Southern Gold Coast News

Touted as the “Saviour of the Aussies” the controversial move to North Kirra Beach proved to be the right choice for Surf Life Saving Australia, and the village of Kirra alike! Given some intense scrutiny over the past 12mths, the Surf Life Sving Assoc (SLSA) made a hard decision to move from Kurrawa and also faced critisism from competitors over the flatter, safer conditions of Kirra.

While competitor numbers were slightly down on last year at 6400, entries in the under-15’s and under-17’s divisions did rise. Which meant more families enjoying the beautiful surrounds of Kirra and Coolangatta, traditionally a favourite for family holidays.

Throughout the competition, the club members travelling from around the country commented positively about Kirra’s capacity to host the event despite the wider radius that competitors and their support teams needed to spread out over. Overall SLSA officials have much to celebrate with a flawlessly run event, huge crowds, peerfect weather and thrilling comptetion all week.

The Aussies will return to North Kirra in 2015, as 2014’s event will be held at Perth’s Scarborough Beach, we look foward to welcoming the SLSA team back to Kirra for another great event!

Bleach* Festival 2013 was a great success this year, despite some challenging weather conditions. Visitors from far and wide descended upon the unique Southern Gold Coast arts & culture festival to celebrate local stories and loads of entertainment across the festival’s 55 events.

You can relive all the festival fun at Bleach* Festival’s website gallery page here where you will find event image galleries as well as all the highlights clips put together by the Digital Cinematix HD team.

If you would like to be involved in 2014’s event, email us to get onboard for next year!

Connecting Southern Gold Coast would like to congratulate all of the winners from last week’s Business Awards Gala Dinner.

Thanks also goes to One Step Further, Creek to Creek Chamber of Commerce and Southern Gold Coast Chamber of Commerce for a wonderful event and we look forward to being involved in 2013’s Awards!

Planning has begun for the next epic installment of Bleach* which returns in February 2013 to the Southern Gold Coast’s shores.

A celebration of coastal culture that showcases the ever-growing explosion of creativity and artistic expression emanating from the Gold Coast, Bleach* aims to yet again deliver an unforgettable cultural experience that will have people around the country talking.

With the theatre production of The Surfer & The Mermaid (commissioned by Bleach* and produced in collaboration with the Arts Centre Gold Coast) appearing for a two week season in Sydney’s Bondi Pavillion, thanks to Tamarama Rocks Surfers Theatre Company, it has not taken long for the Bleach* brand to turn heads and make our southern friends’ ears prick at the mention of the thriving arts scene, rising from the once considered baron landscape of our city.

So with much further ado, we welcome you to pick up the phone and dial 0755 343 500 or click this link to get in touch and discuss how your company/brand would like to be involved in the next installment of the Gold Coast’s arts and cultural extravaganza.

From the looks of the fabulous photo’s being posted, you guys all had a ball at Cooly Rocks On this year, despite the less than favourable weather! We know we had a great time this year!

While there will be galleries uploaded to the CRO website very shortly, we can direct you to the Facebook page and albums so you can see the fun times had by all in Cooly this year!

So here goes – you can check out the photo’s of Friday right here, Saturday’s shennanigans are here, Sunday’s Highlights here, the Poodle Oodle Parade at this link, the Street Parade here, and some ripper shots of the approx 75,000 – 80,000 nostalgia lovers that rocked the streets of our town here!

If you have not yet joined the 5000+ Facebook fans, clickety click away right here and share your memorable moments and snaps of Cooly Rocks On with the growing online community of rockers and rollers!

A very big congratulations to the festival team, the volunteers, Team Cooly Rocks On businesses, the fabulous fans that turned it on and made it a great celebration and of course all of the sponsors that made the event possible!

We are looking forward to 2013 for another amazing festival!

The first of its kind for the region, Bleach* Surfing the Fringe highlighted creative pursuits inspired by surf culture with a festival program that spanned fifty five events staged over sixteen consecutive days across ten kilometres of coastline. The festival incorporated contemporary live music performances, pop up art galleries housed in shipping containers, a street party, art projections on iconic landmarks, fashion events and more. Bleach* was bookended by existing major surf events The Breaka Burleigh Pro and the Quiksilver and Roxy Pro.

Economic statistics complied during Bleach* by Destination Research & Development highlight a total of $1.74 million in visitor expenditure across the duration of the festival, a figure we hope to build upon further in coming years as the event solidifies its place as a major fixture on the Queensland events calendar. The media exposure received by the event topped its economic impact – estimated at $1.9 million.

Close to 30,000 people attended the festival over its sixteen day tenure. Festival Director Louise Bezzina was overwhelmed by the response to Bleach* in its opening year. “The festival has been hailed as a great success by the local community as well as the visitors who attended the Festival.  It was extremely well received, and really put the Southern Gold Coast on the cultural map.”

Ms Bezzina stressed the importance of Bleach* to the local community and its impact on creative industries, surfing-related businesses and hospitality venues in the region. “Bleach* strives to provide employment and professional development opportunities for local artists.  The Festival showcases the creativity of the Gold Coast and the uniqueness of the area to a national and international audience.”

Festival organisers aim to run Bleach* in a similar format in 2013, but thanks to input from stakeholders and the public have identified areas of improvement to assist future festival growth.  “We will consolidate the visual arts and gallery program and look at enhancing the successful event components in 2013.  We will also review some of the boutique, pop up style events and look at raising more funding to ensure the festival has a greater impact nationally and internationally. The 2013 Festival will focus on greater artist collaboration between local and interstate artists,” Ms Bezzina said.

Chairman of Connecting Southern Gold Coast, Murray D’Almeida, said “The success of the this innovative initiative exceeded all expectations and the confidence of the Gold Coast City Council in supporting this economic driver and cultural Festival as well as out sponsors and volunteers was vindicated by the outstanding acclaim the event received locally and nationally.”

Festival organisers wish to thank attendees, sponsors, media partners, volunteers, artists and staff for their commitment to ensuring Bleach* enjoyed outstanding success in its opening year.

2012 Bleach* Surfing the Fringe Festival Statistics:

-       The inaugural Bleach* Festival ran from 11 Feb – 26 Feb 2012

-       The Festival program ran for 16 days and included 55 events from a range of disciplines including:

• Lifestyle
• Film
• Photography
• Visual Arts
• Theatre
• Fashion
• Food
• Music

-       The Festival covered 10 kilometres of coastline from Currumbin – Coolangatta with offshoots in Burleigh Heads (Breaka Burleigh Pro) and Surfers Paradise at the Arts Centre Gold Coast

-       Over 500 pieces of art and surf photographs were exhibited across 11 shipping containers, galleries and empty shops

-       More than 168 artists from both visual arts and performing arts showcased their work

-       The Festival had 60 volunteers

-       58 Sponsors, Government Partners and Supporters

-       45 pieces of art work were sold during the Festival – 0% commission was taken by the Festival

-       Close to 30,000 people attended Bleach over the 16 day period with several of the in-venue events selling out.  These include:

• Sway on Sunset – Komune
• Tijuana Cartel – The SoundLounge
• The Surfer and The Mermaid – Surf World Gold Coast and The Arts Centre

-       The Festival received national and international media coverage, including a story profiling Bleach* and several artists broadcast online through the Quiksilver Pro webcast with a world-wide audience of 6 million people.

-       Bleach* and The Arts Centre Gold Coast is in negotiations with an independent Theatre Company in Sydney about the on-selling of The Surfer and The Mermaid, a local production commissioned and produced by Bleach* and The Arts Centre Gold Coast.

-       Visitor expenditure across the duration of the festival was $1.74 million

This unique site was initially the home of the Coolangatta State School which was established in 1919. Considerable community action led to the Queensland Government handing the custodianship of this site over to the GCCC in 2008 for the purpose of creating a facility for community purposes.

Extensive community and stakeholder engagement derived the priorities for the site which included, preservation and celebration of heritage of the site and the area, appropriate space to nurture, develop and celebrate artistic talent in the southern Gold Coast, flexible and affordable meeting spaces for small interest groups, increased accessibility to services to enhance health and well being and space for community celebration events.

Key elements of the facility include flexible meeting and activity spaces, internal and external arts spaces, small consulting rooms, a heritage display room, art gallery and external events space. Grant funding from Arts Queensland was used to contribute to the creation of the arts spaces within the site.

The site has already won an Urban Design Award due to the process involving multiple layers of Government, strong community participation, and the sensitive restoration of the building to create a multifunctional community facility.

Recently the two working groups connected and became incorporated as the Friends of Kirra Hill Inc. and are pro actively working towards creating displays for the heritage Room and organising Arts workshops, Gallery Displays and exciting cultural events for the site.

The site is due to open fully in July 2011 and there has already been a wide variety interest with booked activities including, yoga, quilt making, children’s art expo, a wedding, a heritage conference, playgroups, cross border services meetings and will be a venue for the Queensland music festival in July.

The site will be managed through a full management contract which is currently in the process of being finalised. On-going governance will be through the governance structure allowing open and transparent decision making involving local residents, user groups and other local stakeholders to assist in operational decisions, promotion of the venue, community engagement and ensuring that the facility is being utilised for maximum community benefit.
For further information please contact : KirraHill@goldcoast.qld.gov.au

We recently had a lovely chat with Alicia from Boatshed Bait & Tackle, a long standing SGC business, who have discovered a niche for themselves and are taking the bull by the horns!

When Alicia & Leo realised they had an opportunity to purchase the Boatshed Bait & Tackle shop on Thrower Dr in Currumbin, they were looking for a change in lifestyle and decided to take the plunge and become small business owners.

Being a recreational fisherman, Leo was ready to leave the Air-Conditioning business to change the pace and to combine an enjoyable past-time with some hard work to form a new career path. Alicia came in to help out and do some book-keeping, well that was the intention! Having just discovered the joys of paddle boarding, Alicia took her new Stand Up Paddle (SUP) Board into work one day, planning to go for a paddle in the beautiful Currumbin Creek, little did she know it would be the key to successfully expanding the business!

After lots of enquiries about whether her paddle board was for hire, Alicia realised this was a fantastic opportunity that their business was ideally situated and ready for. Already having Kayak’s for hire, it became a logical progression to expand their hire equipment and start building a fleet of SUP’s. Starting with just 12 boards, they now have 24 SUP boards for hire along with their fleet of 30 kayaks.

Offering free lessons, twilight paddles, ladies classes every weekday and teaming up with the Boatshed Restaurant to offer a half price paddle with a pizza, Boatshed Bait & Tackle have seized the day and it has definitely paid off! Anyone who lives works or plays in the Currumbin creek area will have noticed a sizable jump in the number of people taking to the creek with a SUP!

For Alicia, paddling is not just part of the business, you can tell by talking with her that it’s also a passion. When I asked Alicia why she loves it so much, she said “I was lacking something in my life, and paddling gave me an outlet, a chance to exercise and enjoy the water but also it was a time out for me, like a meditation.”

The team at CSGC would like to congratulate Leo and Alicia on their hard work and are glad to see a SGC business flourish despite a tough climate out there in the business world!

Call the Boatshed Bait & Tackle and try it for yourself, it could be just what you need!

Do you know of or own a business in the SGC that is going great guns? If so we want to hear about it, email us at admin@southerngoldcoast.com.au and you may be next month’s Spotlight on Business!

This is great promotion for DMS Shapes in Currumbin! Congrats guys!