Last Friday we had our AGM and combined awards night for the 2017-18 season. There was talk about making it fancy dress with kilts to fancy wetsuits painted like tuxedos but decided to keep it a casual affair. It was a night filled with cheers and a couple private tears but still a good time had by all.
We bought back the species quiz as a super quiz that ran over the course of the evening along with the countdown for the Club Spearfishing Championship.
On the AGM side of things I would like to thank our committee for the previous season and to welcome and thank the new committee for the 2018-19 season. The new committee consists of:
President: Hayden McFadyen
Vice President: Gerard Saunders
Secretary: Luke Bellamy
Treasurer: Peter Field
Membership Secretary: Russell O’Flynn
Safety and training officer(s): Danny Hurst for the pool, Gerard Saunders for other events
Weighmaster: Julian Kenny
Events coordinator: Richard Just
VSC liaison: Nam Luong
In the previous season we cut down our spearfishing comps to just 3 and called it the Surf Coast Cup (SCC). In an attempt to make things different and fun we decided that each event should be different and so the SCC consisted of a polespear comp, boat comp and a shore dive comp. The winners of the Surf Coast Cup are as follows:
Polespear Comp Winner: Russell O’Flynn
Boat Comp: Steven Reed
Shore Dive Comp: Paul Dorfstatter
Junior Winner: Jake Braun who took home a miniature cup, a $25 gift voucher and a new catch bag kindly donated by Dave at the Geelong Dive Centre.
Overall Winner: Gerard Saunders who not only gets to hold onto the cup for 12 months but walked away with a brand new Yazbeck wetsuit which was kindly donated by Dave Torelli of Yazbeck.
Second Place: Danny Hurst who took home a silver medal and a $50 gift voucher at the Geelong Dive Centre
Third Place: Steven Reed
As a club we also want to express our love of the ocean and all the ways we enjoy it. We don’t always go out with a speargun looking to catch a feed, sometimes we go out to protected areas with a camera and just enjoy the underwater wildlife. As such we decided to introduce a series of film fishing comps called the Underwater Photography Challenge (UPC). As a new comp that none of us had ever competed in before, there was some tweaking of the rules and scoresheets during the season but we have it locked down for 2018-19. Unfortunately we were only able to run 2 of the scheduled comps and the overall results are:
Winner: Gerard (cat shark) Saunders who walked away with one of our custom handmade diver trophies along with a heavy $100 voucher at the Geelong Dive Centre
Second Place: Richard Just who took home a silver medal and a $50 gift voucher to the Geelong Diver Centre
Third Place: Russell O’Flynn who received a bronze medal and some sweet merch kindly donate by Yazbeck and Continuum fins
Our final and most highly contested competition was the Club Spearfishing Championship (CSC), a season long species challenge. During our first season this was by far the most like competition with just about every member submitting at least one fish and this year was no different. Changes we made for the season was to make it a bigger competition by increasing the number of species that could be submitted which provided more opportunity for people to weigh fish in, sets some divers apart from the pack for their ability to target different species whilst allowing the middle of the pack to be more competitive. The results of the comp are:
Junior Winner: Jake Braun who added to his haul with a gold medal along with another $25 gift voucher at the Geelong Dive Centre
Winner: A very surprised Richard Just who’s season long dedication rewarded him with our second custom handmade diver trophy along with a $200 gift voucher to the Geelong Dive Centre which was kindly donated by Dave
Second Place: Tyson Volke who received a silver medal and a $50 gift voucher to the Geelong Dive Centre
Third Place: James Beckman
I would like to thank all of our members for your continued support and enthusiasm for the club, spearfishing and the overall enjoyment of the water.
I would also like to thank our sponsors for the 2017-18 season:
Dave Torelli of Yazbeck wetsuits
Dave Summers of Geelong Dive Centre
Danny Hurst of Continuum fins
And to finish here’s a few other photos from the night
Hey folks, it was a great thrill winning this year-long species comp. This type of comp challenged me to learn more about the target species during the year and I’ve learnt quite a bit. More so than just going out on a social dive as it pushes you with a purpose . I’d like to encourage members and others to join our Club and to get into this comp this year – it’s definitely worth it ! Thanks so much to all the organisers for the opportunity and all your dedication to our sport and the GFD Club. Huge thanks to our sponsors too. I’m looking forward to being on the committee this year….. 🙂