Jan Juc SLSC prepare for unknown

JAN Juc Surf Life Saving Club (SLSC) is currently preparing for a season where one of the few certainties is that it will be like no other season the club has experienced in its 57-year history.

The new season was always going to usher in a time of change for the club, with their new $6.5 million clubhouse almost complete. But it remains largely unclear as to how COVID-19 will effect clubs ahead of the 2020/21 lifesaving season.

Jan Juc SLSC president Aaron Green said the club was working closely with Life Saving Victoria (LSV) to ensure they remain up-to-date.

“We’re meeting every week with LSV around planned lifesaving services, the Nippers Surf Education Program, and the Surf Sports Program,” he said.

“They’re really valuable at the moment. They’re in constant contact with Sports (and Recreation) Victoria, and Emergency Management Victoria. Having them meet every week with those different agencies and come back and give us an update, it’s just giving us a bit more comfort that things are occurring rather than it’s just waiting to the last minute for some type of announcement.”

The club is currently accepting registrations for the Nipper program.

Mr Green said he believed many of the club’s usual services would still proceed despite some changes being inevitable.

“We’re planning as if we’re going ahead, and we expect that regardless of whether the Nippers program or others are delayed, there’ll be some type of program offered at some point in time.

“Obviously we don’t think that will be commencing when we usually commence in late September. But we’re getting on with our planning, because we believe the lifesaving services will be required over summer, so we have to get into all our planning for patrols as well.”

Jan Juc SLSC will also embrace a different look this year, adopting a new logo and a subsequent new line of merchandise.

Mr Green said the change in logo is reflective of the other changes at the club.

“We just thought along with the new clubhouse redevelopment, the changes in lifesaving that have been going on, the additional services we’ve been offering, it was time to just refresh how we did things and look at how we presented ourselves.”