Celebrate Australia Day with Sailability Gold Coast at SYC Hollywell. A perfect opportunity to catch up with your ‘Sailability Family’ 12 noon ‘til 3pm lunch and drinks at club prices bring your family & friends … all welcome take them all for a tour on ‘Freedom’ dress to impress in your Aussie gear! Your own beach on the busiest day of the year on the Broadwater … play in the sand … have a swim or just kick back with a coldie. Name and numbers to the office TODAY please. Back to News

In the first week of the year SYC hosted the Bartercard Sail Paradise Regatta and we had a number of volunteers involved. Thanks to Peter Board for bouncing around for four days on a support boat RIB. I feel your pain Pete and well done. Thanks also to Gi (you remember our Whale Boat skipper volunteer), Soren and Ronnie who crewed on Pole Dancer – winner of the Cruising Division – awesome job! In the Trailable Division Queensland Para Sailing Academy entered four SKUD’s crewed by Ross & Max, Neil & Jack, Ben & Damien and Mike (aka Grumpy Old Man) and Pete (does all the work apparently. Congratulations to Ros & Max on winning the trailable division. Well done to all and great to see Sailability Gold Coast [...]

Photo courtesy of Spraytech Marine Over the Christmas New Year period one of our yachts was completely stripped, sanded, repaired, ground, shaped, painted, polished and sign painted. Over the first couple of weeks of this year an enthusiastic and committed group of volunteers that had stripped Spirit put it all back together again. What a beautiful job! Sincere thanks to Greg, Hubert, Paul, Ross, John Sims, Peter, Mike and Gary. And a special thanks to Bob Ogle and his committee for having the foresight last year to organise to get the job done. Back to News

  Volunteering Gold Coast and Michael Edgeley (the promoter) very generously made a family pass to the Moscow Circus available to Sailability Gold Coast as a Christmas gift for one of our volunteers.  The lucky recipients was the Cini family.  You may know them better as Kerry and Eddie who took their grandchildren along to the show.  Kerry you probably know even better as the OOD and would be aware of her enormous effort most Tuesday’s throughout the year and Eddie is a quiet achiever in the background often working on boats, building something, fixing something or getting the 303s into and out of the water.   Their grandson, Taj, when asked how he enjoyed the show said … Wow it was amazing!  Kerry reported it to be an [...]

  Great organisations are made great because they are made up of great people.  While the volunteers at Sailability Gold Coast make it a great organisation there are a few that have dedicated years to crafting its 20-year heritage.  One of these people is Stan Phillips.   Stan joined Sailability Gold Coast at a time when the organisation was in its infancy.  He, together with his late wife Margaret, offered a lifetime of boating experience especially in sailing.   Naturally at that time Sailability had little in the way of sailing dinghies or procedural documentation to guide volunteers in taking people with disabilities onto the water. Stan produced the first Sailability Gold Coast Manual of Procedures which, with some minor updates, is still in use today.   Stan was very active from [...]

Alan Tayt – President Retiring from full time work 20 months ago after careers in computing and construction Alan spent a considerable time throughout his working life volunteering with Apex, major golf tournaments, P&C Committees, many school sports team roles and reading to state school students.  Alan now volunteers with Southport Yacht Club and of course Sailability. As president Alan has committed to communicating with members and other stakeholders to develop strategies to ensure that Sailability Gold Coast remains a sustainable, vibrant, effective and fun place for volunteers, clients and carers.       Ben Noonan – Vice PresidentBen has been with Sailability since 2012 and has found his passion in sailing.  Ben started to sail in the 303's which came relatively easy as he had grown up yachting.  [...]

Even though Sailability Gold Coast was incorporated in March 2000 the very first newsletter (Freedom News, Volume 1 Issue 1) was not published until December 2001.  I suspect that the then volunteers had many more things on their mind for those first couple of years than publishing a newsletter.   Therefore, in recognition of our heritage and of the enormous effort that volunteers at Sailability Gold Coast have invested over the past 20 years, this newsletter will be known as Freedom News Volume 20 Issue 1. Back to News

Here we are with Australia Day upon us, the first two weeks of Tuesday sailing behind us (OK the first one was pretty easy for most of us) and the first social event for volunteers is only a couple of days away (Australia Day at SYC Hollywell). I have been pondering the year ahead and in doing so have come to appreciate more than ever the tremendous work that goes into Sailability Gold Coast each week as has been the case for the past 20 years. Take a bow Sailability Gold Coast volunteers and make sure you read the story in this newsletter on a very special Sailability Gold Coast volunteer. Many of you are aware of what it is that I would like to see form the foundations [...]