's no I in go RY" Torquay premier
On Wednesday night in Torquay, Quiksilver hosted the premier of Ry Craike’s new movie “There’s no I in go Ry”
There was a great turn out of retailers, Torquay Board Riders club members and local identities.
Special guest on the night was AFL superstar/Brownlow Medalist/Surfer, Benny Cousins.
Craikey is off to QLD next for the movie launch, then onto the USA and Europe.
For those of you that didn’t make the movie’s premier, you won’t miss out, it will be attached to the next issue of Waves magazine.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
WORLD FIRST IN SURF COACHING
Martin Dunn – Australian Team Manager Coach ISA World Junior Titles, Ecuador Mar 28th – Apr 5th 2009.Photo: racheltannerphotography.com
Martin Dunn is no stranger to the Surf Coast, making the road trip from Old Bar in NSW countless times with a van full of hot grommets in training. Martin is a highly regarded surfing coach with a list of achievements as long as your arm, the most obvious is his son, WCT surfer, Ben Dunn. A testament to his coaching methods.
Martin utilises 25 years of surf training expertise gained through working with Australian and International champion surfers.
Credits include:
• Development coach to 14 WCT surfers.
• Coach to 14 ISA World Junior and Grommet Champions.
• Coach to 10 Australian Junior Champions.
• Coach to 5 Australian Pro Junior Series Champions.
• Coach to 3 American Junior Champions.
• 2 x Australian team coach, 1 x Australian Team Manager & 10 x NSW youth coach.
Martin has recently launched the world’s first online surf coaching web site “SURFCOACH.COM” the site is chokker block with FREE training video clips that will improve your surfing no matter what age or ability you are.
Check it out.
WES SCHAFTENAAR’S NORDIC SURFING ADVENTURE!
At the beginning of 2009, at the height of the a scorching bushfire ravaged Victorian summer, my Norwegian born wife Marianne and I, with our two grommets, Archie (4) and Terge (2) in tow, boardered a flight to a destination that was the extreme opposite to the climate we were experiencing at the time.
After more than 30 hours flying we were high above the Arctic Circle in Norway, near the Lofoten Island chain and plunged deep into a Norwegian Arctic winter. At that moment in time it seemed like a crazy decision to leave behind a lifestyle and a job with Rip Curl where I had the opportunity to travel and surf exotic tropical locations around the world as national team and sponsorship manager, but change and life experiences are good for the soul.
After spending three months of quality time with Marianne’s parents, we moved on and have now settled in our own house near Norway’s capital, Oslo, close to Marianne’s brother and his young family. The grommets are having a blast with their new Viking mates, as all good Vikings do. Marianne, being a qualified nurse, slotted into the work force effortlessly. I’ve tried my hand at corporate catering and getting my head around the language. At the moment I’m on assignment for Rip Curl International, travelling on the European leg of the WQS with chargers Owen Wright, Wilko and Stu Kennedy as team manager. A good opportunity to surf in boardies again!
We plan to stay in Norway for a couple years then head back to Oz and good old Barwon Heads. Until then I’ll be hitting the slopes snowboarding and rely on my H-Bomb, 6mm gloves, hood and boots when I surf.
QUICK FACTS
• Winter water temp about 3.5 degrees.
• Summer water temp up to 14 degrees.
• Low light in winter, minus air temp.
• The surf is consistent from October through April, similar to Surf Coast through Spring, Winter &Autumn. Summer pretty much goes dead flat.
• Be prepared to surf on your own.
• Keep an eye out for killer whales.
Wes
Left to right, Terge, Wes, Archie & Marianne.
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