Torquay SLSC hails good result from ADOTG fundraiser

THE Torquay Surf Lifesaving Club has made the most of a brief fundraising window at Saturday’s A Day on the Green concert, pulling in more than $12,000 in the space of 30 minutes.

About 60 Torquay SLSC volunteers circulated through the crowd at Mt Duneed Estate in a break between performances by The Waifs and Angus and Julia Stone to accept donations made both in the old-fashioned way and also by QR code.

The club’s fundraising director Jay Muir said generating money had been especially tough over the past couple of years, so the idea was to explore some new possibilities.

“We thought ‘what better way than at concert?’ We’ll put a bit of fun back into fundraising.

“So we reached out to Mushroom Music a couple of months ago in regards to opportunities in that space, and the guys at Roundhouse [Entertainment, which runs the A Day on the Green tour] were really supportive and really receptive to it.”

He said the club was very happy with the result and the efficiency of the fundraising.

“It’s much better than standing up on the highway, shaking tins for 12 hours!

“It obviously helps things out coming into peak season for us, and it was good to get some beach safety awareness out there.

“Most of the people who go to A Day on the Green [at Mt Duneed Estate] are from Geelong and the Surf Coast, and they’re all beachgoers, and it’s good to get that reminder out there of what the members do on the beach this season and how important it is.

“We haven’t had this for a while, and it’s tough to do, but we had people from each part of the club as well – we had the seniors, the competition guys, the Nippers, the boaties – it was all hands on deck and it was a good feeling for the club.”

Mr Muir said the $12,000 would largely go towards supporting formal training programs.

“There’s a lot of training going on at the moment, there’s a lot of juniors that are transferring into that SRC and Bronze [Medallion] stage where they can actually patrol.”

Torquay SLSC is still accepting donations – head to paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=GR4N666TJZFME&source=qr