Surf Clubs,your opinion

Not The Real Scarecrow

Hi guys , just wondering what the general opinion is of surf clubs.I'm kind of in 2 minds about them, on one hand I think that they're great for events and people into competetive surfing and also getting to know surfers around the country but on the other hand I like keeping to myself and surfing on my own.
Anyone have any experiences positive or negative that they'd like to share?

neon_glows

From my experience:

Large clubs with responsibilites, overheads and money all end up tied with Politics and lots of red tape and issues, very little surfing and few friends made...

Small clubs or those with no responsibilities have very little politics, a meeting to say hey lets all meet at tramore saturday at 2pm and go surfing together all end in smiles and many positives..

Joing a club should be about spending more time with your mates surfing than arguing over what a club needs, covering its overheads and who should do what etc.

rothai

agree agree AGREE

loctite

+1 on Neon Glows... clubs always end in politics..
Same has happened with Irish Scuba diving. Surfing IMO has nothing to do with club meetings, and politics.

I read about a year back that the Irish Surfing Association website that it was established to do a number of things, one of which was to represent "all" surfers in Ireland. I don't know if this is still on their site, but a bit rich. I never asked them to do such for me... What that has to do with clubs I don't know but I thought I'd say it anyway...

spaceHopper

I’m a member of a club.

I’m made loads of friends, done lots of surfing, travelling, drinking and partying.

Yes there is politics sometimes but you don’t have to get involved in that sort of thing if you don’t want to.

Would I recommend it? Yes definitely but you get what you put in. So if you put nothing in you won’t get much back, you have to take part!

imaleper

TCD surf club = Animal House!

neon_glows

Yeah got to love college surf clubs...