pre-White Stuff Surf Relief interview

eFestivals spoke to the organiser behind the White Stuff Surf Relief festival David Manley, about the aims of the festival and how the event in aid of subsiding lessons for disabled children came about.

Can you tell me a little about the White Stuff Surf Relief festival and its aims?
It's a charity event, co-ordinated by Surf Relief UK, which is a registered charity. Surf Relief aims to change people's lives through surfing and provide opportunities for disadvantaged and disabled children under the age of 18 to experience the sport of surfing. That's a whole range of disabilities like paraplegic etc, through to learning disabilities like autism, right across the spectrum.

We're providing this through a network of professional established surf schools around the country. We've got six at the moment in the network and we're hoping to build on that. The whole focus of the event is to raise the profile of the charity and to raise money as well to support those lessons and experiences over our network over the coming few years.

It's an annual event, this is our fifth one, and it's been building year on year, and with the support of White Stuff and Watergate Bay over the last couple of years, the event really has grown from strength to strength.

The whole focus of the day is a fun family experience; from the minute they get there in the morning in terms of children's activities and watching the professional surfing at the highest level, through to the evening music event running until 10pm.

And how did you get involved in the event?
I got involved, as I'm one of the founders of the charity, it initiated through the surfing community's response to the tsunami. Originally we were 'Tsunami Surf Relief', not a registered charity; we just formed the organization very quickly to raise funds. The organizing committee realized that there was potential to raise funds for good causes in general using the input from the surfing lifestyle related businesses and community. So we thought, 'let's register as a charity and try to expand this' and develop projects here at home because the funds we raised, some £50,000 in the first few months, went to providing housing, employment, teachers etc in Sri Lanka. Because we had a relationship with Sri Lanka as a surfing destination, it had been hit very hard by the tsunami, and wasn't getting a lot of help.

So what made you decide, after the tsunami to help the disadvantaged?
Our objectives are still to address the disadvantaged internationally should natural disasters or whatever affect surfing communities. But, we felt we wanted to focus on something at home, which would use the sport of surfing to address the disadvantaged. So we felt one of the key things was to give people the experiences, because there were very few opportunities, for particularly disabled, but also disadvantaged young people as well, to take part in surfing.

Prior to us setting up this network, which is just developing now, there were no real structured opportunities for disabled people to take part in surfing, and we wanted to develop, train, and work with a safety aspect, a learning aspect, and share that learning experience between the network.

So does the festival have any events for the disadvantaged?
Absolutely, representatives from the network, the surf coaches will be coming along to the event, and there will be opportunities, and we will be booking people in to take part on the day in surfing.

How long has it taken to put this year's festival together?
Well we pretty much started from when we finished last year. We had a little bit of a reprieve over the summer and then started planning again in September. I went back to White Stuff and asked if they would be able to support us next year. They said yes, so we had a bit of core funding from them to start the ball rolling. They have been very supportive as has Watergate Bay, and the budget has got bigger to book bigger bands?

So do you book the bands?
Me personally? No. I have a specialist if you like, an experienced person who does live music to source the bands. He has brought their demos and you-tube links etc to the organizing that have said we like this or we don't like this.

So who are you particularly looking forward to seeing?
Well all the bands are great, and it's a blend of known bands, up and coming bands and local bands, to get that flavour. Stereo MCs, I'm looking forward to seeing, they have a new album coming out just before the event, and they have that good party vibe for the beach concert.



I'm also particularly looking forward to the support to the main act, which is The Rumblestrips, which are fantastic. They are actually from Tavistock, so they are quite a local band to the southwest but they are making a real impact nationally and I've heard their tunes on the backing of a number of adverts and programmes. I think their profile is raising nationally and I particularly like their laid back party music. Then the other local bands we've got underpinning that will create a fun beach music event in the evening. As far as I know it's the only live music event where people can watch the music on the beach.

So the festival is actually on the beach?
It's actually on the beach yes, people will be there sitting around with the sand between the toes watching live music. That's quite unique.

What's been the best thing about organizing Surf Relief?
The best thing has been to see the enthusiasm of what is a basically an international company in White Stuff, the enthusiasm around the table of them and with our other sponsors, around the charitable nature of the organization when they see where the money raised has been spent. A good example would be, we ran a surf camp for 100 autistic children down in South Devon last September using part of the money we'd raised at the Surf Relief event last year. I've got a clip, which you can see on our website, of a young boy who had autism and the real difference that day and that experience made to him. His parents were in tears, tears of joy on the beach.

That kind of disability the individuals are very enclosed, very inward looking, but if you get them in the water you can open them up, out of that 100 we got all but one, riding in the surf on their belly, which was a fantastic achievement. To see them opening up and the joy on their faces was fantastic. For me, that's what it gives me, I see that money making a real difference to people's lives and their well being. It's been encouraging to see the representatives around the table also see that and also see, that it's not using the event to promote their brand, of course that's important to them as they are putting money in. But it's good to see that they really appreciate the amount of difference it makes to people's lives.

And what's been the worse thing about organizing Surf Relief?
The amount of hours I spend, I'm fully voluntary I don't get paid, and I'm probably putting in a day's work, you know a 9 to 5 days work which is not a day's work, as it's the amount of hours I put in on the weekends and evenings. It is a lot of commitment and as the event gets bigger and bigger it's a lot more commitment. But the reward I get for that, as I've just been talking about outweighs the kind of effort and late nights that are involved.

And what are the future plans for the festival?
Well, it's been a year on year approach, and I think it always will be, but it is to get it bigger, to raise the profile, to raise more money and potentially to have spin off events which happen at the same time across the country using our network to run smaller events and engage with people. For instance one of our network schools is in Bournemouth, to have something going on there to raise money to provide more opportunities through that school. I want to see the main event grow but also smaller satellite events grow as well.

What else can festival goers expect at White Stuff Surf Relief?
As well as the music live event, there's a pro surfing event, there's a UK professional surf tour that goes around the country, and this is one of the nine legs that give the over all champion. That's an important element all the top surfers in the UK will be there competing for the title. Then there's an iron man event, kind of a lifeguard event with some of the best athletes in the UK competing.

We also have lots of children's events going on throughout the day. We have things like beach volleyball, and face painting, all the stuff you would expect from a family day out.

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