Barton Lynch to speak at Northern Beaches Chapter meeting

Wednesday September 2, 2009
Special Guest: Barton Lynch at Surfrider Northern Beaches event
Time/Date:  7.45 pm on Wed 2 September     Venue: North Narrabeen Surf Club (Upstairs)

Barton will give a talk about his career and his  recent to visit to Costa Rica with the Australian surfing team as well as the role he sees for Surfrider Foundation in the surfing community.

The Northern Beaches Sydney Chapter meet every first Wednesday of the month at North Narrabeen SLSC. You can find out more by contacting Brendan Donohoe – 0422 900 501 or emailing surfridernb@ozemail.com.au

Natural ability, a sharp intellect and an irrepressible social conscious combine to make Barton Lynch one of the most formidable figures in surfing of the last three decades.

Barton emerged from the beach-breaks of Manly with a flexible style and a fiercely competitive drive, which helped him achieve an impressive junior career with victories in the Pro Junior, the JJJ Junior and the Australian Professional Surfing Association (APSA) ratings.

He refined his competitive act into a near flawless, fluid routine of vertical manoeuvres that brought him immediate success on the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) world tour.  He spent 13 consecutive years in the elite top 16 rated surfers, earning a reputation as a tactical competitor as well as a forthright and articulate spokesman for the sport.

His greatest competitive moment could not have been more perfectly scripted, as he surfed the perfect tubes of Hawaii’s famed Pipeline, to take out the 1988 Billabong Pro and the World Title.  He retired from competition in March 1998, after 15 years on the ASP tour and a total of 17 WCT victories.

Barton has given his time generously to charities and community service, including the Variety Club, the Cancer Council of NSW, the Humpty Dumpty Foundation and the Disabled Surfers Association (DSA) of which he is Patron.  He donated $15,000 to the DSA and organised the surfers’ protest against French nuclear testing in the South Pacific. He spent 10 years on the ASP Board as a surfers’ representative and a passionate advocate for surfers’ rights in the marketplace.

Barton received the Association of Surfing Professionals’ (ASP) Sportsman Award in 1995, the ASP Service to the Sport Award in 1997, was inducted into the Australian Surfing Hall of Fame in 1998 and into the Australian Sporting Hall of Fame in 2000.

Since retiring from competition BL has continued with his love of surfing and gets on the board everyday. He has also taken passionately to big wave tow surfing, snowboarding and skateboarding.

In 1997 BL created The Surfers Group (TSG) a multi faceted service provider in the board sports industry that specialises in rider development, consultancy, event and media production, public speaking and appearances.

BL is known as the “thinking mans surfer” and for his opinions, story telling and eloquence. Consequently he has appeared and spoken for many companies including BMW/MINI, BankWest, Commonwealth Bank, Sensis, ABN AMRO, Credit Suisse and Blake Dawson Waldron.

BL mentors, coaches and trains hundreds of surfers of all levels including many of the countries aspiring champions and his programs include 3 day intensive camps, weekend camps, day squads, afternoon squads, Hawaii camps, private tuition and the Corporate Day of Stoke.

BL is Australia’s leading independent board sports consultant and clients have included V Energy Drink, Milo, The Australian Jockey Club, Clearasil, Messenger Publishing, Carveboards, GQ mag, ON Sport Management, Explore Planet Earth, Vitaman and others.

BL has been executive producer on 60 television programs including 52 episodes of the RA Board Riders Show on Fox8, and other programs that have aired on channel 10, 9 and Fuel.

In 2006 he created BL’s Blast Off, Australia’s premier pre junior surfing event and coaching program. Now in its 4th year BL’s Blast Off attracts the countries best surfers both boys and girls under 14 to Sydney’s Northern Beaches in the October school holidays for a surfing celebration like no other.

BL loves writing and has been published in Inside Sport Magazine, Surfing World, Japan Surfing World, Juice magazine, Australian Snowboarder, Tracks Magazine and is currently working on a few of his own publishing projects.

Related Info
Chapter News

Sydney’s Northern Beaches Chapter

Enjoying a busy start to the year with an emphasis on fundraising through a chapter T-shirt and plans for an event later in the year. Two sub- committees are in place and working hard to ensure the success of both ventures that are the first steps in what we expect to be long-term recurring income streams to help our local campaigns and indeed support the National office.

Campaign emphasis is on clean water and sand nourishment issues. Sewage overflows from the Warriewood Treatment Plant and the past capacity Dee Why sub main are cause for great concern as we hurtle towards the second decade of the 21st Century! We are working with Sydney Water and local government to rectify this through firstly reducing frequency of overflow events with a long-term aim of eliminating them completely.

Congratulations to Dave and Foulsh for their epic ride from Cronulla to PERTH! raising funds for Surfrider along the way. As we are the only operating Chapter in Sydney we were happy to help co-ordinate this epic journey. .  We encourage all reading this if they know of members or ‘should be members ‘ in Sydney’s South or East to consider setting up a Chapter in their local area – we are happy to aid in this development!

Oceans Initiative was marked by a clean-up of Turrimetta beach resulting in a big haul of rubbish. More regular clean-ups are planned.

We are very much looking forward to the visit from US Surfrider Foundation’s CEO, Jim Moriarty, for our June meeting and international Surfing Day on June 20.

Brendan Donohoe, President Northern Beaches Chapter