Good Mates – The Board Meeting Surf Charity

We caught up with the Board Meeting Surf Charity, a unique group of surfers and local Sunshine Coast businesses dedicated to donating 100% of raised funds to kids with disabilities and their families in need.

What started as a one off fundraiser to send one young man with disabilities to the Special Olympics 15 years ago, has quickly become a lifeline for many Sunshine Coast families in need. The Board Meeting Surf Charity is a charity like no other and is something Your Mates are incredibly proud to be a part of.

We recently had a chat with committee member and all round local legend, Dave Dawson, about the charity and some of the amazing things it’s been doing for its donees.

There are many charities operating on the Sunshine Coast, what makes the Board Meeting so special and unique?

100% of the dollars raised goes to the kids and families in need. Also being a charity made up of a close bunch of guys, we can actually make decisions in an hour or two from receiving emails from these families, whereas with other charities they may be waiting three or four months to get what they need.

Who does the charity help and why do these people need help?

The best way to explain it is if you have a child with a disability, the Government will help to a certain degree, for example they may hook you up with a wheel chair. However if the chair needs modifications, Mum and Dad have to find the money to pay for this. Then there’s getting a chair lift in their car and the list goes on. So these families reach out to us for help with these expenses.

Who are the legends working behind the scenes to keep the charity running, there must be quite a few considering the increasing number of families you guys are helping?

Behind the scenes we have Bennett Carroll and Guy Gibbons, a team of lawyers who head up our audit, trust and payment division. [Bennett] actually pays an employee to pay all of our bills – our equipment bills, respite bills, etc. So he pays her himself off his own back, separate from the charity. Mark Skinner Advertising is our CEO and is so passionate, along with his wife Bev. He dedicates all of his time and energy at zero cost, as do I with my business, Commercial Fishing Supplies and Salt of the Sea. Also Glenn Corbett from Kook Multimedia and Gordon Barratt from Morgans. There’s a lot of other guys in the mix helping out, but Glenn, Gordon, Mark and myself are dealing with stuff like applications every day – there might be 50 emails a day from families needing help.

How do you raise money to help these kids and their families and how much did you raise at this year’s events?

We have two events, one of them being the surf event we held the other week, where we raised about 26 thousand dollars and had 31 local businesses participating. The judges can be bribed, I think there were a few Larrycans being passed around the judges’ tent. Our other event, which is a luncheon, raised about 35 thousand dollars.

How can people get involved in the charity?

If you’d like to get involved you can find us online at The Board Meeting Surf Charity or on our Facebook page. All donations are welcome and if you’d like to get involved as a local business there’s information on there too.

Big thanks to Dave and The Board Meeting for having a chat to us and cheers to the incredibly selfless work they do.